I decided to focus on WeVideo this year because I still hate it with every fiber in my being.
WeVideo’s built-in stock library is massive, which leads to total decision paralysis (for me). It would be great to see a “best practices” segment on how to filter and curate these assets so student projects end up looking cohesive, rather than generic or tacky.
Adding a clear, step-by-step guide on how to actually generate and edit auto-captions could be a valuable addition as well.
Students might be interested in shooting footage on their smartphones. We can have explicit section showing them how to record video on their phone and cleanly pull it into the WeVideo editor.
I would say future Vivellos should focus heavily on the specific technical bottlenecks that frequently ruin student projects (in my opinion).
First, they should move away from the generic “fade in and out” buttons and master multi-track audio mixing. Learning how to create multiple audio keyframes to manually adjust the blue volume line (dipping the music precisely during a voiceover and raising it back up during transitions) makes a big difference in production quality.
Track management is another huge skill, as students can get confused by layers and accidentally hide their text overlays behind their background footage. Vivellos should focus on how to effectively stack tracks with text on top and main footage in the middle, while also learning how to use the crop and scaling tools to create polished picture-in-picture layouts.
Finally, they should practice restraint with motion graphics and transitions. If students throw in random, flashy effects or mismatched fonts, that makes academic projects look incredibly messy. (I do welcome them in informal projects though because it’s entertaining to watch!) Fellows need to learn how to deep-dive into the text engine to standardize font families, colors, and spacing, while sticking to clean, subtle transitions like basic crossfades.