PowerPoint Tip - Create a Video Effect

You think of most presentations as being made up of slides, and most presentations look like that. But you can create a presentation that looks like it's all one slide. You do this by making the end of one slide (after animation) the same as the beginning of the next slide (before animation). It can be a black background, for a fade to black effect, or an image that covers the entire slide.

The technique is time consuming, because you need to get the timing just right, but it's not difficult, and it's a lot cheaper than making a video. It's excellent for sales presentations.

The key is animation and timing. In essence, you create a presentation that could be on one slide, but you use several slides for ease of animation. Then you add timing to the slides to move the presentation to the end automatically. Usually, you add narration as well.

You can use many techniques; here are the steps to create a fairly simple video-effect presentation:

1. Decide on a story line and photos to illustrate the story. The story I used is a plane trip from Iowa to California and I took the photos from the plane. In my case, the photos drove the story, but you could start with a story (let's say, about your company), and then find visuals to match.

2. Write a script and decided which photos would match with each section. Then divided the script into about 4 or 5 slides. This would work for a presentation lasts a few minutes. Add more slides for a longer presentation.

3. Attach a mic to your computer and open a sound recording program. I used Audacity, a free audio recording and editing program. I highly recommend it; it's used by many professionals. It's also easy to use. If you download it, be sure to also read the instructions for, and download, the LAME MP3 encoder, which lets you save files in MP3 format.

4. Record and save a separate MP3 file for each slide.

5. In PowerPoint, insert the appropriate MP3 file for each slide, by choosing Insert> Movies and Sounds> Sound from File. (In PowerPoint 2007, Insert tab> Media Clips group> Sound drop-down list> Sound from File.) Choose the Automatically choice when you see this dialog box. The sound will start to play as soon as the slide appears. Drag the sound icon just off the slide.

6. In Windows Explorer, right-click the MP3 file, and choose Properties. In the Properties dialog box, click the Details tab to find the length of the sound.

7. Once you know the length of your sound file, decide at which point you want your images to appear. You can double-click the sound on the slide, listen to it with a stopwatch, and find out the timing for each word that you want to introduce a new image.

8. Open the Custom Animation task pane by choosing Slide Show> Custom Animation (Animations tab> Custom Animation in PowerPoint 2007). You'll see the sound there. If you add other animations, the sound will stop as soon as they start, so click the sound's down arrow in the Custom Animation task pane, and choose Effect Options. In the Stop Playing section, choose After Current Slide, so that the sound will continue throughout the other animations on the slide.

9. If you want the first slide to fade to black as it goes to the next slide, right-click the slide and choose Format Background. Choose a solid fill background of black and repeat for the second slide. If you want instead to use an image, format the background of the 2 slides with the same image, or insert the image on the 2 slides and send it to the back of the order. (Right-click, and choose Order> Send to Back, or just Send to Back.)

10. Insert the images that you want to use for that slide. Move them (stagger them) so you can select them individually. Click the first one. Generally, you want it to take up the entire slide, but it doesn't have to; resize it if desired. Choose Add Effect> Entrance, and add an effect. Change its Start option to With Previous. For a slight delay instead, choose After Previous, click the item's down arrow in the task pane, choose Timing, and set a delay.

11. If you want this image to disappear before the next one enter, choose Add Effect> Exit and choose an effect. Set the Start to After Previous and set the delay equal to the time when you want the next image to enter.

12. Select the second image and add an entrance animation. If you want it to enter while the previous image is exiting, set the Start to With Previous. Otherwise, set it to After Previous and set the delay according to the times you worked out in your script. You want it to enter when a specific word is being spoken. You may have to try the result and make adjustments.

13. Continue until you've animated your images, exiting them at the end, so you see the background color or image.

14. Set the timing for the slides. Choose Slide Show> Slide Transition (in 2007, Animations Tab> Transitions to This Slide group). In the Advance Slide section, check the Automatically After check box and enter the number of seconds, which should be equal to the length of the sound. Again, you may want to adjust the timing slightly after viewing the result. Do this for all the slides.

Ellen Finkelstein, is the best-selling author of How to Do Everything with PowerPoint 2007 (and previous editions for PowerPoint 2002 and PowerPoint 2003) Her award-winning Web site features loads of free tips on PowerPoint, the monthly PowerPoint Tips Newsletter, and the PowerPoint Tips Blog - http://www.ellenfinkelstein.com