What is Web-Based, Automatic Video Production Software for Photography?
It doesn’t matter if you have a photography business, or simply enjoy the artistic side of photography. It’s important to display or present your creative genius the best way you can without it costing too much or even less if you catch my drift. A clumsy email (containing prints) to customers, friends and relations is often mistakenly thwarted by virus detectors or some other electronic nemesis. Snail-mail takes too long and sometimes the most carefully packaged prints get lost or damaged in the post. By the way, how do you get your images out there to the public so they can access and admire your work?
You’ve probably guessed I’m about to address online video portfolios. The problem with video is that it most often requires a whole bunch of different and new technical skills to learn again. I for one have had enough of learning a new software package from scratch… then along came this little photographer’s treasure.
What is Animoto?
Animoto is a web-based, video production tool that creates professional-quality videos from your photographs, through an automatic process. Animoto is so effective and efficient that it can almost be described as like a video slot machine; deposit your photos to the site, state a few preferences, press the button and out pops a fully-edited, fully-produced, professional-quality video! In fact, some have actually described the videos as being like a movie trailer for your photos!
Take photos from an event or a special time in your life and turn them into exciting videos that you can share with friends, family and others. This service is exciting because there are no limits to the ways that you can share the videos that are made: email them, upload them to Facebook, Youtube, store them on your computer and more. Animoto is so simple to use. All that you need is a collection of photos and go!!
The Benefits of Animoto:
- A great way to store your memories
- A fun way to store memories
- A great way to entertain friends and family
- Makes your memories last longer
Animoto can be used in all sorts of ways. It can be used on a personal level just to have fun and make memories last longer. It can be a great way to entertain family and friends. In another way, since the videos are produced at professional quality, Animoto can also be used for commercial purposes as well. The ability to produce strong, commercial videos at a low price is great news for photography business owners specifically. As broadband speeds only get faster and faster, more online businesses are choosing to take full advantage of videos as a way to promote products and services. Photographers and realtors can also benefit greatly from videos that highlight the visuals of what they do.
Basic Animoto Features:
- Automatic video creation
- Musical soundtrack
- Use of subtitles
- Text narration of photos or tell a funny story
Users of Animoto do not have to work very hard to put an interesting, fun-packed video together. Although traditional video production is a lengthy, time-consuming affair, Animoto software automates the entire process and can provide you with a quality video with very little effort and very little time.
How to Make a Video on Animoto:
1. Upload your photos
2. Choose a free soundtrack or upload a music file from your computer
3. Add subtitles or text narration
4. Animoto does the rest!
Basically, you can turn your photos and images into quality-produced videos that have a soundtrack. When you are putting your video materials together, you can either choose from the growing library of tunes provided by Animoto, or you can upload a favorite tune of your own from your computer. Animoto software then takes your files and automatically edits and produces the video for you.
Once the video is finished, you can review it, email it to friends, download it to your computer, save it to disc and post it or choose to do a variety of other things with it. The options are limitless. Not only that, if you do not like the video that Animoto produces, you can submit your files for another spin! One of the fun things about Animoto is that it never creates the same video twice. The video produced the second time will be different to the first video even if you use the exact same files and photos.
Professional Pricing Plan Features:
- DVD quality videos
- No restriction on use.
- Videos can be used commercially.
- A call to action button can be placed on videos
Various pricing plans exist for Animoto. There is the free version which is a very basic, no-frills version of the tool. This is a good way to try it. It will not produce videos longer than 30 seconds and any additional features have a one-time fee. The professional pricing plan is the most expensive plan and it allows you complete access to every Animoto feature for free once you have paid the annual fee. The All Access Pass is the service plan that falls between the free and the professional versions of Animoto. It has considerably more features than the free version yet it is less expensive and less feature-packed than the professional version. It’s so cool, I bet it will stimulate ideas the first time you visit Animoto. It’s a photographers dream come true on a budget.
