Creating your own handwriting video
A couple of months back, I was embarking on a project to revamp a video for @shopwithtagg. Our last video was done by 2 freelancers who used a narrator from Fiverr to explain the concept of Tagg. Most people who watched the video couldn’t catch what the narration was about, and in a noisy environment, the narration couldn’t be heard.
I decided that we needed a new video without narration, with handwriting videos being the “in” thing, I searched online for a solution. There are a number of videos explaining how you could create the entire set up, and there are also programs that do it for you. You can check out VideoScribe if you don’t mind the poor quality of the free video. Be mindful that it does not allow you to export into a video file - although there are tricks to get around that.
Long story short, VideoScribe’s quality did not appeal to me, setting up a recording gig didn’t either, so I had to create a handwritten intro clip with the tools I have.
The tools I used are:
Microsoft Office PowerPoint (for Windows)
iMovie (Windows Movie Maker should work as well)
Photoshop (optional)
Just 2, perhaps 3 programs will do the trick! I’m going to provide you with the images and template you need later in this tutorial.
*Somehow, Microsoft removed the export to video function in Office 2016 for Mac - until they put it back, this won’t work for Mac users. Keynote doesn’t work either.
“Writing” the text
Looking at the tools I’ve prepared, it should be obvious by now that Microsoft PowerPoint is gonna be heavily used in this part of the work. Any text that you want will go into PowerPoint.
For the typeface, I chose “Mechanical Pencil” by Leonardo White. It’s 100% free from dafont.com. Get the font here.
Next, type out your text (preferably on a single line) and set its animation to appear. Check that under Effect Options, it Animates text: By the letter.
Now, you’ll have to time how long the text takes to fully appear, either by using the Rehearse Timings tab under Slide Show or, as I’ve noticed recently that 2013 version of PowerPoint comes with a timing slider on the bottom of the Animation Pane.
The Hand
Time to add the Hand (Download the High-Res version)
Point the tip of the marker to the bottom left of the first letter. Now go to Add Animation and choose Custom Path. This function allows you to dictate the path of movement.
Start from where the tip of the marker is, move it up to the top right of the first letter, and back down to center-bottom of the letter, then to the top right of the next letter, back to the center-bottom of that letter - over and over again, until the line ends.
Now, you remember the timing that I’ve asked you to take note of from the animation of the text? Set it as the animation timing for this Custom Path. Reduce the Smooth Start and Smooth End to 0. This is important as it affects the sequence.
Also set the Animation to start: With previous.
Try playing the slideshow and make sure the timings of both animations are in sync. You might want to perform an additional step of making the hand disappear after it’s done its thing. So just add another animation for the hand to disappear: after previous.
When you’re done, it’s time to export this into a video. Click on File > Export > Create a Video. The resolution of the video depends on the video card that you have.
Now that you have the raw clip, it’s time to work the magic in iMovie. That will be covered in the next part of my tutorial. In the meantime, if you are adventurous enough to try it on your own, go ahead and do it!














