How I Make Astronomy Videos
I get a lot of email about this, so I thought I’d make a post to point people to.
I’ve made two astronomy videos, with about three more in various stages of completion. Many have been asking me how I go about making them, so here’s a brief outline.
- I think of what I want to say, and try to keep the subject as narrow as possible. Often, I’ll put the theme in the form of a question like, “What is dark matter?” or “How do we know the universe is expanding?”.
- Begin writing a script, keeping in mind that the video is going to be about six to eight minutes long.
- Concurrently with writing the script, I start doing searches for public domain animations that help illustrate the idea I’m trying to convey. ESA and NASA are both very good sources. Their stuff is available for use to the public, so you don’t have to worry about copyright so long as you mention them in your credits.
- If I can’t find any good video animations, I’ll try to make my own animations using visualization software like Celestia or Stellarium if I need night sky shots.
- Assemble the clips I want to use into iMovie. This came with my MacBook Pro and it’s existence on my laptop was my impetus for doing these in the first place.
- Record the narration after the script is complete. I try to time my narration to coincide with the lengths of the clips I’ve gathered. I use a standard USB headphone and microphone combination I paid about $40.00 for.
- Edit the clips to match my narration and make sure the transitions look good.
- Start assembling the music. I try to go for stuff that’s emotional. I often have to re-record the narration to match the mood of the music. I also cut up the narration track to insert pauses of the correct length.
- Add titles and credits using iMovie.
- Export movie to QT format
- Start uploading to video sharing sites.
That’s all I do. The hard part of course is to have something to say; I can’t stress that part enough. Please try to actually convey a message, most of the crap on YouTube is, well, crap.
Also try not to get too broad in your thesis either or you’ll get frustrated.
What’s more, people who watch web videos really aren’t interested in things longer than 10 minutes, so make that your upper limit.
Hope this helps!
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