hey guys what is going on in this video
we're talking about how you make an
awesome intro to your youtube videos so
[Music]
this goes beyond just YouTube videos in
general this is how to create an
introduction to your videos for YouTube
specifically this is a topic that I
wanted to cover because as soon as I
started putting these kind of
introductions on my videos my subscriber
count' started going up and also my
audience retention because you're
putting this introduction on the front
end of your video it makes it look more
professional and people are more engaged
and want to continue watching so the
basic idea is that you have a hook at
the beginning of your video you'll have
something that draws your audience in
for the first like 5 to maybe 20 seconds
at the most and then you have this
introduction and what this introduction
does is it gives your audience a view
into who you are and what this video is
gonna be about so you make your
introduction very targeted to your style
your brand and then people get a sense
of who you are and they'll want to
continue watching or they'll click off
but you'll get a higher audience
retention because people have a very
clear idea of who you are so for my
introduction I wanted to show travel I
want to show up venture and I want to
show filmmaking so I found different
shots that basically encompass that and
I put those together with some effects
to basically build my intro so the
elements that go into making an intro
and I'm gonna go step by step we're
gonna go through a screen record where I
build this intro from scratch but
basically the elements that you have is
first your music second your footage
third some visual effects that go on top
of the footage and then some way to
display your title and the way that I
create all these effects on top is
through two things one is lens players
and I'll get into that I'll show you
what a lens flare is or bokeh it's
something that you lay over your footage
and then the second is motion graphics
and all of these are pre-built from
motion VFX it's an awesome company that
basically pre builds motion graphics for
Final Cut and you just drag and drop and
do some setting changes and the graphics
are automatically moving and you don't
have to do a ton of work and for music I
get all my music from art list
iö it's an amazing music service that
basically gives you the ability to use
the entire library for any of your
videos either on YouTube Instagram
Facebook or for any of your professional
clients and basically what you're
getting is an entire music library that
you can use for everything I really like
using their services because I never
have issues with rights and that's a big
thing when it comes to YouTube and a
huge thing when it's coming to my
clients before I start using art lists I
was paying upwards of fifty to a hundred
dollars per track now I just have an
entire library at my disposal alright
guys so we're gonna get into a screen
record and let's build this from scratch
but if you're interested in any of the
tools that I'm using to build this
introduction go down into the
description I'll put links to everything
that I use to get this going alright so
this is how you build an introduction so
now we're in Final Cut and the first
thing that I'm gonna do is figure out
what music I'm gonna use and that's
because I always cut to music and it's
kind of my driving force when it comes
to creating anything that has lots of
action lots of movement I like to drive
my editing from the music my intro is
ten seconds so what I want to do is
basically use potentially an eight-count
to have underneath my intro so you want
to have basically a phrase of music and
you want something that kind of wraps up
and goes into your introduction 1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 so that's an 8 count and an 8
count is roughly 8 seconds so that's
gonna work great for a 10-second intro
the issue is at the end of this eight
count it just keeps going into the rest
of the song so you need to find a
wrap-up that's gonna go into the rest of
your video the best way to do this is
look at the end of the song and listen
to the last beat that hits oh and it's a
trail off so find that last beat on your
8 count and what we're gonna do is
replace that last beat with the final
beat of the song
what I did is I dropped part of the song
underneath on the bottom layer and I've
blended it slightly just using your fade
in and out from each side quick way to
just blend some music also one thing to
look at music is look how hot it is so
if you go on to you see how it's hitting
it at zero well if your vocals on your
video are hitting between negative 12
and negative 6 your music is gonna blast
so you want to bring your music down
so it's hitting between negative 6 and
negative 12 I like to have mine around
negative 12 so you're not killing
someone's ears right as it goes into the
intro and that's kind of a big thing
that makes you stand out as making sure
your audio is mixed properly so for mine
I used the same eight count phrase but I
blended it around this sixth count and I
brought in a few beats from the end so
you kind of have that natural
progression to the last beat and it
fades out 10 seconds boom I just pulled
a section of the song using an 8 count
the next step is use some footage and
that's the most important part if you're
doing 10 seconds find 10 shots because
you want it to be pretty rapid-fire you
want things to move in an intro so
here's the 10 shots I've used I pulled
the a 2nd from each of parts that I
thought were good moments to use I chose
a shot where I'm falling into the water
and then when my first beat hits it goes
right into the rest of the footage boom
so basically I'm cutting to the beat
it's every beat I'm cutting boom boom
boom boom boom boom so and then I've let
the last two shots trail off a little
bit longer and on that last beat
something's gonna happen but we're not
