Tutorial: Basic Camera Control

Transcript

Hi. My name is Nicolas and welcome to this tutorial about the GoAnimate Full Video Maker camera tool. In this video we will first detail the camera tool interface and then create a short video to demonstrate how the tool can be used.

So. Let’s get started!

When you launch any Full Video Maker on GoAnimate, you will notice a blue frame outlining the stage. This is the camera frame and by default it takes the whole space of the stage.

Let’s leave our first scene untouched and add a second one to see the effect of the camera tool more clearly.

In the second scene, let’s click on the frame to see the options available. As you select the frame you will notice the small corners here. They are used to resize the camera frame. Let’s shrink it a bit. And to adjust the camera frame position, you can drag it like this.

Let’s preview this. We have our first scene showing our whole stage and then the second focusing on a specific area. This is great to focus your audience’s attention on an important aspect of your scene.

If you want to be really precise, you can even edit the options on the left where you can control the exact position and size of the camera tool. You can also easily go back to a full stage shot by clicking on the gear icon here and select “set to full stage”.

Now. You can also use this tool to add camera movements to your videos. To achieve this hit the “Add camera movement” icon. A purple camera frame will appear. You can resize it and drag it around to change the end composition you want for your scene. Make the end composition smaller to zoom in on something, and make it bigger to zoom out. If you simply want your camera to move without any zoom, click on the gear icon and select “match starting size”. This will automatically resize your frame to make sure it matches the starting one. You can also change the timing of your camera movement using the control here on the left. Move this cursor right to add a delay before the movement starts and make the movement faster. Move this other cursor left to stop the movement before the end of the scene and make it faster as well.

So. Let’s preview what this looks like now. We can now see that the camera moves instead of simply jumping to a different composition.

Finally, the last option available is to show rule of third guides within your camera frame. If you don’t know about the rule of thirds, it comes from photography and basically states that if you position the main object of your scene or the lines that structure your shot at the intersections of these guides, your shot will look much better. And … well … it works. You can read more about the rule of third all around the web. It’s worth it. And it’s worth using these guides to help you make good looking videos as well.

We’ve now learned how to use the interface. Let’s practice our newly acquired skills.

I’ve prepared a short sequence of scenes for us to play with. Let’s start by previewing this video.

It’s alright, but we can see that the camera is not focusing on the action and doesn’t help enhance the story. Let’s start playing with our camera tool to help improve that. Our first few scenes establish the situation. A character chasing another one. For that, a full stage shot works well. But once our characters stop and face each other, we want to focus on them and convey the tension of their encounter. Let’s select scene 6 and resize our camera frame to focus on the character who is speaking. To help build the tension, we will add a slight zoom on the character. We add a camera movement and resize the end composition. We will do the same with scene 7. Select the camera frame. Resize it. Add a camera movement and resize the end frame.

In scene 8, we want to keep the same focus, so we will select the camera frame and click on “conform to previous”. The camera frame is automatically adjusted to follow the previous scene. We do that again in scene 9 and we will then add a camera movement to shift the focus back to our first character. Use the “match starting size” option to make your end frame the same size as the starting frame. In scene 10, we will stay on our first character. Click on “conform to previous” option. In the last scene we will cut to the second character to see him get hit and fall. Let’s click on conform to previous and then drag the frame to the character on the right.

And we are done. Let’s see how this looks and if we indeed helped improve our video.

Nice, no? There are many ways to use this camera tool to make your videos more dynamic. Start playing around with it and check out other users’ videos for inspiration.

And this is it for the camera tool. Thanks for your attention. Bye!