Food has a magical way of bringing people together during the holidays. This year has made it especially clear what (and who) matters most, and here at Vyond, that’s you. The folks who make up the Vyond Community are part of our extended family, so we wanted to share with you some of our very favorite foods.
We hope you enjoy these stories about the recipes that bring our families together, while learning to make great food—and great videos—in the process.
Recipes for a Great Video
Watch and learn how to make some of this great food, then explore the Vyond features we used to create these stories.
“Dude, It’s So Easy” Latkes
If you’ve never made latkes before, don’t worry: it’s easy. In this step-by-step video, author Sarah Tang Steinmetz shows us a simple way to make perfect latkes and tells us the story behind her cookbook Dude, It’s So Easy.
Ingredients for Simple Latkes- 6 medium potatoes
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup of flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking powder
- Dash of pepper
- Canola oil
| Cooking Instructions- Wash, peel, and grate the potatoes and onions
- Drain excess moisture
- Beat eggs
- Mix ingredients
- Shape latkes in a pan
- Fry them in oil for 2 minutes on each side
- Drain on paper bags
- Top with sour cream and onion
|
Special Video Feature
At the beginning of this video, the editor (meet Sofala below) chose to use family photos as b-roll over Sarah’s interview. B-roll, or supplemental footage, helps keep viewers engaged during what might otherwise be a long and still scene. Sarah’s food story includes a mix of both animated and live-action b-roll footage.
Sofala is a big fan of these Polaroid-style photo scenes and has created many variations during her years at Vyond. You can access similar photo collage template scenes in Sofala’s HBCU and Women’s Suffrage template videos. Our Travel Vlog, Employee Appreciation Day, and Travel Destinations video templates also have variations of this style.
Secret Family Ensaymadas
In this video story, Vyond designer Marco shows us how his mother turned a favorite Filipino pastry into a small business during the pandemic. While we can’t share this secret family recipe, you can learn more about the history of ensaymadas and then check to see if there’s a Filipino bakery you can support in your hometown!
Special Video Features
Marco’s interview with his mom was conducted via video call. The meeting recording isn’t the best quality, so he sized the video down, masked it into a shape to round the corners, and added it to a styled background in Vyond Studio. This background design was created by adding themed assets from the Contemporary style to the scene, changing them to one single color, and arranging them into a pattern.
Holiday Collard Greens
Even though Sofala couldn’t get home for her dad’s collard greens this year, she still managed to share a meal with him. Watch as Sofala learns to make her family’s signature dish.
Ingredients for Dad’s Greens- 3 bunches of collard greens
- 2 garlic cloves
- half an onion
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 smoked turkey wings/legs
Substitute or add ingredients to your personal taste. | Cooking Instructions- Cut and wash your greens; soak for 15 minutes
- Fill a large pot 1/4 of the way with water and bring it to a boil
- Add onions, garlic, salt, pepper, bay leaves, and two smoked turkey legs to start seasoning the water
- Stir and let simmer for 20 minutes
- Add greens and cook for 20-30 minutes
|
Special Video Features
Sofala’s video is mostly live-action with animated elements sprinkled in. At :23 seconds she places a masked photo inside a heart shape, groups it with an animated phone asset, and layers it on top of her live-action video. She also has animated recipe instructions appear throughout the video. Both of these visuals were accomplished by exporting the animation out of Vyond and removing the background in Adobe Premiere. You could alternatively layer animation over your MP4 in Vyond Studio.
Grandma’s Cheesecake Cookies
Nothing beats grandma’s cookies. Bake along with Stacy in this video recipe:
Ingredients for Cherry Cheesecake Cookies- (2) 8oz. packages of cream cheese
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 can of cherry pie filling (or other fruit)
- Package of Nilla wafers (or homemade crust)
| Baking Instructions- Preheat oven to 350
- Add cream cheese and sugar to your stand mixer and mix
- Add eggs and vanilla and mix until whipped
- Line your muffin tin with wafers or homemade crust
- Fill your tins with a piping bag or spoon
- Cook for 12 minutes
- Top with cherries (or other fruit)
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Special Video Features
The animated cookies at :39 seconds and the muffin tin at 1:32 are made entirely from shapes in Vyond. The video editor, Taylor, used mostly circles, triangles, and trapezoids grouped together to create the custom elements. Learn how to create animated props from shapes in this tutorial video.
Supporting Local Food Banks
As we celebrate the culture of sharing a good meal, we know that food insecurity reached an all-time high this year.
Everyone should be able to access nourishing meals during the holiday season, and food banks need our help now more than ever. This video highlights ways to give back to food banks during a time of unprecedented need.
Cooking Instructions
- For now, swap food drives for virtual fundraisers.
- Access this corporate giving campaign template and modify it to fit your company giving program.
Special Video Features
Video creators, Prakriti and Kevin, had a vision for an animated flat-lay food scene. Prakriti carefully chose food props from our contemporary style and created a nice tablescape. Vyond customers can access and use the table scene, or the entire video, as a template here. Note: the custom characters used in this template can only be accessed from within this video.
You’ll also notice that many characters in this video are wearing face masks. In Vyond Studio you can search “mask” to find stock characters with face masks. You can also add face masks to custom characters in the character creator. Note: the Contemporary style characters shown above can only be customized with Professional and Enterprise subscriptions.
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