Whether it’s to make a lesson video, a promotional video or a graduation video, videos are a great way to get your message across. And it is increasingly easier to make your own videos these days, from filming in HD to editing your videos on your PC and uploading them to YouTube or Vimeo.

Windows Live Movie Maker (Windows Vista and 7) video tutorial

iMovie (Mac OS X) video tutorial

Making videos with PowerPoint
With PowerPoint 2010 you are able to save your slides as a video. Once you’re done with adding media and animation to your slides, just save as a Windows Media Video (.wmv) file and you’re done. PowerPoint for Mac also comes with the ability to save as a movie file. If you only have PowerPoint 2007 and below you’ll have to save your slides as a JPEG (.jpg) files and continue working on them on Windows Movie Maker. This is called a mash up.

Video editing on the web
For hassle-free, quick video editing with all the pizzaz, look no further than the World Wide Web. Here are a list of some websites:

• Animoto – A basic plan limits you to 30-second videos, but educators can sign up for an education plan and get unlimited video length and pay USD6.00 for high definition quality downloads.
• Stupeflex – You get a limit of 60-seconds with their basic plan and high definition quality can be downloaded at USD5.00.
• YouTube Editor - Though not a full-featured video editor, it is ideal for video mash ups and simple editing.

All you need are photos, short video clips (typically between 5 to 10 secs) and some creative commons music to go along with your video. Upload them to one of these websites and sit back while they do the rest of the work. Keep in mind that most websites have restrictions on their basic (usually free) plans, ranging from limited duration of the video and resolution quality, so be sure to check these out before embarking on your video editing.

A note on Creative Commons
Any media that you use in your video that does not belong to you, such as photographs, music and video clips, should be free of copyright. Fortunately, there are plenty of media licensed under Creative Commons. For a list of media resources you can use in your videos, head to the resources page.

Videos from this article were taken from the magnificent Vimeo Video School. They have hundreds of video tutorials for both beginner and advanced learners.