You have a story to tell or some ideas to share, why not transform them into a video presentation? Creating a Prezi Video is fast and easy... and your creation is sure to make a lasting impression on your audience.
Getting started
From your Prezi Video dashboard, click Quick record in the top toolbar. You will see the Prezi Video online editor open in a separate window.
From here, you first need to enable your camera to be able to start creating a video. The camera is automatically mirrored to make recording easier, however, if necessary, you can disable mirroring in the Prezi Video desktop application. To learn more about creating a video in the Prezi Video desktop app, please check this article.
Choosing a video style
Once your camera is enabled, you will see yourself on the screen. Hi! Click on the purple Create now button in the bottom left corner. Now you can choose a style to use from the right sidebar. By clicking on a template, you can preview it and see how your content will look like next to you on the screen.
You can also rely on the talent of other creators and reuse a video made by someone else. Click on Reusable stories in the left sidebar to browse through reusable videos uploaded by Prezi Video users.
Prezi team users also have access to a variety of branded templates set up by the team admin via the brand kit. Click the Branded tab to select one of the customized templates and go back to Default to browse the template collection available for all users.
Once you choose the style you would like to use, click on the purple Next step button in the bottom right corner.
Adding content
You can now add a title to your video in the top left corner and the next step is adding your content: you can add text and one image or icon per slide. Select Upload to choose a visual from your computer or add your own content from GoogleDrive, Dropbox or OneDrive, go to Image to browse the Unsplash image library and select Icon to find the most fitting visual from the Icons8 collection. You can also drag and drop supported files from your computer to the sidebar. If you drag and drop multiple items, they will be added as separate slides.
To change to a different visual, simply select it from the sidebar and you'll see your content being updated in the video window. To remove a visual, select Remove from the sidebar. To remove your text, just delete it from the text bar by hitting Backspace.
Once you are done, you can add further slides by clicking the + icon at the top right corner of the screen.
Before recording your video, you can preview your content by using the arrows under the video window and testing the different content views. You can also switch to a different camera or microphone by selecting it from the dropdown list, choose to mirror the camera view or mute your microphone if you'd prefer not to add any narration to your video.
Recording your video
It’s showtime! Once you’re done with adding your content, click Next step in the bottom right corner and get ready for recording your video. Take a deep breath and hit the red button at the bottom.
Use the three icons at the bottom left to switch between different views (only you on the screen, you and your content on the screen, only your content on the screen - you can also use the 1, 2 and 3 keys accordingly to switch) and the arrows on the right to move to the next/previous slide. You will see a preview of your upcoming slide on the right. Your video can be up to 15 minutes long and you will see a warning at the 14-minute mark.
If necessary, you can pause your recording by clicking the red button under the video window and resume by clicking the same button again. When you're finished, click the Done recording button and your video will start processing.
Once the video is processed, you can watch it in its entirety. Don’t worry if you’re not happy with the first (or sixth) take, you click on Discard and record again to give it another try as many times as you’d like. Remember: practice is the key to success!
Trimming your video
Once you have a version you are happy with but there is some unwanted footage at the beginning or the end of your video, click on the scissor icon in the bottom right corner. Here, you can trim it to remove those first and last few seconds when you start and stop the recording to make the end product more polished and professional.
Final touches
Your video is done, it’s time to give it a catchy title if you haven't done it yet and add some tags and a brief description that grabs people’s attention. You can also activate/deactivate the audio transcript feature here. When activated, people with the link to your video can see an automated transcript for your recording. (Please note that it takes a few minutes for the transcript to be generated after your video is processed.) By activating the audio transcript, you're also giving your viewers the opportunity to turn on the automatically generated subtitles when watching your video from its view page. You can also download the subtitles from the video admin page.
Selecting a thumbnail
If you're not happy with the automatically generated thumbnail, you can switch to another one. After you're video is processed, scroll down on the video admin page to select a different thumbnail. You will see it update in the video window too. You can also return to the video admin page later from the Prezi Video dashboard by selecting the cogwheel icon on the video thumbnail.
Privacy settings and sharing your video
It’s done, it’s ready, it’s time to share it with the world. You can set your video to be public and reusable or unlisted (it will not appear as a result in any search engines and only people with the link can view it).
You can either generate a link that you can send to anyone and watch your video or download it as an mp4 file so you can upload it to social media or any website.
Use Prezi Present
If you’re aiming for a more personalized video and would like to add multiple images and text to your design or you would like to use your own brand colors, you can opt for the advanced video creation, where you basically create a Prezi Present presentation from one of our video template adjusted for this format. You can then use this presentation for recording a video or stream live via Zoom or Webex.
Read this article to learn more about turning your Prezi Present presentation into a video using with the Use Prezi Present option.
