Art In Motion With Animoto

You may remember me expressing my love of Animoto before.  I love it.  
{Thank You Dr. Sheely for telling me about it 2 years ago!}


It's a quick and easy alternative to building your own videos.  I enjoy making videos in iMovie, which is fabulous, but I always struggle with adding the music.  I don't listen to music a lot and I don't have a library full of selections to add to my videos so that was the defining choice for me to choose Animoto.  They have a large library of music to choose from and if you have the Pro account the selection increases quite a bit.  No worries about violating copyright and all that legality stuff~


I have been wanting to incorporate video with my photo sessions for a while so I've been experimenting with Animoto again recently.  Here's a look at The Story of Zara that I created for my friend Sharon and her sweet baby girl.  I've titled my videos Art In Motion....because, that's exactly what it is!





If you're thinking of adding video to your photography business or just want a great program to make videos for fun, Animoto is the perfect place.  Check it out!  And be sure to share a link with me if you make your own videos...I want to see them!

Animoto ~ My Newest Obsession

Well, I asked for tradeshow advice and that's exactly what I got...GREAT advice from lots of you!


One of the overwhelming suggestions was to have a slideshow playing on a tv or computer screen.  This would allow me to show off lots more photos than I can display and also to have some fun showing some Before & Afters.


So I spent two afternoons choosing the *perfect* photos...resizing...arranging and organizing my folder...searching itunes for the *perfect* music (it doesn't exist!)...only to realize that I stink at making slideshows!  Maybe it's not my fault...maybe slideshows are just....kind of...boring?


But then I remembered a tip that a friend of mine gave me several months ago about an automatic video program called animoto.  He told me it created fabulous slideshows from your own images and automatically put them in beat with the music.  Cool.  So I checked it out...animoto...and guess what?


Animoto is my newest obsession!!


Here's just a few reasons why I love it:
1.  It's cheap.  30 seconds videos are free but 30 seconds is waaaaaaay too short.  I tried it out and made a full-length video for $3.  Tip:  If you want to be able to burn to dvd and play full screen you have to upgrade to high-res for $5.  Still pretty cheap in my opinion.  Or you can buy the all-access pass for $30 per year.  Professionals can get all kinds of goodies for around $249 a year.


2.  It's easy.  The steps are literally numbered for you and the "toolbox" is short and labeled with pictures.  My 8 year old can do it. {probably better than me}


3.  It's quick.  I have about 80+ photos in my first attempt and it was ready for me to view within 20 minutes.  Instant gratification is underrated.


4.  They have their own music.  I'm not really into the music scene thing so I was stressing about the whole music part.  Everyone knows music adds a whole new dimension of emotion to videos but getting the right music is the trick.  Animoto has several genres to choose from and it's included in the cost. 


Obviously this is awesome for photography but I've got so many more plans for this...soccer videos, my kids birth videos, the "year in pictures" videos, vacation...it's endless.  


So enough with the talk, I wanted to share with you the video I made for the tradeshow.  This one is strictly Before & After but I may make a "normal" one too...who knows...I may quit photography altogether and go into the video making business!


Take a look...and I'd love your thoughts on this (I know the first frame is out of whack)...would YOU stop and watch if you had 159 other businesses calling for your attention?



Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.