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How to Make Animated Videos with Keynote Quickly and Easily

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Based on 156 ratings
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Keynote Animator

Most video animation software comes with high costs and steep learning curves. And though there are many online animation tools trying to solve this problem, they require an internet connection and recurring payments.

If you own a Mac, however, Keynote is easy to use and free.

You might know Keynote as a presentation tool. But in reality, it's so much more — it comes with 30+ animation effects, more than 700 customizable shapes, and many other useful features for making videos.

Read more

Most video animation software comes with high costs and steep learning curves. And though there are many online animation tools trying to solve this problem, they require an internet connection and recurring payments.

If you own a Mac, however, Keynote is easy to use and free.

You might know Keynote as a presentation tool. But in reality, it's so much more — it comes with 30+ animation effects, more than 700 customizable shapes, and many other useful features for making videos.

In this course, you’ll discover the settings and techniques you need to unlock Keynote's potential as a robust animation tool. By the end, you'll be able to produce custom animated videos quickly and easily.

What do I get with this course?

  • 90+ minutes of on-demand training videos

  • 4 follow-along exercises with project files

  • 5 popular royalty-free songs from Music for Makers

  • Custom illustrated character made and editable in Keynote

  • 17 blank social media templates set to best practice dimension ratios

How can I apply what I learn in this course?

Using techniques taught in this course, you'll be able to use Keynote to make:

  • Explainer videos

  • Promotional videos for social media

  • Animated intros and transitions for videos

  • Kinetic typography animations

  • Overlay motion graphics (e.g., lower thirds)

... and more.

What if I'm not an artist or technically inclined?

The great thing about Keynote is that it makes animation accessible to everyone. Regardless of your experience or skill level, you'll be able to create animated videos you're proud of after taking this course.

Enroll now

What's inside

Learning objectives

  • Setting up and using keynote as a video and animation tool
  • Animating objects, text, transitions, and more
  • Designing custom characters and objects
  • Creating transparent overlay graphics (such as lower thirds)
  • Adding music, sound effects, and voiceovers
  • Resizing videos for facebook stories, instagram, and other social channels

Syllabus

Get to know your instructor and discover the settings that make Keynote a powerful video creation tool.

Pro tip: Did you know you can change the playback speed of these videos? If you'd like to watch at a slower pace, click the "1x" button in the bottom left of the video player and select "0.5x speed."

Read more

Note: At this time, there's not an easy way to import and edit SVGs within Keynote. However, it is possible if you have Powerpoint. Check out the resources section for tips on that.

Note: If the "Apply motion blur" setting is greyed out, it might mean your graphics card isn't powerful enough. But don't fret — motion blur is a very subtle effect. So, your animations will still look good without it.

Note: If your animations don't seem to be playing correctly when previewing from the Build Order menu, select "Play Slideshow" from the "Play" menu in the top navigation bar (or press command + option + p) for a more accurate preview.

Update: In this video, I mention and use the "Typewriter" text animation. However, it appears Apple has removed that animation in the latest version of Keynote (10.0). You can get a similar effect with the "Keyboard" option.

Update: In this video, I use the "Typewriter" text animation. However, it appears Apple has removed that animation in the latest version of Keynote (10.0). You can get a similar effect with the "Keyboard" option.

Thanks so much for taking my course! I hope you're excited by what you've learned. For more Mac tutorials, check out the links in the resources section.

