Should Lawyers Add Animated Intros To Their Videos

The question:

I will be making videos to embed on my website, using my iPhone camera. Do you recommend any software for editing, for example to place a nice animation in the beginning? Or do you recommend any services that will provide this?

My answer:

Why I don’t recommend using animated intros

I would recommend not using an animation at the beginning of the video. Maybe at the end of the video if you want to, but I don’t like it because you have to remember that people’s attention span is extremely short. You got like half a second to get their attention.

And these animations are five to six seconds long, and five or six seconds may not be a long time. But it is an eternity when somebody is deciding, should I watch this video or should I just move on to the next thing.

I don’t use any animations at the beginning of my videos, although I used to, briefly. If you look at my old videos, maybe the first three or four videos I ever did, you’ll see that I had animations on there. But when I go back and try to watch those videos again, I just skip past the animation.

I don’t recommend having animations at the beginning of the videos. If you’re dead set on this then go to fiverr.com and just search for video animation. There are a ton of them on there and you can get some of those.

Editing software options

If you want software to edit yourself I don’t really know any for a PC. For a Mac, I know very basic software that you can use. What’s the one that comes with the Mac… Movie Maker?

I’m looking at my computer right now. I use Final Cut Pro. It’s like the dumbed-down version of Final Cut Pro. I’m drawing a blank though. If anybody knows what it is tell me in the comments. iMovie, that’s what it is.

If you’re trying to do some very basic video editing, you can use iMovie. I use Final Cut Pro which I think is only like $300. It’s not that expensive but it’s a really good software. Or you can use Premiere Pro if you’re on a PC. Actually Premier Pro works on PC or Mac. Final Cut Pro only works on Mac.