I’m going to show you how to create really simple but impressive video slideshow by converting all your images or video into a short sequence mixed with music. If you like, you can burn it to a CD, a DVD, and then share it with your friends or post it online. As a person who loves video editing, I also know editing can take many countless hours to achieve your desired effect and can also require a massive learning curve if you want your videos to look half decent. I was quite amazed when I first looked into this software, because Animoto changes this completely. This tool is more of a press button – upload – drag and drop and your done! (Okay enough about that…before I start sounding like a salesperson!)
I’ve decided to create a video in Animoto to highlight the year that was 2010 for me. At the same time, I thought I would show you how easy it is!
To create a video, you’ll need to sign up for an account via Animoto.com (affiliate link)
Step one: Plan your video
Before we dive into Animoto and start creating, I would recommend taking the time to plan or script your video. You don’t need to spend too much time on this process, but having a good understanding of how you will organise your video will make it much easier when you get to the point of editing your video. Think about the overall message that you would like to portray, and who is your intended audience? Are they your friends and family? Are they business associates?
Look over your photo library and identify what images you could use. Start thinking of some catchy captions! Note: Animoto restricts text to two lines per screen, with 22 characters on the first line, and 30 characters on the second. If you need more room, you may need to either have multiple text screens for your message, or create an image in Photoshop, and type set your text from there. If you want to release your video online, or share your video in anyway, you may want to plan ahead your audio options – do you use royalty free music or music licensed under Creative Commons? Note: Animoto does have a stock library built in, so if you aren’t too sure yet, you can always pick one from their music library and know that the music police won’t chase after you!
Step two: Click on ‘create video’
Once you have a basic idea on the structure of your video, you can choose a video style. There are quite a few to choose from, ranging from special holiday themes to more generic everyday themes. I recommend browsing through a couple, and work out what style fits with your message. Once you’ve picked a theme, all you need to do there is click create. I’m going to choose the theme called ‘simplicity’.
Step three: Select your imagery
You can select from either their stock image and video library or you can upload your own clips. For me, I want this to be personalised, so that’s why I’m going to upload images from my computer. Click on ‘upload from your computer’, and navigate to your pictures or video folder. Note: depending on the speed of your internet connection, it may take a while for the images or video to upload.
Once you’ve uploaded all your images and created text screens using the text tool, you may need to shuffle your images around so that your sequence flows logically. All you need to do is drag and drop! (Just think, in the days of analogue video editing, editors would manually cut (with scissors) the tape and tape it up with another to create a sequence. Imagine how time consuming that would have been!)
Step four: Select your music
We now need to select the music to go with our images. You have two options: you can either select from their library or upload your own music clip in MP3 format. Typically, the length of your audio will be the length of your video, so keep that in mind!
Just a reminder that if you upload your favourite music, you cannot legally distribute it to your friends online if it is protected by certain copyright laws. As mentioned earlier, I would recommend using royalty free or creative commons music.
Step five: Pacing
The majority of the pacing of the video will be generated on the fly dependent on the type of music that you select. What a time saver! There are a few settings that you do have control over, including:
i. “Image pacing”: “1/2 speed” “Normal speed”, and “2x speed” – I recommend normal speed unless you want your images to appear extra slow or fast.
ii. “Video Length: “Short” or “Full Length” – I recommend full length, as this will use the entire audio (that’s if you have sufficient images at the right pacing). If you want a short ‘preview’ of your video, then you might want to select “short”.
iii. “Video Style” = If you wish to choose a different style, you can still change this now.
iv. “Options” = Tick . We wanna hide the logo, so there’s no Animoto branding appearing on the video. Note: this feature requires you to upgrade your account to a paid membership.
v. Then click ”continue”
You can type in a brief title and description, remembering you can always change this later if you plan to download and re-upload to other video hosting sites like Youtube / Facebook. Then, click on “create video”.
Step six: Render the video
As you can see, it’s really quite an easy process. You will be sent an email when the video has finished rendering and is available for your to view. If you upgrade your account, you’ll be able to download full length videos in high-definition without any Animoto branding! You could then burn this to a DVD, send it to your friends and family, and even post it to Youtube or Facebook, etc. But, I hope that gave you a very good overview of how simple this process can be!
Just a final note: any link contained within this page is an affiliate link, which means if you do later decide to sign up for the Pro account, a small portion of the amount you pay will go to me. I hope this post was valuable and I am happy to answer any of your questions. Thank you!
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