How to show the passage of time
In order to show the passage of time, you can use ScreenFlow Transitions. In the silly video clip above, a child is sitting on a goose who is sitting on the lower pan of balance scales. A 300 kg weight drops in the upper pan catapulting the goose & boy into the air. Time passes and the boy is so high that he is flying on the goose.
Summary of time page
Watch the video below to help you understand this page.
How to set up a time Transition
- In this image the scrubber (vertical red line) is at the point where you want your transition to end. It is also at a point where two clips have been split. Here the scrubber is at the 36:25 point.
- Assume you want the Transition to be exactly one second long. In this example then, you would drag your scrubber to the 35:25 point.
Then you would drag the video clip on the right as far as the scrubber.
- Then you would click on the little gear icon in the lower left side of the video clip.Choose from a long list of different Transitions.
Time transitions with text
As well as using Transitions to show the passage of time, you can use it to make words enter and leave the screen in interesting patterns. Follow along with this animated GIF to learn how to do it.
- Click on the Text action (T).
- Type in a word.
- Format it the way you like it.
- Right-click on the word.
- Choose the Transition choice you want: Add Starting, Add Ending or Add Starting and Ending.
- Click on the tiny gear icon to the left of the Transition icon.
- That will give you a list of Transitions.
- Choose your favourite.
GIMP and the boy on the goose video
The boy on the goose video is on YouTube. You can watch it here.
I discovered that making videos with my grandchildren is a very good way to bond with them. They love it — especially when I include them in the video.
In this case it was a simple, silly story about a boy who jumped onto a goose and went flying. However, the video was made for a 4-year-old and it included his picture throughout. He loved it.
Introduction to GIMP
I used GIMP to create his body. The cartoon on the left shows the child’s body looked in the YouTube video. Using the animated GIFs below, I will explain how to create a similar cartoon.
You should download GIMP now in order to follow along with these instructions:
- Select the pencil icon and change the size to one.
- Note the tiny blue & white rectangles in the animated GIF. The white rectangle represents the background colour of any rectangle you create. Go to File > New to create a rectangle. 400 x 400 would be an appropriate size. If you drew with a GIMP pencil in the animated GIF above, your pencil marks would be blue.
- Move your cursor to your new white rectangle and begin drawing lines representing the back, the front, an arm and a belt. (If you don’t like a line you drew, remember that Cmd Z will delete your last action.)
- Draw the legs, socks and shoes.
- To draw the yellow socks, click on the foreground rectangle (blue in this case).
- Your colour selector will show up on the left. Change it to yellow and press OK.
- Start drawing your yellow socks.
- Change your colour selector to black and draw your black shoes.
- Click on the paint can icon. (With that you can change totally enclosed spaces to the foreground colour.)
- Change the shoes to black.
- Change the foreground colour to yellow.
- Using the paint can, change both socks to yellow.
- Change the rest of the picture so that 5 different colours are used.