Adding a lower third name caption in Video by Zaweba

Somebody appears on screen and starts talking, and the viewer wants to know who they are. That's the job of a lower third: a short caption, usually a name and perhaps a role, sitting in the lower part of the picture for a few seconds. Video by Zaweba has a ready-made one on the Graphics menu, so naming a speaker takes moments rather than a session of building boxes and text by hand.

Adding one

Place the playhead where the speaker first appears, open the Graphics menu and choose the lower third. Replace the text with the person's name and, if you like, a second line for their job or why they're in the film. Put the clip on a track above the footage so it overlays the picture.

Timing matters more than people expect. Bring the caption in a second or so after the speaker appears, once the viewer has had a moment to look at their face, and let it stay long enough to be read twice. Four to six seconds is a comfortable range for a name and role. Then let it go. A lower third that hangs around for the whole interview becomes clutter.

Making it yours

The ready-made lower third is a starting point. It's a title, so you can restyle it like any other. If you want the same look on every speaker in the film, save it as a text style and apply that style to the other lower thirds, so a change later updates them all.

For something more designed, the graphics with layers tool lets you build a lower third from text and shape layers, with a box that grows with the words so a long name doesn't spill out of its background. You can also keep graphics of your own in the templates browser and reuse them across projects.

If you have a list of names, say a run of interviewees at an event, the graphics templates browser can make one graphic per row of a CSV file, which saves typing every caption by hand.

Where to put it on screen

Lower thirds live, as the name suggests, in the lower third of the frame, usually on the left. Keep them inside the safe margins so televisions that crop the edge don't cut letters off. If your video also has captions from speech, decide where each goes: captions often sit at the bottom centre, so lift the lower third a little or move the captions so the two don't overlap while both are showing.

Mind the background. A white name over a bright sky disappears. A simple shape behind the text, a shadow, or a slightly darker bar helps it read on any shot.

Names spelt right, every time

Spelling is the big one. A misspelt name on screen is the error people remember, so check every name with the person or their written details before you export.

Inconsistency is the other. If one speaker's caption is on the left and the next is on the right, in a different size, the film looks careless. A shared text style or a single template keeps them uniform.

And don't caption the same person over and over. Name them the first time they appear, and perhaps once more if they return after a long gap, but no more than that.

A small touch that helps

A well timed lower third in Video by Zaweba makes an interview or event video feel finished. It tells the viewer who's speaking without interrupting them, and it takes very little effort once you have a style you like.