# Tips for introductory slides

Below are several tips for creating impressive introductory slides.

- Use an image for the first slide: Create an image or use your company logo for the opening slide in your movie. Insert the image as a slide or add a graphic to a blank slide or a colored slide.

- Add sound: Captivate makes it easy to add sound to movies, and sound is very powerful in an introduction. You can add existing sound files or record your own voiceover. You can include a welcome message or play some appropriate music.

Tip: Captivate contains a gallery that has buttons, sounds, and animations (in SWF format) for you to use in your projects. By default, the gallery is stored in the following location when you install Captivate: C:Program Files\Macromedia\Captivate\Gallery.

- Use special effects: If you are going to use special effects in your movie, why not start off with them? Quality special effects (like fading, for example) create a polished and professional look right from the start.

- Use animated text: For an easy and impressive introductory slide, use Captivate's animated text feature. This is a fast way to create a sophisticated look for your movie.

- Use captions strategically: Add multiple captions to your introductory slide and then carefully set their timing so they fade in and out, one at a time.

- Consider a load screen: A load screen is a screen that briefly appears before your movie begins. It usually contains a message such as "loading the movie" or an interesting graphic to hold attention. A load screen can be useful if the first slide of a movie is large or contains audio. In such a case, a load screen allows the movie to load while the viewer's attention is focused elsewhere.