How to Enhance Your Videos Without Complex Animations

Let’s say it, animations are hard to create.

Learning After Effects, getting all those keyframes right, and then animating 8 hours straight to get a 10-second video done is hard.

Especially when you are a beginner and have just started learning Video editing.

But the thing is you don’t need to create complex animations to make your video more engaging — You can go with a route.

That is just a creative choice.

The basic rule that all animations follow is show don’t tell.

It is when you show your viewers a certain event/action instead of just telling them with the audio — it makes the information easy to digest because we are now consuming the information in two formats. Video and Audio.

So in today’s email, I will tell you 3 ways that I personally use in fast-deadline projects to show the story instead of creating complex animations and banging my head:

1. Images

Most of us neglect it but, this is the easiest way to move the story forward and show it at the same time.

The only mistake we make is we slap an image directly to the video and call it a day.

That’s the wrong way — learn some design and composition techniques.

2. Brolls/clips

Another way to show don’t tell is by adding B-rolls — but most people get it wrong.

Many gurus will tell you that slap any B-roll to your video and it will work wonders — they are dead wrong.

You are not here to fill the video with B-rolls — you are here to tell the story.

So plan your B-roll, create small montages, and combine them with the correct pacing.

I promise you, that you will stop relying on animations and edit your videos 2x faster.

If you want to look at an example, watch the first 13 seconds of this video:

3. AI animations

If both the above methods don’t fit your story then get the help of AI.

Prompt out and generate images — create a sequence with it.

Animate it using simple zooms to show life in it.

You can literally create a semi-movie sequence if you just learn the basic promoting and generating the desired images.

You will need to learn a bit of composition nuance but that’s going to improve your storytelling skill overall so that’s a good thing.

Using these techniques will help you to tell the stories in a better way.

And save you from creating those complex animations for hours and hours.

I use it all the time to improve video retention, here are a few examples:

• Instead of saying 'He made millions of dollars' you could show a chest with a lot of gold and cash in it (using AI images)

• instead of saying 'I was struggling for months and months' you could show a boy learning and getting frustrated and then throwing his notebooks

• instead of saying 'This is the website I made' and then showing a screenshot of his website, you could show his website in the middle and then add his head cutout in a corner with a proud expression

You can get as creative as you want—video editing is a creative job, after all.

You can also break all the rules and find what works best for you.

Yeah, you can do that—but to break the rules of editing and create something new, you first need to learn the rules.

This is just a small taste of what you’ll get in my upcoming course, “30 Days to $1,000 Editor Roadmap.”

You’ll follow a 30-day plan to master this skill, build a portfolio, and attract potential clients—no fluff, no BS.

>>[Click here to secure the presell price]<<

I’m also offering the first 20 people a free 30-minute consultation call.

Hope this helps,

Mantu