Reuse content to make a new video
Making videos is fun, but it can take a long time.
When I started making videos for YouTube I had a lot of ideas, but I didn’t have enough time to put them together. I had to come up with a plan.
One of the easiest ways to speed up your workflow is content repurposing, or reusing your content for more than one project.
If you ever watch old movies you can sometimes recognize the same sets in different films.
Since I need backgrounds for my videos I decided to use the same idea. I would make stock video backgrounds, so when I start a new video I can just grab what I need from the backgrounds folder.
This will save me a lot of time and effort, and allow me to concentrate on sharing the message in the video.
Since my site and my YouTube channel are a space theme I decided to go straight to the source for everything space – NASA.
The NASA Image & Video Library is a massive collection of photos, videos, and audio of space exploration stretching back to 1920. NASA images are generally not copyrighted, so I don’t have to worry about using them.
I have been making my videos with an old Macbook Air. It is impressive that I could even edit and render videos on such a humble laptop, but it was working hard.
One video I made of a Steve Pavlina podcast almost melted the Air when it took hours to render. The fan swooshed like a helicopter taking off. I finally got a new Mac Mini just so I could make videos without worrying about fire hazards.
Along with the new computer I got the latest version of Screenflow, the software I use to make my videos. It is a screen recording software similar to Camtasia, but it happens to also be really easy to use as a video editor.
I went into the NASA library and pretty quickly I had found a bunch of images that would work well as backgrounds. As I got a new image I put it into Screenflow and turned it into a 30 second clip.
With such a gigantic collection of images it wasn’t long until I had added 50 or more.
To add some variety I started positioning the images to make them more visually interesting. Screenflow also has a bunch of options to add actions, such as moving an image, or zooming in or out, etc.
As I was adding the movement to the still images I began to notice a ‘flow’. One clip would end, and as the new clip would begin it seemed like they were flowing into one another. As I was watching my clips along the timeline I got the idea to combine them into a video.
Since I had the background clips I could collect them all into a compilation video. I liked the idea of making a sort of video background, similar to a favorite screensaver of mine called Electric Sheep, but with an abstract space theme.
I started to put the clips into order. I added all the best looking backgrounds, then arranged them so the transition between the clips was the smoothest.
Unfortunately some of the backgrounds I had made did not work in the compilation video. I didn’t know which ones I would use until the very end, so you can see all the clips I worked with to get the final result.
I had to go back into the NASA library and pick out more images, but this time it wasn’t as easy. To choose these new images I had to select by:
- color
- image position
- image contents
- other stuff unique to each image
The new background clip had to fit in by what was in the image, the colors in the photo, and if I could figure out a way to make a graceful transition from the first image to the third image.
Sometimes I would try an image and put the time and effort into making a background, only for it to not work in the compilation video. (The clips you didn’t see in this video you’ll see them pop up in upcoming videos.)
I didn’t manage to get all of these images perfect, but I got most of them pretty close. And some of the transitions are pretty slick, I think.
With the video more or less like I wanted it, now it was time to add music.
YouTube has a royalty-free Audio Library so you can add music to your videos without having to purchase a license for the songs.
One reason I chose to use the music from YouTube is that I (hope) I don’t have to worry about them changing the license on the music retroactively.
On one of my first videos I used music from a channel on YouTube that said to use the song free but with attribution. I used the music and put the attribution details in the description, but still soon afterward I got a notice that my video had been copyright claimed by the music creator.
This person had decided to revoke the free license and claim advertising income on the videos where the music had been used. Thank goodness YouTube has a tool to remove background music, so I was able to delete it and remove the claim. I don’t expect YouTube to do something like this with music from their royalty-free catalog.
While putting the images in the video together took forever, the audio fell together like it was meant to be. For whatever reason each song I inserted into the timeline made a graceful transition to the next. The mood inspired by the music matched well with the images.
I had the music right where I wanted it, and I had rendered several versions so I could watch and listen to it outside the editor. I was almost ready to make the final version. Everything was going awesome, until…
In the morning I was listening to the version I had rendered the night before. The music at around the 27 minute mark was ducking (getting quieter) for some reason and it messed up the mix. I checked to see if there were any changes in the actions I had placed on the clip but I couldn’t see anything.
I tried a bunch of fixes, but no matter what I couldn’t get the audio remixed correctly. Thank goodness I had made and kept the earlier versions. I was able to detach the audio from the last version where the mix was correct and stitched it into place.
I wasn’t able to get it to match up perfectly, but I did what I could to mask the cuts in and out. Thank goodness there are lots of bleeps and bloops in the music so it just sounds like part of the song 🙂
For the final touch, I added a sonar sound effect I found at Sound Bible.
00:00 Underwater Exploration – Godmode
01: 51 The Anunnaki Return – Jesse Gallagher
03:07 Stuck In the Air – The Tower of Light
05:22 Sad Piano Wind – Coyote Hearing
08:37 Keeping Sacred – Emily A. Sprague
11:54 Fern – ann annie
15:52 Feels – Patrick Patrikios
18:11 Sunrise on Mars – Audionautix – licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
19:52 Two Moons – Bobby Richards
21:37 Dream Escape – The Tides
24:21 On Foot – Underbelly & Ty Mayer
27:02 B-Somber Ballads – Kevin MacLeod – licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
31:04 Orbit. – Corbyn Kites
32:23 Simple – Patrick Patrikios
Sonar – Mike Koenig
This project ended up taking a lot of time and work, but I will get a lot out of it. Besides giving people something to enjoy, from this one video I get:
- a lifetime supply of background clips
- the experience & satisfaction of finishing a complex project
- content for my YouTube channel
- watch time
- content for my website (This article + more. Content repurposing!)
- & maybe more.
I am writing this article before I put the video on YouTube because I am expecting it will get views and people will want to learn the story why and how I put this video together.
I will put a link in the description so viewers who are interested can visit my website. Building a community is a big part of getting a new channel started, so bringing people to the site for more info is a great way to do it.
I hope people will really like it & share it with their friends. I want everyone to enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed making it.
Thanks!