Slideshows that don’t suck

Posted on 16. Apr, 2009 by Paul Burwell in Business, Everything, Videos

Although I fondly remember watching my dad’s dusty slides as a kid, I’ve never enjoyed watching slideshows of digital images on the computer. Why? Because they generally suck and bore me to tears. In fact, I had a selection of URL’s saved just so that I could lull myself to sleep if I couldn’t sleep. So, when I heard about a service called Animoto that promises to completely revolutionize computer generated slideshows I was skeptical, to say the least. But, I’m always looking for new ways to market my photography services and thought this might be a tool to help that could help with that task.

I took a look at the demos on the Animoto web site and decided they looked promising and were certainly a lot different than the sleep-inducing slideshows that I normally come across. Animoto has a free service that allows you to create an unlimited number of videos up to 30 seconds in length. Their All-Access Pass sells for $30 a year or you can trial it for $3 a video. It allows you to create full-length (up to 10 minute) videos that are viewable on their site or you can download them as MP4 files. Their Professional package includes everything in the All-Access Pass plus you can create white-label videos (no Animoto logos overlayed on the video), access to their library of royalty free music, a commercial license for your videos and free downloadable DVD images. The service sells for $249 for a year’s worth of service of $99 for the three-month trial. I signed up for the three-month trial version of their Professional Service.

Animoto bills their service as “ridiculously easy to use” and I completely agree. The process can be broken down into the following three steps:

• Get your images to Animoto (upload them or point Animoto to your images on a web site or service like Flickr)
• Choose your music (some 0f their packages come with use of their royalty-free music library) or upload your own.
  • Remember that if you are going to use your video commercially you’ll need the rights to do so or you’ll have somebody chasing after you for illegally using their music
• Click the “render” button and the Animoto servers go to work analyzing your music and creating a one-of-a-kind video out of your images.  If you aren’t happy with what Animoto comes up with for you, you can always click a “remix” button and Animoto will completely redo your video.
  • Animoto promises that no two videos will ever be the same and while I haven’t exhasutively tested this, it has held true thus far.

I decided to produce a slideshow/video of some images of mine from the Triple “D” Game Farm.  For a DVD quality presentation your images need to be about 1024 pixels on the long side.  I created a set of JPEGS for some of my favourite images and uploaded them to Animoto.  Animoto features a simple drag-and-move interface for rearranging the slides so you can customize the order they appear in the video.  Additionally, you can select slides you’d like to spotlight and you can add text slides.  Next, I went into Animoto’s library of songs and found one that I thought would work and then set Animoto to producing the video.  It takes the Animoto servers about 15 minutes to render about 1 minute of video.  So once you’ve submitted your slides for rendering you can go do something else and they’ll email you when your video is ready to be viewed.

I wanted my video to  line up with the length of the song I’d chosen.  That took a bit of experimentation in terms of the number of images to include.  Other than that, it took very little thinking on my part (that’s a good thing).

Animoto Screen Shot

When I got the video length to where I wanted it, I was really happy with the results.  Obviously it’s my work so I find it completely riveting and it has yet to lull me to sleep.  Your mileage may vary.  I love the slide transitions that Animoto produces and the way the effects and changes are synced to the music.

What didn’t I love?  I wish that the text slides allowed for a bit more customization than 2 lines of 30 character text.  I wish there was a way to move groups of photos around in the slide show instead of having to move them individually.   I also wish there were some way to choose the type of spotlighting that Animoto would use for my chosen slides.  I understand that half the fun is the “box of chocolates” approach where you never know what you’re going to get, but it might save some time and remixing if I got to choose up front.

But, that’s a pretty minor list of complaints and overall I’m very satisified.  Regardless of the type of photography you practice, I suspect that you will find Animoto to be a very useful tool for marketing and promoting your photography.

With that preliminary stuff out of the way, the proof is always in the pudding.  Take a look at the video below that I produced with Animoto and then read the remaining bit of the article and share your thoughts.   (If your computer or Internet connection doesn’t have enough horse power, the video may stutter, just pause it and wait for it to completely download and then watch it for better results)

There are two different versions.  The first a short 2 and a half minute affair while the second is about twice as long.  Please watch the one that most closely matches your maximum attention span.

I should also mention that I had Animoto render this video in DVD quality, downloaded the ISO file and burned it to DVD.  I was really pleased at how great it looks projected on my home theatre screen.  It is the high quality MP4 file that was uploaded to Vimeo in order to present the highest quality video.

What did you think?  Can you see how this might help you promote your photography or be a service you could turn around and market to your clients?  Or maybe you’ve got a “traditional” slideshow of your photography that doesn’t suck and won’t lull me to sleep.  If any or all of the above call to you, please share with the rest of the class.

Bookmark this article

Tags: animoto, music, show, slide, slideshow, Video