Izzy Video 021 – Working with Text
I’ve had several requests via feedback and email, asking me to do a tutorial on using text in videos. A lot of people find it challenging because it’s difficult to make text look good on a television screen. Hopefully this podcast will help. Final Cut Pro comes with some versatile text tools, but sometimes it is best not to use them all.
This video tutorial is for members only.
February 26th, 2006 at 7:57 pm
Great tips on the white text and dark drop-shadow, that does look much better.
I use Bluff Titler for creating text, and 90% of what it can do is way too tacky, but the other 10% is really cool, like creating the “Star Wars” intro-text effect and such.
I like your keeping it simple approach, works for your podcasts!
February 27th, 2006 at 2:19 am
This podcast is just too cool, I am now making much better videos tx to you … keep going ..
February 27th, 2006 at 7:56 am
I like the advice, Izzy, especially the suggestion to avoid thin lines. In judging thick vs thin typography, I would add this advice: consider all the resolutions you’re going to use to distribute your production. If you’re going to distribute at QVGA, 320×240, then you need even thicker fonts to ensure legibility than if you’re going to distribute only on DVD or only at VGA, 640×480. Case in point: this video called Momnotmom. Note the text that appears at the end of the video; I can only make out about half the words because of the thinness of the type.
February 27th, 2006 at 7:58 am
I plan on purchasing my first camcorder today (a low end 3CCD) and hopefully the videos that are recorded will suck less because of you.
Seriously, thanks for all the great info.
March 4th, 2006 at 6:29 pm
Let me add my 2 cents. Avoid using red for text. It may seem like a good alternative to white or black, but the Macintosh doesn’t handle it properly so it looks awful (dagged) as I found out with video is converted to mp4
March 6th, 2006 at 6:34 am
Actually, solid red is a bad idea for much of anything. It doesn’t show up well on a TV, and certain video codecs have a terrible time making it look good, MPEG-2 and H.264 included. Actually, H.264 (at least at the iPod settings) handles it quite terribly.