Video can add a lot to your presentation if used well, and with so many devices out there that can capture video these days it’s easier than ever to shoot your own footage to include in your next presentation.

Ideally, your video would take up the entire slide, but it’s not always possible to obtain video at a high enough resolution to do that. A second-best choice is to use a black background to eliminate distracting borders or clutter around the video, but sometimes this strategy doesn’t fit with the template you’ve chosen (or has been mandated by your company, conference organizer, etc.). To de-emphasize any text and background graphics while the movie is playing, I came up with this neat way to make it seem like someone’s dimming the lights on your slide. (Someone, somewhere has probably come up with the same thing before, but I really did figure it out on my own. Honest.)

Here’s how it works.

Your slide will ultimately end up with three layers. The first layer is the slide itself and all of the background graphics, text, and anything else you have on the slide. On the example slide below, I have chosen a simple, white background (which would be quite distracting while the video is playing) and some simple text.

For the second layer, simply use the shape tool to draw a rectangle the full size of the slide.

Change the fill color of the rectangle you just added to black, and set the transparency to something suitable. The transparency should leave the slide pretty dark, but you should still be able to just make out what the text says. Play around with it until you like what you see. In the example, I’ve set the transparency to 25%.

Once you have the rectangle looking the way you want, the final layer is the video itself. Make sure that this sits on top of the rectangle you just created. If not, the rectangle will dim your video as well as the background, which is not so good.

The last step is to set the animation for the semi-transparent rectangle. Set the Entrance Effect animation to Fade, and set it to occur at a moderate pace so it’s not too fast, not too slow.

That’s all there is to it. You can also set your video to begin playing right after this animation so it’s one seamless effect. When you run the slide, it will start out looking like a normal slide with embedded video. Then when you’re ready for the video to start, click your mouse and the slide’s lights will dim making it easy for the audience to focus on the contents of your video alone.

Click here to download a copy of this slide and see exactly how it works.