Guides on Creating Cost-Free YouTube Beginnings & Conclusions

How to Create YouTube Intros & End Cards - Free and Easy

Shanoon Cox

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

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Part 1: Intros

Elements of an Intro

Top Intro Sites

Creating an Intro in Filmora

Part 2: End Cards

Elements of an End Card

How To Make an End Card

Part1: Intros

Elements of an Intro

Intros should only last about five seconds, and that can be cut down to two or three if you have a larger following.

When your intro video is longer than five seconds viewers are more likely to click away. The first 15 seconds of a video is when viewers are most likely to decide to click on one of the recommended videos, or go back to their search results and choose something else. The odds of them leaving within these first 15 seconds are greater if you do not get right to the main point of your video. That is why long intro sequences are bad for your watch time.

Whether it is better to put your intro at the very beginning of your video, or after you introduce your topic, will depend on your viewers. You may want to try it both ways and then look at your retention report (found in your YouTube Creator Studio under Analytics) to see which works best for you.

Top Intro Sites

There are a few different sites where you can download animated intros, customized to include your username or logo. Here are two of the best:

FlixPress.com

This is probably the most popular intro site. There are a lot of great animated intros available for under $5, or even for free.

IntroMaker.net

This is another site with really professional looking intros for $5. They only have two free options, though.

Creating an Intro in Filmora

You can create a simple intro card in Filmora.

1. Choose your background. You may want to use a short clip as your intro, or you may just want a colored background.
2. Drag your clip or background into the video track of your timeline and trim it down to five seconds.
3. If you have a logo, import it into Filmora and drag it into your picture-in-picture track.
4. With your logo selected, click on the Green Screen icon. In the pop-up, select the background of your logo to make it transparent. For this to work your logo cannot be the same color as its background.
5. Click on the editing icon with your logo selected and choose an animation.
6. Go to the Text/Titles menu and choose an animated title that suits your channel. Drag it into your text track and edit it to include your name.
7. The last piece of your intro is sound. You can choose a song from Filmora’s library and cut it down to five seconds, or import your sound effect.
8. Export your video and save it for use in all of your other videos.

Part 2: End Cards

When your video ends, YouTube will recommend a selection of videos users may want to watch next. Often, these recommendations will not include more of your videos.

To keep viewers on your channel, you can create your End Card which recommends other content you have created.

Elements of an End Card

An end card includes clips from two or three of your videos, muted, and shrunk down to thumbnail-size. Using spotlight annotations you can make these thumbnails click-able.

It is also important that your end card includes multiple calls to action. A call to action is meant to spur a viewer to some kind of action. Writing ‘Check out this video’ above one of your thumbnails is a call to action.

You should also have a subscribe link somewhere in your end card, ideally a very noticeable button with a proven call to action like ‘Subscribe Now!’.

Some creators will leave their end cards at that and play music overtop, but it can be even more effective to include a voiceover where you ask viewers to subscribe and watch your other videos.

How To Make an End Card

1. Choose a static background. You may want to download an end card template or create one in a drawing program. If you do, make sure to include calls to action like ‘Watch more!’ and ‘Subscribe’.
2. Drag your background into your timeline at the end of your video.
3. Import two or three of your previous videos and drag them into your picture in picture tracks. Each clip should be on its track.
4. Trim the clips in your picture in picture track down to the same length as your end card.
5. Shrink your clips down to thumbnail-size by dragging their corners in the preview window.
6. Position your clips so they are spaced evenly by dragging them in the preview screen.
7. Mute your clips.
8. If your background does not include any calls to action, choose a title from the Text/Titles menu in Filmora and create at least two – one asking viewers to subscribe, and one asking them to watch your suggested videos.
9. Export your video from Filmora and upload it to YouTube.
10. Go to your Video Manager and select Annotations in the drop-down menu next to your video.
11. Go to your end card in the previewer, as that is where you want to add your annotations.
12. Click Add Annotation and add a spotlight annotation to your video. Stretch it over one of your thumbnails and then check the Link box under your Annotation’s timing. Insert a link to the video you are previewing.
13. Repeat for any other thumbnails. For your subscribe button, change where it said ‘Video’ to ‘Subscribe’ and enter your channel URL.
14. Click Apply Changes.

Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Shanoon Cox

Mouthwatering Movies: A Cook’s Guide

How to Make a Cooking Video in Steps - an Ultimate Guide

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

Cooking and food-oriented videos are among the most outreaching and popular categories of content to publish online, notably, on YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram. So if you are a cooking aficionado, you have excellent potential to gain positive attention and a loyal audience. But to create engaging videos, you’d need a lot more than excellent culinary skills. This article aims to enlighten aspiring food and recipe vloggers about the essentials of video making straight out of the oven, to create enriched content that’s professional, neat, and viral-worthy.

• Part 1: What to Prepare Before Making a Recipe Video?
• Part 2: Make a Cooking Video with Filmora: a Step-by-Step Guide
• Part 3: Tips to Make Your Cooking Videos Stand Out
• Part 4: How to Promote Your Cooking Channel on YouTube?

What to Prepare Before Making a Recipe Video

While you would know best about the prep work needed for the recipes, the prep work for making a video starts with a plan. What goes into the plan?

Brainstorm this equation - Main Content + Duration + Light + Sound + Camera + Camera Angle, Shots & Transition.

The main content is how you picture the finished video. Ask yourself - Do you want an intro gig? Are you going to talk in the video or show only hands and the cooking with a piece of background music? How do you wish to present the ingredients? Would there be additional tips? At what platform are you going to publish your content? How long should be your clippings? Consider all these questions to chalk out a basic framework of your video

The camera is a pivotal element. Whether it is a smartphone or a hi-fidelity digital camera, it is worthwhile to familiarise the best positions and light orientations and the capacity of the device to produce the best quality picture.

