John-Paul Roberts

Create an environmental video With so many people on lockdown, now is the time to take environmental education online. Why not prepare a short environmental video on litter, or climate change or growing seedlings or saving water.  Now is a great time to learn some new skills! Film maker app We have tried out a few and this is the easiest one to try on your cellphone. Step 1: Planning When creating a video, your first step is to plan the video. Here are somethings to think about: What elements are going in your video – Text, images, audio, and stickers? Think about what platforms you are going to publish your video to (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram). This will determine the size that your video will be. Location is key. This is an important aspect and what you need to think about is the background noise, distractions in the background and lighting. If you get those correct, then you would not need lengthy editing afterwards. Use landscape(horizontal) Recording the video with your phone landscape (horizontal) and not portrait will be best, otherwise you end up with wasted space on either side of the images. Step 2: Importing Start with the Intro title sequence  This would usually display the logo and the title of the video. Once you have inserted the title video or image you want in the beginning, you can then import the rest of the videos from your library.  2.    In the Film Maker app, to add to your main timeline, click on the plus button, and go to your videos to your timeline. Step 3: Editing Trimming, Split, Cutting During the editing process of the video there will be times where you would like to cut out parts you do not want. In the Film Makers Pro app, you can do the following: Trim: This allows you to shorten your video by dragging the controls from the beginning or from the end of the sequence. Split: The split helps in separating certain parts of a video to add different effects without cutting out sections. For example, if you want your first part to be in colour and the second part in black and white, you split it in the middle and make the changes. Cut: In cutting the video you can take sections out of your video that you do not wish to use. Adding Effects: During editing, you can add effects to your videos by changing colouration, brightness, contrast and adding special effects that come with your video editing. Step 4: Adding Elements You can also add a variety of elements to your video, by using the tools on the toolbar: Logo: To add a logo to your video, you can click on the sticker, then go to your photos and scroll to insert. Click the on the item icon in the timeline and then drag the ends to make the duration longer or short. If you want to move the item, click and drag on the element and place it in the timeline where you want it. Text: To add text, click on the text tool on the side, then double click on the text to edit the words. Use the tools at the bottom of the editor to change the text to a different font, give it an outline, background or change the text colour. Audio: You can add background audio by selecting the audio tool in the right sidebar. You can insert the music or sound effects that come with the app or add audio that is on your phone or create a voice over.   Stickers: If you want to add logos for your social media or any other stickers, you can use the sticker tool and scroll through the various options found at the bottom to import into your project. Step 5: Exporting and Sharing When exporting your videos, you need to be mindful of the size of the file and the data used . However, saving files in high resolution are always best as they can be compressed later, but videos that are exported in lower quality cannot be improved. Final Step – Upload to Youtube! For an example of an excellent video see what the Green Anglicans Free State put together

On Friday the 7th of February, Green Anglicans was invited to run a workshop with the Archdeaconry of Maitland to discuss the issues around climate change and caring for creation. The workshop was part of a series of teachings to engage young people around critical issues that are facing our young people currently. The workshop started off with a few ice breakers to get the young people to open up towards one another which also helped to split the group up.  We then looked at what are the problems and issues that are facing our world and in what ways we as are humans destroying our world. Once the participants were aware of the problems, we then looked at what God says through scripture is our role with regards to caring for creation. This then led into our discussion of what we as young people can do to restore God’s creation to the way he made it, “GOOD!” The those present were the youth from the Church of the Good Shepherd Kensington, St. Timothy’s Factreton, a representative from the Tableview Archdeaconry, as well as Ordinate Barry Betz from St Michael’s All Angels Edgemead. We were also fortunate to have the Youth Chaplain, Rev Joshua Abrahams of the Archdeaconry of Maitland present and a special guest Teresa Perez a researcher from the UK with us. We again would like to extend a huge thank you to the Archdeaconry Youth of Maitland for the invitation and look forward to maintaining the relationship for future joint ventures.