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Basic Titles

Lesson 21 from: How to Edit Video in DaVinci Resolve

Casey Faris

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Lesson Info

21. Basic Titles

Next, Casey shows you how to create and add professional titles to your video.
Summary (Generated from Transcript)

In this lesson, the instructor demonstrates how to add basic titles to a video using DaVinci Resolve. He explains how to access the effects library and select the "text" effect to create a title. The instructor shows how to adjust the details of the title, such as the font, size, and positioning. He also demonstrates how to add a drop shadow effect to make the text more readable. The lesson concludes with the instructor explaining how to add a fade-in effect to the title and the importance of simplicity in graphics.

Q&A:

  1. How can you access the effects library in DaVinci Resolve?

    You can access the effects library by clicking on the "effects" button in the upper-left hand corner of the interface.

  2. What effect should you choose to add a basic title?

    You should choose the "text" effect to add a basic title.

  3. How can you adjust the details of the title?

    You can adjust the details of the title by selecting the text and going to the inspector panel, where you can modify the font, size, and other properties.

  4. How can you make the text more readable?

    You can add a drop shadow effect to the text, which can be adjusted in the inspector panel.

  5. What is the importance of simplicity in graphics?

    Simplicity in graphics can make a video look intentional and classy, while too many effects can come off as tacky.

Next Lesson: Rendering

Lesson Info

Basic Titles

So, now that we have our story the way that we want, it feels great and the audio is good, I mean, we have our story soup and it tastes delicious, you know. It's, like, almost there, but it needs something. It needs something, like it's okay, but what we really want is a (snaps) bam. We want a (snaps) bam. You know what I'm saying? We need that little spice, that little garnish on top to just really finish it off. And oftentimes, in a video, that is the titles and the graphics. So, the world of titles and motion graphics is really huge. And you can just dive down that hole forever. But for something like this, we can just add something really basic and have it look nice and clean and classy. And it's not too much work, so let's check it out. I'm gonna hold down Shift and scroll down on my scroll wheel here, so that we just have a little bit of room to work. Because what we're gonna do is add our graphics over the top of our video. But how do we make the graphics? Well, if we go up to t...

he upper-left hand corner and click on effects, we have all kinds of different effects that we can add to things here in the edit page. Now, this, again, (chuckles) this is also a huge world. We have everything from video transitions to filters and everything that you are free to play with as much as you want. Effects library and just drag it onto a clip in the timeline and that filter gets applied. If you select the clip and go up to the inspector, there's a little tab called effects, and you can adjust all the things about that effect. Pretty cool. But what we're actually wanting is the titles, which is up here under toolbox. And we'll just click on that. And this will bring up all the different kinds of titles that we can use. There are a lot of built-in titles that use the power of the fusion page in Resolve, and all kinds of fancy animations and things like that, which you can play with. But a lot of the time, I really like to just keep things simple. So, we can grab this effect called text, and just drag this down into our timeline. And if we select text and go up to the inspector, we can adjust all of the details about it. So, let's call this The Chef. (keyboard clacking) And let's pick a font. I usually like to pick a, kind of a big, bold font. And we can adjust the sizing. And honestly, a lot of the time, this is really all a video needs. It's really tempting to make this like swooshing, like crazy big, amazing thing. But a lot of the time, frankly, it comes off kinda tacky, right? So, I'm gonna switch on snapping, and let's put this text over this first clip. Let's see how this looks. (upbeat music) When I was a boy, my mom would cook every night. Yeah, so that comes off as really classy. It looks intentional. It looks like we aren't having to try too hard. But we can make it a little bit nicer than just plain white text over our background here. So, I'll close the effects panel and zoom in a little bit, just so we can see this a little easier. If we scroll down in the inspector, there are all kinds of things we can do. One of the things that I really like is to add a drop shadow. And so, here, under where it says drop shadow, there actually already is a drop shadow, it's just perfectly behind the white letters. And so, if we grab this offset and push it to the right, then we can see that it's adding a little shadow here. Maybe I'll take the opacity down a little bit. We just want this to be a little bit more readable. So, here's without it. We can kind of lose this white in the background. But when we put the drop shadow on, it's subtle. But it helps you be able to read the letters a little bit easier, okay? So, there is The Chef. So, let's see how this works. (upbeat music) Yeah. When I was a boy, my mom would cook- Nice. So, if we do want to get a little fancier, one thing that we can do is just add a fade to this. And so, we can zoom in just like any other piece of video here and grab our little handle. (upbeat music) And have that fade in that way. (upbeat music continues) When I was a boy, my mom would cook- And maybe we want this to be on a little bit longer, so we can extend this bottom shot and extend this top shot here. I generally like to have a title just be over one shot, rather than span two shots. (upbeat music) When I was a boy- Just because it doesn't look as intentional, right? So, if it cuts with the shot, When I was a boy- It makes sense. But if it doesn't, it's kinda like, When I was a- Oh, why did that? When I was a boy- Why was that? Why is that? (chuckles) And you never want somebody to be distracted with the technical things when they're watching your video. So, (upbeat music) When I was a boy, my- I think that works really well. So, that's just a nice simple graphic that you can add to any video. And honestly, like, I cannot overstate the power of simplicity when it comes to graphics. This doesn't mean that you aren't trying. This means that you're cool enough to keep it simple. So now, we have a really nice video. It feels the way that we want. All the sound is good. It's conveying what we want. And it's pretty much ready for other people to look at. So, in the next lesson, that's what we're gonna do, is we're gonna render this out, so people can actually watch it, which would just be super.

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Ratings and Reviews

Stan
 

This is a great class! Probably my favorite Creativelive class so far. I've been a fulltime photographer for 13 years now, I guess it's about time I get back into video. I love that Resolve has a free version to learn on. The pace of this class was perfect, can't wait to watch the rest of Casey's DaVinci classes.

Simona Geneva
 

Thanks to Casey Faris for the interesting study material. I have been looking for a creative life course for DaVinci Resolve for a long time and I am very happy that one has already been created on your platform. I look forward to the other pieces. Thanks again for the shared knowledge!

user-ada623
 

I've seen many DaVinci tutorials that seem to just make things more confusing but Casey's tutorial really took a simple step-by-step explanation to really show how powerful and yet simple it is to use Davinci. The tools Casey covered in this course gave me the confidence to edit the ton of videos I have collecting dust on my hard drive. Great job Casey and a great sense of dry corny humor...lolol highly recommended!!

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