I have decided to add YouTube videos to my repertoire of apologetics. This was not a light decision. I really didn’t want to produce them, since I am not a good “off the cuff” speaker. I can’t sit down with an idea for a speech and make it. I have to have a careful outline. If I don’t, I will end up sounding really stupid.

Fortunately, I have found an excellent open source scriptwriting package, Celtx, that allows for the preparation of audio-visual scripts. This allows me to plan out YouTube videos. Celtx also includes a storyboarding feature, so I can lay out my videos prior to making them. All I needed was video editing software, and I was good to go.

The short version of the story behind the following YouTube video is that it was really annoying to make. This is an answer to the video “Five Questions for Christians” by Netwriter.

The long version of the story is that after I decided to answer that video and had written and storyboarded the script, I searched for video editing software. Obviously, I can’t pay for it, so I went the open source route. I found some great software, but it was for Linux only. They had a link to AVS4YOU, which is for Windows.

I assumed that the software that was recommended by an open source website would itself be open source. So I downloaded the software unquestioningly, and used it to edit the video I had scripted. Once I was satisfied, three hours later, I selected the “Produce Video” option. A dialogue box appeared informing me that unless I paid the $59 subscription fee, a watermark would be added to my video. I was, needless to say, a bit irritated.

My next step was to search for open source video editing for Windows, but I couldn’t find anything. I did, however, come across a review of the best free video editors. So I clicked on that link, and the first package listed was Microsoft Movie Maker. To my added irritation, I discovered that it is included with Windows XP on up.

So I looked on my Start Menu, and sure enough: there it was all along.