Animoto turns photos into video
14 Sep
Animoto is a great little service that takes photos, adds the music of your choice, and turns them into a music video.
Here’s the company’s 50-word description:
Animoto is a web application that, with the click of a button, produces videos using images and music that a user selects. Using their patent-pending Artificial Intelligence developed to think like an actual editor & director, the resulting video has the emotional impact of a movie trailer and the visual energy of a music video.
Animoto says that it analyzes your photos, “feels” your music, and it creates a custom video.
How it works: You upload your photos, pick your music from dozens of songs in several different genres, then sit back and wait for the video to be created (this step can take awhile).
Where the music comes from: Animoto includes a large selection of music available under the Creative Commons license. You can use your own music, but obviously beware of copyright. In one of the videos below, we got permission to use music from a local band.
What it costs: You can create short, 30-second videos for free. You can pay $3 per video to make full-length videos, or you can pay $30 for unlimited full-length videos for a year.
To be honest, I wouldn’t even bother with the 30-second option – unless you’re just trying out the service. It’s way too short. At least pay for a couple $3 videos.
Does it work? Absolutely. Videos are easy to make, easy to embed on your site (or blog, Facebook, YouTube, etc.). You can even buy a DVD quality video for $5.
Here are a couple examples we have created for DesMoinesRegister.com and dmJuice.com:
Shawn Johnson at the Olympics:
Gross Domestic Product music festival (you can see we forgot to add a thumbnail image):