How is your sound going to be like? If you are going to talk in the video, it is recommended that you use a microphone. Or else, you can also use background sound. But to mix sound with the video, you’d need an excellent sound editing tool.

Finally, comes the editing and finishing part. Eventually, you’ll need purposive video-editing software to help you work out the video transitions, sound, and visual effects.Choose a toolkit that is easy to learn and that you can get comfortable with so that the job of video editing doesn’t take the focus away from the main task of cooking.

Now, once you have all the essential ingredients to create your video, start practicing. Remember that it is the most natural thing for the first videos to appear amateurish or inept. And that is part of the plan. Don’t be disheartened and keep going.

Make a Cooking Video with Filmora: a Step-by-Step Guide

As one of the easiest-to-use video editing tools, the full-featured Filmora is the right choice considering it can fit most of your needs. Moreover, you’d be delighted to know that the software also has a series of features and functions and even tutorial videos dedicated to cooking videos.

Step 1: Filming the Video

Whether you are going to present a traditional cook-with-me style video or feature the contemporary “jump-cut” style focusing on speedy short videos, you need to prepare all the equipment and ingredients to suit the frame by frame shots. Consider spills, drops, overcooking, etc. as part of the process, so keep adequate substitutes to continue with your project unwaveringly. If you are using a phone, keep it fully charged up. And have a plan beforehand about what you should do when you get an urgent call while shooting. Also, consider doing a site investigation of the shooting spot for any fragile items, pointy corners, slippery areas, curious pets, etc. to avoid trips and falls in the middle of the filming, especially when working with a cameraman who’s following your movement. If you are using a tripod, and floor-standing lights, remember to secure the equipment with plenty of adhesive tapes, lest they bump into an expensive trip or fall.

Step 2: mport Your Video In Filmora

You need to sync the device that you used to film the video with the computer that has Filmora installed. It may be a phone or a camcorder. Once the devices are synced, you should launch the Filmora software and go the “Media” button at the top right toolbar. There you will find the “Import” button. You will get a pop-up message asking you to choose the type of device. Select the right one, and your video will be imported in the Filmora interface.

Step 3: Edit Video Pace: Time-Lapse, Jump Cut, Slow Motion

To create crisp, fast-paced videos, you don’t have to gobble up the content eyeing at the duration. Think smart when you have the resources of a tool like Filmora. Here are the three best features that help you create fast-paced yet well-defined recipes.

Time-Lapse: The time-lapse feature allows you to adjust the speed of the video from slow-motion to 10x faster. To use this, double click on a specific clip in your imported video and open the custom speed settings. Use the adjusting meter beside speed to make your clip as fast or slow as you want. You may use the same feature to introduce the slow-motion effects in certain areas of the video.

Now, when you are using either the fast-forward or slow-motion effects, it is best to have stable video footage with consistent lighting and a static background. There are also the options of Reverse Speed that can play the clip backward, as in flash-back. The Ripple edit feature allows you to cut short a long clip seamlessly.

Jump Cut: The Jump Cut is about snipping unwanted areas in the clip. It may sound like the Ripple edit mentioned above, but the ripple edit is more functional for cutting short a continuous video so that the viewer won’t realize the snip. For the Jump Cut, it doesn’t have to be a constant clip. You can get to the next frame or scene with an abracadabra move.

To use Jump Cut, place the cursor over the starting of the clip that you want to cut, and right-click on it and select “Split” (the “scissors” feature on the toolbar does the same thing). To make this look neat, preview the portion of the clip once again and delete the cuts between two clips with the same right-click.

Step 4: Understanding Transitions on Filmora

Transitions make your video more interactive and help you segregate the video from frame-to-frame with effects like dissolve, fade, flash, etc. there are numerous transition options available within the Filmora suit.

The best way to do this drag and drop the clips on the timeline is to trim parts of the clip to shorten it. Once you have all the clips in place, go to the “Transitions” options at the top toolbar to apply it on the end or start of each clip.

Step 5: Audio, Playback & Sound Edits

There are plenty of options that you can remove background noise, add voiceover, add music, and detach audio from video. Refer to the Audios section from your toolbar.

Step 6: Save to Drive/ Emport/ Publish

Once you are satisfied with your content, then go to Export. Choose the format of the video, MOV, MP4, MPG, etc. and whether you wish to publish directly or save to drive.

Tips to Make Your Cooking Videos Stand Out

• Lighting is your best friend. Invest in some quality spotlights or use the best of daylight.
• Mind your video duration. Short and Simple videos get the most views, but your content should not look incomplete. It is not a fact that long and elaborate videos do not get a place on the table; it is all about the relevance of your content. So don’t stop till you get enough.
• If you appear in the video, keep yourself always look good.
• Keep your video titles relevant and prominent, so that people looking for it can readily find it.
• Have a scrumptious custom thumbnail.

How to Promote Your Cooking Channel on YouTube

• Create an inventory before publishing videos. YouTube vlogging is valued for consistency. If you have a list of 10, 15, 20 videos, then you can have enough time in hand to film your next videos.
• Have a consistent style to create brand recognition. Do you think branding is not for Vlogs? Well, I suppose you might be wrong. Branding is for anyone who uses it.
• Share the link of your YouTube videos on other platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
• Encourage your viewers to comment on the video.
• Explore the different YouTube SEO strategies and use the accurate keywords in your video descriptions with hashtags.

With prior planning and practicing, you are bent on developing more confident moves and camera angles. Once you have that, follow this step by step guide to gain speed and prowess and also enjoy the whole adventure.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett