I thought about making an instructional video on this, but then I thought better of it. I created this article for myself as a reference (sometimes I go months without making a video), but I hope that others find some value in it.
If you’ve discovered this page, you are probably wandering around the internet looking for tools and guides. I was once in your shoes – I knew that I needed my solution to satisfy the following requirements:
- It had to use free tools
- It had to be easy to follow. After all, we (probably?) aren’t looking to be professional video editors.
Here are the tools that I used:
- PowerPoint for presenting. Ok, so I broke my own rule already: PowerPoint isn’t free. You probably have it through work (as I do), but if you don’t, that’s ok. You can install LibreOffice to use their (free!) version of PowerPoint.
- Obs Studio for recording. In doing my research, it quickly became apparent to me that I would be better served to find one program to do the recording and another program to do the editing. Obs is a great option because it allows you to easily allow picture-in-picture recording. I found it easier to record each chapter in my presentation to a separate file.
Pro tip: I recommend prepending a number on the title of each clip so that they will be in order when you import them into CapCut. - CapCut for editing. This software allows you to assemble all of the videos that you made in the recording step. It also allows you to easily add transitions and other effects. There is both an online and a local version (I used the local).
- Applying Scene Transitions. Check out this guide to easily apply a transition to one, many or all scene changes.
