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I have become very happy making videos at Animoto.com, in case you couldn't tell by all the videos showing up here.
I am finding that it pays to create an efficient work flow and to triple check the order of the images before finalizing in Animoto. Animoto is an amazing piece of software, but it doesn't select your images for you, it doesn't get rid of the ones that don't fit in, and it definitely doesn't prepare the artistic elements of the individual images.
So. how do I prepare images, pictures, for Animoto video creation? Here's how I get a set of pictures ready to upload to Animoto. You can use any good image cataloging/editing software. Aperture, ACDSee, and Picasa should all work fine. Here, I describe my Animoto workflow using Lightroom 2, so adjust the instructions to fit your software.
Select
I use Lightroom 2 to import images, select the ones I want to use in the video, and drop them into a Quick Collection. As you're viewing each image, just hit "B" without the quotes to add the image to the Quick Collection, or remove it if it is already in the QC.
Cull
When you have gone through all the images you are considering, open the Quick Collection or wherever your selected images are now residing and cull out the ones that looked good the first time through but don't fit in with rest. In Lightroom 2, you can hit "B" again to remove the image you are viewing from the Quick Collection. As you may see in my videos, the images I wasn't sure should be included, shouldn't have been included.
Sort
Put them in a logical, or creative, or chronological, or some kind of story telling order. It is important to do this before you start doing the processing on the images. You may also find a couple more at this point that don't quite fit anywhere. Unless they are masterpieces, move them out. They will come back to haunt you when you have an Animoto video that you love except for that one darn image you were going to dump.
Make Art
Okay, we have a lean mean selection of images, and they are in the order we want them. Now is the time to begin processing. By that I mean doing whatever it is that distinguishes your art from mine. I have a ton of presets that I use to get repeatable consistent results on various types of images. Make them the way you want and consider how they look next to each other. Look for patterns of style and emphasize or contrast those patterns.
Make Scenes
The Animoto software seems to be aware of consistency over a segment of images and harmonizes them into scenes that give the video the look of an editor slaving over multiple monitors for hours giving each scene a flow that fits with the images. Or, is it my imagination. Doesn't matter, it looks that way to me. Take a look at the rather plain flying butterfly images in my Pismo Environmental. See how Animoto stacked the similar images and how it handled a scene like that? I can almost hear my little Animoto editor saying, "Why in the world did he put these rather plain images in here? I'll just stack 'em up and flip through them."
You may also choose to vary the style of the images that are next to each other to get that bouncing feeling. I did exactly that in the Boarding with Kevin for the car scene at the end. Trees, people, windshield, sepia, B&W, blue, color, hard, glow. Animoto again seemed to know what I was doing, and handled it with artistic dexterity.
Recheck Order and Export
Got sidetracked here, as artists do. After you do your artistic thing on the images, take another look at the order that they are in and if there are any stinkers. Now export them into their own folder as JPEG. I set quality high and 2000 pixels max on each side so that I can get a high resolution video download from Animoto. You can upload up to 5MB files, but what for?
Make Video
Then start Animoto and upload your images. Animoto will create your incredible new music video style art in a few minutes. More on how I use Animoto later.
Remember, while Animoto does automatically handle the editing, it is up to you to handle the image selection, quality and the order of the images. If you focus on those things in your work flow, it will help Animoto help you get the best video you can.
Gary Brown
