Friday, June 13, 2025

Gemini-supported suite... Creating Video with "Vids"

"Vids" seemed like a very popular tool when I first heard this in the workshop. Hm... something exciting I missed? I wonder. BUT... it's only available with the educational plus account



We were tasked to create a video clip as an assignment to the Gemini Academy. 

Took a while to navigate and become a bit familiar to the interface - as it was my first encounter with the application. Quite habitually, I chose to start from scratch ("Blank" is where I would go to for all my working documents).

It taps on one's familiarity with Google Slides - as its storyboard - easy to layout and the edit. Of course, as a video creating software, it comes with other uniquely-video features like VoiceOver, insertion of background music, etc. 

Created a copy of clip in a short timespan at the workshop using a template, as suggested - experienced some success but definitely a lot more to go - especially when I did not like the proposed template and the draft generated requires so much more editing! Of course, starting from scratch is definitely much easier, I thought.

To do the task, it took some planning - how to use AI for the subject teaching. 
Though supposed to be a one-minute videoclip, I decided to use the opportunity to summarise what I learnt (before I forget, if without documentation).

This time, I did not choose a template. There's a still a guide to prompt me upload the resources (photos, video clips). However, need to note that the total duration is up to 10 min. I guess it's a means to help frame the clip so that it will not be too long or draggy.


Learnt to appreciate the various features in the software more as I started to put the stuff together. In particular the voice over part. With the resources uploaded, the Vids will attempt to organise the resource according to the order they are uploaded. It also attempted to put up some brief points on the slides and the script for each slide. 

This is helpful, I think, and it's pretty easy to edit and re-organise the stuff.  


A useful tip on the voice over script is to use the autogenerated script as the base to extend and modify. Then copy it to gemini to refine, copy and paste into the script box again. One last but important step for each slide is to UPDATE the voice over text so that it will read the updated script. Pretty straightforward. 

The background music was included automatically - can be extended if the clip runs beyond its length. 

The export is straightforward too. 


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