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Reviews summary

Unlock keynote for easy video animation

According to learners, this course is a highly effective way to learn how to create animated videos using Apple Keynote. Many are surprised by Keynote's capabilities as a video tool, finding that the course unlocks its hidden potential. Students describe the instruction as clear, concise, and easy to follow, making complex topics accessible. The course is particularly recommended for beginners and those seeking a quick and practical method for creating content like explainer videos or social media graphics without needing complex, expensive software. While Keynote itself has some limitations compared to professional animation tools, learners feel this course provides a solid foundation and practical skills for their needs. The hands-on exercises and project files are frequently mentioned as valuable components.
Exercises reinforce learning through practice.
"The follow-along exercises were super helpful."
"Practicing with the project files solidified my understanding."
"Doing the exercises really helped me get comfortable with the techniques."
Instructor is clear, concise, and easy to follow.
"The instructor explains everything clearly and at a good pace."
"Loved the concise lessons; easy to digest and follow."
"Excellent teaching style, made learning enjoyable and straightforward."
Focuses on practical, immediately usable techniques.
"I can immediately apply these techniques to create social media videos."
"Learned practical skills for making explainer videos quickly."
"The methods shown are highly applicable to real-world projects."
Makes animation accessible and easy for beginners.
"Great course for absolute beginners to animation and video."
"It's a very simple and easy-to-understand approach to video creation."
"Anyone can follow along, even without prior design or animation skills."
Reveals Keynote's surprising power for animation.
"Didn't realize Keynote was capable of this level of animation!"
"The course really unlocked Keynote's potential as a video tool for me."
"I was amazed by how much you can do with Keynote beyond presentations."
Notes Keynote's inherent limits vs pro software.
"While great, Keynote isn't a full replacement for professional animation tools."
"It's important to understand Keynote's limitations for complex animations."
"Good for simple videos, but you'll hit limits on advanced features."

Activities

Be better prepared before your course. Deepen your understanding during and after it. Supplement your coursework and achieve mastery of the topics covered in How to Make Animated Videos with Keynote Quickly and Easily with these activities:
Review Basic Animation Principles
Reviewing basic animation principles will provide a solid foundation for understanding the animation techniques taught in Keynote.
Browse courses on Animation Principles
Show steps
  • Research the 12 principles of animation.
  • Find examples of each principle in animated videos.
  • Practice applying these principles to simple shapes in Keynote.
Study 'Understanding Comics'
Studying this book will improve your understanding of visual storytelling, leading to more engaging and effective animated videos.
View The Cartoonists Club: a Graphic Novel on Amazon
Show steps
  • Read the chapters on visual vocabulary and storytelling techniques.
  • Analyze how these techniques are used in animated videos.
  • Apply these techniques to your own Keynote animations.
Read 'The Animator's Survival Kit'
Reading this book will provide a deeper understanding of animation principles, leading to more effective use of Keynote's animation features.
View Adventures in Animation: How I Learned Who I... on Amazon
Show steps
  • Read the sections on timing, spacing, and squash and stretch.
  • Experiment with these concepts in Keynote.
Four other activities
Expand to see all activities and additional details
Show all seven activities
Animate a Social Media Ad
Animating a social media ad will provide practical experience in creating engaging content for a specific platform.
Show steps
  • Choose a product or service to promote.
  • Design a visually appealing ad in Keynote.
  • Animate the ad with engaging effects.
  • Optimize the ad for the target platform.
Follow Advanced Keynote Animation Tutorials
Following advanced tutorials will expose you to more complex animation techniques and expand your Keynote skillset.
Show steps
  • Search for tutorials on specific animation effects.
  • Replicate the techniques in Keynote.
  • Adapt the techniques to your own projects.
Create a Short Animated Explainer Video
Creating an explainer video will allow you to apply the techniques learned in the course and solidify your understanding of Keynote animation.
Show steps
  • Choose a simple topic to explain.
  • Write a script and storyboard.
  • Animate the video in Keynote.
  • Add voiceover and music.
  • Export and share your video.
Create a Template Library
Creating a template library will allow you to reuse elements and speed up your animation workflow.
Show steps
  • Design reusable elements in Keynote.
  • Organize the elements into a library.
  • Document how to use each element.

