I feel like a bit of a failure in this post, you see I started out with the idea to create a guide to show you how to create a presentation style video (without a watermark) with some cool animations thrown in using only free software.

Now I’ve tried experimenting with various different methods, but to create anything more than just a few slides with text on them there’s no way to do it for free. I’ll let you be the judge of my results. Hopefully my solutions are acceptable enough for your video marketing needs.

The method that got me the closest to my end goal was using OpenOffice’s PowerPoint clone ‘Impress’ to create a few slides with some animations and transitions and then use a free screencasting software such as Jing, Screencast-O-Matic to record the presentation in action complete with animations.

The problem is firstly OpenOffice Impress animations are not the best, and secondly all free screencasting equipment record at low frame rates which mean the animations comes out looking choppy in the videos. This is the last thing you want when creating a presentation that hundreds, maybe thousands of viewers will watch.

Take a look at my results using Impress, I tried Jing, Screencast-O-Matic and CamStudio to record the presentations. I couldn’t actually export Jing in a video file format to upload to youtube so it’s pretty useless if you want to use it for video marketing. All 3 produced very similar results. In my opinion they are not worth the hassle of creating as they look unprofessional.

I think you’d be better off showing the slides without any animations or transitions if you wanted to use this free method. You can see an example presentation without any animations below. If you want to know how I created this simple presentation take a look here.

Where does that leave us?

Unfortunately it doesn’t give us many options, we can either purchase something or a free alternative is PowToons BUT their free accounts are quite limited in terms of length, video quality and include a watermark and outro advertising their service which was something I wanted to avoid when starting to create this guide.

In article, I talk about saving your cash and using it elsewhere instead of cheap, crappy link building services….well this here is an excellent example on where to better use that money. Purchase some software or a subscription to a service that will allow you to create high quality, engaging videos (that’s if video marketing is something you are trying to do)

PowToons free account

As this is one of the only good, free alternatives I could find. I signed up for an account and spent a few minutes putting together a quick presentation style video. You can see the results below and I’m sure you will agree, they are MUCH better than the screencasting method I tried earlier. The only problem I have with the service is the watermarking and outro advertising. It seems, like everything in life, you are going to have to pay for it if you want quality. Take a look at the presentation I created in about 5 mins, it’s really easy to put together and if you don’t mind the watermark and outro on your video you can sign up for free here.

You can see the results are good, but I think the paid options from VideoScribe are better if you are going to take video marketing seriously. VideoScribe have packages starting at $29 per month or a yearly package which works out at $16.50 per month. When compared to the PowToons I think VideoScribe is the more feature packed service and while I wasn’t allow to export the video I created on my VideoScribe free trial I did record it on my phone so you could get an idea.