Creating Intros

[derkvanl]

My videos are not much more than recordings I glued together, or just the whole recording, and I don't do much to make it look really smooth or profesional. And I'm quite happy with it, but if I look at other videos I'm allways jealous if there's some nice intro to it. Some of the videos I did have a small intro, but I've never been really happy about them. They are ok, but for me they just don't look the way I wanted.

I think that improving on intros can help a lot to get extra viewers, or at least interest viewers for a video a little more.

So... Let's ask the forums. :mrgreen:

What about the intro? What does it need to look good? Is it better to have 1 intro for all your videos or, just make something different for any video? Or maybe just have some nice animated logo, that returns in different videos? How long should an intro be? Is anyone here spending a lot of time on intros?

What programs / tools can be used to create things like 3D text animations? How to create your own videoeffects / animation for use in intros? How to create sounds for an intro?

All tips are welcome.

 

[JustBusiness17]

This brings me back... Creating a small 4 second intro is what got me hooked on video editing. I suddenly realized how simple it was to mash things together with WMM and my videos quickly shifted from cam uploads to complex creative slide shows.

One word of caution when it comes to intros is to keep it simple. Too many of the debates on my channel were directed at the elaborate intros that I created even though I was just trying to be dramatic and artistic. Rather than discussing the ideas presented in my videos, people debated my ego and reasons for creating the videos. Ridiculous...

I would suggest creating custom intros for each video introducing the topic of the video. If you insist on mentioning you channel name, do it quickly and casually. A much classier way of presenting a video would be to give yourself credit at the end, after the content has been presented.

 

[RyuOni1989]

This is quite good, I was gonna make a thread about the same thing (intros)
I want to make myself an intro but I wasn't sure if it would suit my style or anything.
Also, all the songs I can think of that I'd like to use- it'd mean the intro would end up being 15 seconds long. (I'm thinking a custom intro, introducing the topic, video, and my logo). But yeah, still- 15 seconds long as an intro is quite long, what do you guys think?

 

[Squagnut]

Hmm. Intros.

While there should be no hard 'n' fast rules about what they're like, for YT vids they should be short - just a way to make it clear who you are and that the viewer is now watching one of your vids and hasn't missed the start. If a YT vid hasn't made its main point or at least caught my attention in the first minute then I turn off, so intros should be short. Some music is fine, but keep it unobtrusive.