Career center

Learners who complete How to Make Animated Videos with Keynote Quickly and Easily will develop knowledge and skills that may be useful to these careers:
Freelance Video Creator
A freelance video creator produces videos for clients. This course helps build a foundation for independent work as a freelance video creator. The course equips the learner with the ability to create various types of videos, including explainer videos, promotional videos, animated intros, and motion graphics using Keynote. These are all services that this kind of professional might offer. The course also provides blank social media templates which can be valuable for the freelance video creator. The course teaches these skills quickly and easily, which is essential for a freelancer who needs to work fast. A freelance video creator who takes this course will gain the ability to provide effective video services to clients.
See salaries and explore the career path for Freelance Video Creator
Social Media Content Creator
A social media content creator develops content for social media platforms. This course helps build a foundation for creating engaging videos. The course shows how to produce promotional videos for social media, resize videos for various platforms, and create animated intros. These are all essential skills for a social media content creator. By learning how to use Keynote's animation features, a social media content creator can produce eye catching content. The provided social media templates, along with skills in video creation using Keynote, greatly empowers a social media content creator. This course helps one to create content quickly and easily.
See salaries and explore the career path for Social Media Content Creator
Digital Content Producer
A digital content producer creates digital content for various platforms. This course helps build a foundation for video creation that is central to a digital content producer. The course shows how to create various types of animated videos, including explainer videos, promotional videos for social media, and kinetic typography animations, all of which are useful for a digital content producer. The ability to design custom characters and objects and work with provided templates will help a digital content producer create unique content fast. If you're a digital content producer, this course helps you add video to your repertoire easily.
See salaries and explore the career path for Digital Content Producer
Motion Graphics Designer
A motion graphics designer creates animated visuals for various media, and this course helps build a foundation for that. The course teaches how to animate objects, text, and transitions using Keynote, a tool for creating videos. This is the kind of software that is frequently used within the field of motion graphics. The skills to create motion graphics, overlay graphics, and kinetic typography animations with Keynote directly apply to this role. Moreover, learning how to use Keynote to produce custom animated videos quickly and easily will improve a motion graphic designer's efficiency. A motion graphics designer who takes this course will enhance their skillset and be able to create visually engaging content.
See salaries and explore the career path for Motion Graphics Designer
Animator
An animator creates moving images, and this course will help build a foundation for that. While many animators rely on complex software, this course provides an approach for animating with an accessible tool. This course focuses on using Keynote to animate objects, text, transitions, and more for video. This is of huge value for an animator who desires to create videos using Keynote. The course teaches how to design custom characters and objects, which is essential for animation. An animator will learn to translate their vision into moving images using the techniques in this course.
See salaries and explore the career path for Animator
Presentation Designer
A presentation designer creates visually engaging presentations. This course helps build a foundation for creating engaging presentations with video. While Keynote is known as a presentation tool, this course unlocks its potential as an animation tool. Presentation designers often need to incorporate animations into their work, and this course teaches you to do that with Keynote. The ability to animate objects and text, and add transitions using Keynote gives a presentation designer new capacity. Moreover, the ability to design custom characters and objects are useful skills in presentation design. This course provides a unique set of abilities for any presentation designer.
See salaries and explore the career path for Presentation Designer
Content Marketing Specialist
A content marketing specialist creates content to promote a brand. This course is useful, as it teaches how to use Keynote for making promotional videos for social media. This course directly supports a content marketing specialist, by showing them how to create animated video content. The ability to resize videos for social media can be an important capability. The skills to create different kinds of videos, such as explainer videos, animated intros, and motion graphics, will make any content marketing specialist a more capable content creator. Furthermore, this course teaches a method of creating branded content quickly and easily.
See salaries and explore the career path for Content Marketing Specialist
Digital Marketing Specialist
A digital marketing specialist is responsible for marketing products or services through digital channels. This course will help a digital marketing specialist to create compelling video content. The course focuses on making promotional videos for social media, which is an essential skill for digital marketing. This course also provides skills that will allow a digital marketing specialist to produce animated intros and transitions, overlay motion graphics, and kinetic typography animations, all of which could lead to more effective digital marketing. If you're a digital marketing specialist who wishes to expand their capabilities, this course will help you create that.
See salaries and explore the career path for Digital Marketing Specialist
E-Learning Developer
