We are developing a new direction for our magazine, The Mint. We want more engagement from the young in thinking differently about economics. After all, as the saying goes, the children are our future. They need to understand the dysfunctional nature of our economic systems and not be seduced by the mainstream economic myth of the benefits of free markets. It turns out that Kapwing could be a key tool for cracking this challenge.
As you might imagine, this is a big ask. Many people find economics incredibly dull, especially as it becomes increasingly mathematical and less connected to the real world.
So, I talked to several young people who have participated in our past initiatives, such as the Festival for Change. The universal advice was to get onto TikTok, Reals, etc., because that is where young people get their information. Facebook and X are for old people!
Of course, TikTok is not all good news, with claims that it is designed to be highly addictive with negative impacts on mental health. One of the young people specifically said they were taking time off from TikTok because they realised, they were spending far too much time on it, “doom scrolling.” However, our mission was to encourage TikTokers to leave the platform and engage with our material, so it must be a good thing.
The other advice was that our material had to look good to stand out, so there was much to consider.
This sent me on a quest to find a way to effectively convert our material, mainly long-form landscape video interviews, into short-form video content that is engaging and looks good.
The first piece of advice I received was to use Ecamm Live to create better-looking videos. This video production platform has huge formatting power, and I had great fun getting the hang of it. However, in the end, I decided it was just too complicated. Furthermore, it is too fiddly to use its functionality while also trying to concentrate on conversations with interviewees.
Meanwhile, I also came across Kapwing while searching for an app to convert landscape videos into portrait videos for TikTok. I looked at a few, but what impressed me about Kapwing is its use of AI to capture the person speaking on the landscape video and ensure they are centred in the portrait video. You can see in the image below that it is pretty easy.
It is also great at transcriptions, which you can use to edit and improve the video and create short clips. The transcriptions also allow the automatic creation of subtitles in a whole range of styles, which is essential too. Very neat, indeed.
As I began experimenting with Lapwing, I realised I could use it to make basic interview recordings from Zoom look good. So, I didn’t need a sophisticated app like Ecamm and promptly cancelled my subscription.
Lapwing lets you put your video into a wider design with logos and brand colours. You can also create templates, so producing better-looking videos from Zoom recordings should be a piece of cake, which is important as we don’t have much time.
So, I conclude that if you want a tool to create attractive material to engage young people through short-form videos, Kapwing could be just what you need.
You can explore more on their website: Kapwing.com