there yet okay so I've got my basic
intro cut but you want more than that
you want that pizzazz you want that
excitement and so what I like to use is
lens flares and if you guys don't know
what lens flares are they are basically
effects that you can drop on top of your
footage so you can see it's just a flare
and it's over black and these are
pre-made I'll put a link in the
description to a series of these lens
flares that I really like using all of
them are a little bit different and they
have you know different colors different
effects and when you drop them on your
footage
you basically have it over black you're
gonna use your blend mode up here and
you're gonna do a color dodge and that's
basically gonna pull out the black and
now you have just the blue over top I
[Music]
put it over the footage it starts having
a flare effect I grab two different
flares here I grab the to1 and I grab my
this one called natural light which does
a big flash so the reason for this is on
my intro when I have that first beat I
want it to be exciting and boom so I'm
gonna have that flash hit right on the
first beat fade into it boom right into
the second shot it feels more dramatic
when you have some sort of light effect
flash over wall beats are hitting and if
we turn on the music you can hear it
it makes that first beat really hit when
it comes to just adding some more flour
over I added just this flair gives it a
little bit more of a dynamic feel and
then at the end I'm gonna use another
one these flashes to flash into the
footage of me or whatever it is that I'm
shooting at the time so that's a great
transition basically using flashes is a
great transition to get in and out of
different sequences okay so we've got
light effects we've got footage we've
got music but there's lots of motion
graphics going on the top we're gonna
pull up a set of effects called in
pointer from motion VFX and these are
really cool and I'll just play them for
you so you can see what it is it
basically just pops up on the screen and
it has some sort of effect so you got
like crosshairs you got pointers and it
doesn't seem like anything that exciting
when you just put this on because that's
gonna look really boring just over the
footage a weird little pointer the
beauty of these effects is that they're
I have the movement and the Ray to go so
what I do is I grab one of these
crosshairs I'm gonna pull out the text I
just want the visual of the crosshair
and I might bump up the line with a
little bit cross with you can see how
easy it is to just adjust using settings
that motion VFX has provided for you now
this is a fact right in the middle
that's cool but that's that's not what
we're going for we want something that's
kind of overlaid that just gives you the
feeling of adventure and gives you the
feeling of like maybe a map or something
so I'm gonna make this huge and I'm
gonna put it somewhere like in the
corner and then on top of it I want to
speed this up let's have this start
right when we see the second bit of
footage boom it's a little bit too white
so I'm gonna bring down the opacity so
it's overlaid so now we have one effect
on well we're gonna do this again so
let's grab another crosshair and then
you're just gonna keep building on this
more and more so here is my finished
introduction I have one two three four
crosshairs and then I have three light
effects I have the music and I have my
footage so let's play this back real
quick without the title yet
[Music]
that's the basic introduction and the
last bit of the puzzle is adding on your
title I'm gonna use another preset pack
from motion VFX called titles I'm gonna
pick this title because I like it and so
I have my title in there
it's a pre-built effect I did a little
tweaks to the actual visuals of it but
as I overlay this on top of everything
it just ties in the entire introduction
and gives you the title of what it is
that you're watching but also underneath
it you have that visual effects and you
have everything that signifies who's
making this video and what type of video
they're going to be making and that's
the complete breakdown of my
introduction
[Music]
it's actually way easier to put one of
these introductions together than you
think and what's cool about it is that
it just looks so professional and just
gives your videos a polished look guys
if you use my techniques and my methods
to build an introduction I would love to
see what you guys come up with
so please shoot me a link put it in the
comments below give me some feedback on
your thoughts on how I created my
introduction and some things that maybe
you might do differently to make your
introduction unique one other thing is
that I don't use the same introduction
for every video so this one's a standard
that I built just for general
photography video introduction but when
I'm doing something specific and I want
to title it out sometimes I'll switch
out the footage or the graphics play
around with a little bit and then add a
different intro on the end of it now I
keep my music and I keep some of the
style the same so that it feels like the
rest of my videos and that's a key you
want to make sure that you have a
consistent style across all your videos
so that if someone's consistently
watching your videos and watching
everything they just feel like they're
in your world
so you basically create your look your
idea your main introduction and then
from there when you build other
introductions you basically use that as
a template and then repurpose some of it
change some of it out give it a little
unique Flair that's how you get people
to get excited about a video and keep
that audience retention up alright guys
that is it if you like this video make
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some feedback from you and I'm happy to
help you out with any of your filmmaking
questions or just if you just want to
chat and have a conversation alright
guys I will see you on the next one