An e learning developer creates online learning content, and this course may help them to create engaging video content. This course provides skills to create explainer videos, which are key to effective e learning content. The e learning developer can use Keynote to create kinetic typography animations that are effective in online courses. Also, an e learning developer can use the provided social media templates and animations to make engaging quizzes or advertisements for their online courses. Furthermore, a e learning developer can use the provided character and shapes to make custom visuals. These skills learned in this course may be beneficial to an e learning developer.
See salaries and explore the career path for E-Learning Developer
Video Editor
A video editor manipulates and arranges video footage to create a final product, and this course may be useful in that journey. The course teaches how to set up Keynote as a video and animation tool and how to export video for use elsewhere. Importantly, the course includes lessons on adding sound effects, music, and voiceovers, which are essential for video editing. It also includes instruction on editing video in iMovie, which is a practical skill for a video editor. If you're a video editor and you want to learn how to create custom animated videos, this course may be useful to you.
See salaries and explore the career path for Video Editor
Graphic Designer
A graphic designer creates visual content. This course may be useful for a graphic designer who wishes to add motion to their work. The course teaches how to design custom characters and objects, an important skill for any graphic designer. The skills in this course, combined with skills in graphic design, could make the graphic designer more productive. This course also teaches ways to create transparent overlay graphics. If you are a graphic designer looking for ways to create motion graphics, this course may be useful.
See salaries and explore the career path for Graphic Designer
Instructional Designer
An instructional designer creates learning materials, and this course may be useful. The course teaches how to build explainer videos, which are useful in instruction. The tools taught will allow the instructional designer to create animated videos with Keynote. By learning how to create motion graphics, lower thirds, kinetic typography animations, and animated intros, the instructional designer can create professional learning materials. If you're an instructional designer who wishes to create videos for training, this course may be useful.
See salaries and explore the career path for Instructional Designer
Marketing Assistant
A marketing assistant supports marketing activities, and this course may be useful for the role. This course teaches the creation of promotional videos for social media, something that a marketing assistant may need to do. Learning how to make animated intros and overlay motion graphics will make a marketing assistant more versatile. The skills taught in this course may make a marketing assistant more productive in certain kinds of tasks. This course may be useful for a marketing assistant who wishes to expand their skillset.
See salaries and explore the career path for Marketing Assistant
Communications Specialist
A communications specialist manages communications for an organization or client. This course may help a communications specialist to convey information using video. A communications specialist can use the video creation skills from this course to create explainer videos for complicated topics. They can also create engaging social media content with the skills taught in this course. They can use the skills to create animated intros for videos that they create. The ability to create overlay graphics such as lower thirds can provide a professional polish to the videos they produce. This course may be useful for a communications specialist looking to communicate visually.
See salaries and explore the career path for Communications Specialist
Creative Director
A creative director leads the creative team and vision for a project. Although a creative director may not be doing hands-on video editing or graphic design, familiarity with the tools used by their team can be valuable. This course teaches how to use Keynote as a video and animation tool. The creative director, with this knowledge, may more effectively guide their team, and understand the possibilities for video production with Keynote. Moreover, the creative director may use this course to add video production to their own personal skill set. This course may be useful for a creative director seeking a better understanding of video production or wanting to create videos themselves.
See salaries and explore the career path for Creative Director

Reading list

We've selected two books that we think will supplement your learning. Use these to develop background knowledge, enrich your coursework, and gain a deeper understanding of the topics covered in How to Make Animated Videos with Keynote Quickly and Easily.
Cover image
ADVENTURES IN ANIMATION
Save
Comprehensive guide to animation principles and techniques. It provides in-depth explanations and examples that can enhance your understanding of animation concepts. While not specific to Keynote, the fundamental knowledge gained from this book will greatly improve your animation skills. It valuable resource for anyone serious about animation.
Adventures in Animation: How I Learned Who I...
Hardcover
$$
Cover image
The Cartoonists Club: a Graphic Novel
Save
Explores the theory and history of comics, providing insights into visual storytelling. Understanding the principles of visual communication can enhance your ability to create effective animated videos. While not directly related to Keynote, the concepts in this book will improve your overall design and storytelling skills. It valuable resource for anyone interested in visual media.
The Cartoonists Club: a Graphic Novel
Paperback
Check
The Cartoonists Club: a Graphic Novel
Kindle Edition
Check

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Effort
1.5 total hours
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Keynote Animator
Language
English
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