Slideshow video with narration

A frame is one picture plus its words

The unit here is not a slide, it is a frame: an image and the text that enters with it, held, then replaced by the next. A scene built from several such pairs shows one drag handle per frame in the timeline, so you set the hold for each picture individually. Frames can accumulate, building a pile or a grid on screen, or replace one another like a slideshow proper, where each frame's caption disappears as the next arrives.

One narration line per picture

Rather than a single track running over everything, a sequenced scene takes a separate narration entry per frame, index aligned to the beats. When any of those entries has audio it replaces the scene level narration entirely, so the voice you hear is the line written about the picture on screen. The director is told to keep each of those lines short, around five to eight words, because a frame is only on screen for a moment.

Timing that follows the voice

When you record or synthesise narration for a scene, the scene grows to fit the audio, adding the delay, the clip at its playback speed and a small tail. The original duration is remembered as a base, so shortening the line shrinks the scene back rather than leaving a gap. Turning on sequential mode does not change the total length either: the existing duration is spread evenly across the frames first, and you adjust from there.

Not a Ken Burns machine

It is worth being clear about what this does not do. There is no per photo pan and zoom you set by dragging a rectangle. Motion comes from the scene layout, from the pace setting, and from the entrance animation chosen per slot, of which there are nineteen. Pictures are not upscaled either, apart from a hero slot filling most of the frame, so a small photo stays at its native size rather than being blown up soft.

How it works, in three steps

1. Step 1

   Upload the pictures in order

   Display order is what the director reads, and images that clearly belong together are grouped and shown in one scene in the order given.

2. Step 2

   Write a line per picture

   In the brief, describe each photo in a few words. Those become the per frame narration, so the voice matches what is on screen.

3. Step 3

   Drag the holds

   Open the scene in the timeline and pull each frame handle. The minimum hold is a third of a second, which is enough for a fast montage.

The full walkthrough with screenshots is in the guide Add voiceover, captions and music to a video.

Limits worth knowing

• Eight images per generation, so a long photo set has to be split across more than one video.
• There is no per image pan and zoom control. Movement comes from the layout and the pace setting.
• A gallery layout tops out at eight pictures in one scene, and most hold three or four.
• Music loops over the whole video and ducks to 22 percent under the voice. It cannot be cut to the picture changes.

Questions people ask

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