2 Free Digital Tools To Create Simple, Fun Videos
These won't replace your video maker of choice. But both might come in handy at some point and are helpful to know about.
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Today we’re talking about free video tools. Neither of these are going to replace Premiere, CapCut or even iMovie.
But both are pretty fun and really good at doing a specific thing. Which can be nice to have in your digital toolkit, ready to go when you need them.
Text Chat Animator
Tool type: Web App
Ever see a video of a text message conversation on your feed and wonder how they did that? Were they screen recording while texting from a second device? Were they recording their screen with a camera on a tripod?
Both of those are options. But not great ones!
What IS a great option: Text Chat Animator.
Head to chat-animator.com and “Create realistic fake text chat animations that simulate messaging apps! Export them for free as a video or GIF to create stories, commercials and memes.”
That is all it does, but it does it really well!
You can have up to 4 “people” in the chat. You simply pick an avatar and a name for each. (You’ll notice, in the example below, I only opted in two versions of myself. The other two, I simply removed from the chat.)
You then write out what you want each user to say, in order, select your delay time, and voila. Watch your conversation come to life!
You can then download the conversation as a video or a GIF and use it however you want.
Super easy to use and creates a really fun, engaging way to tell a story online in a way that folks won’t want to look away from!
FREE or FREEmium: FREE!
There’s no about section on the site, so I can’t say for sure who built it. But it seems to be a very cool content marketing tool from the folks at VEED.IO.
That said, it’s free to use without limit. Doesn’t even require a login to get started.
Lumen5
Tool type: Website
Lumen5 does a handful of cool things, but today we’re going to look at their blog-to-video feature.
Head to lumen5.com and get ready to “Convert text into video within minutes.”
Once there, add in the URL of any blog post.
They will then pop out a video, using stock photos and graphics, along with pull quotes from your post.
You can then edit the copy, switch the images and change any branding as needed.
And voila, you have a video!
Is it going to be an award-winning video that will wow your audiences? Maybe (but probably not).
Is it going to be 1000x better than simply sharing the link to your blog on social and inviting them to check it out? ABSOLUTELY!
The whole thing takes just minutes to create and it’s a really easy-to-use interface.
It’s a great tool when you’re trying to repurpose content you already have completed and want to get more juice out of.
FREE or FREEmium: FREEmium
Their paid plans start at around $20 and go up from there. But if you’re only using it up to five times per month, don’t need the highest quality video resolution and don’t mind having the Lumen5 branding on your video, then it’s totaly free to use.
Make something cool with either of these tools (or any other tool you’ve learned about from this newsletter)? Please tag me into the comments on social. I’d love to see it!
You can find all my links and more here.
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See you in a fortnight.
Best,
Josh
joshklemons.com