It’s one in the morning and I probably shouldn’t be making a youth group announcement video right now in the first place, but despite my better judgment, not only did I make it, I’m even posting it here for you all to see. (I might regret this later when everyone makes fun of me and my lame tired performance. I just watched the video again and… wow… lol!) Here it is:

Here’s a quick tutorial on how I made it. Granted, these directions are for Mac since that’s what I use, but the same principle applies to Windows and can be done just as easily there, I’m sure.

Step One: Go to the free section of CrowdControlGames.com and download their free interactive host, LT. Unzip the package, open both Flash files and play around with him a little. It’s quite entertaining. He’s the high-tech puppet you always wanted.

Step Two: LT is intended to be used on two seperate monitors, but that’s too much work to set up when all I want to do is record LT on my screen. So I purchased a screencast program called iShowU (Mac only) for $20 and set it up to only record the section of my screen that contains LT, as in the image below.

Step Three: When you’re finished recording your announcement with LT using your screencast software, use your favorite video editing software to add music, text and whatever else is necessary. And wa-la! You have your video announcement! (Just please record a better accent than I did! lol)

Posted on December 6, 2007