Review: Automated Video Slideshows from Animoto

Written by Scott

There is something fantastic happening online. More and more companies are popping up online that offer unique solutions with some pretty cool tech powering them behind the scenes.

One such services comes from a company called Animoto. These guys had a fairly simple concept and pulled it off very well.

How Animoto Works
You begin by creating a free account with them. Then you upload a ton of images to their site, much like you would for an album on Flickr.

Then you choose some music from their library of licensed music (mostly independent artists) and, finally, you click the create button.

Their program then creates a hip, motion and effects heavy video from your pictures, timed to the music.

You then have the ability to upload this video to Facebook, Youtube, embed it on your own site, or download it as a movie.

The Details
The guys at Animoto have created a tiered pricing structure, depending on what you need. You can play around with their basic service for free, but the videos are limted to 30-seconds.

Its short, yes, but plenty to give a pretty good demo of what can be done with your photos and to convince anyone to dive into the next level.

The next level has a pretty low entry point, too. Currently, at $3, its not too different from buying a TV show or renting a movie on iTunes.

Their next step up is more of a subscription model. You pay $99 for three months, and can make as many videos as you like during this time.

Brilliant pricing structure. It follows the “Book Yourself Solid” model to let your clients easily move up your pricing structure and remove any barriers to entry. Bravo, guys!

This top tier also allows you to use the video they create for commercial purposes (all the lower tiers have a non-commercial clause tied to them).

Call to Action
A nice little touch they added was an optional ‘call to action.’ In addition to titles and other text that you can add to the video, when you sign up for the commercial usage option, you can add an extra button that is clickable at the end of the video.

This is really nice for adding something like, “Visit Digital Blacksmiths” for more videos, more info, etc. Think of how YouTube places the “videos you might like” at the end of each of their video.

So now when people pass around this video from Animoto, it has a link at the end that takes them to any link you choose. This link is baked in when you create the video.

How do they Look?
That’s the key, right? After all, if they look cheesy, this is all a waste of time. Well, these guys pulled it off.

See how it looks on our Facebook Page

As a motion graphics editor who works in After Effects, I can guess as to how they create these videos.

I would guess that they have several pre-made motion ‘templates’ that have a number of placeholders for images, similar to how iDVD, iMovie, or many other entry level video programs.

Each placeholder would be referenced by an XML code and when you upload your images, the link to the placeholder is changed to the link of your image. In this way, everything is automated.

I’ve done things like this for names and titles on lower thirds when working in Final Cut Studio. You have a text file that you can change a few names and that changes the titles in the video itself without even opening Final Cut Studio. It is pretty sweet and is most likely what Animoto is doing to accomplish their magic.

The Downside
The animations are pretty good. In fact, they allow you to do ‘remixes’ of your video if you don’t like the result. Just hit “remix” and it calculates another video based on the same pictures you uploaded. Again, to guess, I’d say they are just switching out the XML template for a new one in their library.

That’s great and makes it easy, but it also means its very limited.

Over time, you start to see the same moves over again. You also cannot go in a tweak the video.

As I said, I work in After Effects for a living and there were a bunch of times I wanted to go in and tweak the timing, add some elements or do something else. But you are pretty much stuck with whatever comes out of the ‘remix’ engine they have.

The other only downside is their branding. Its pretty obvious at the free level, displaying their logo as a bug in the corner. When you sign up for the commercial version, the bug only appears at the very end and is much more subtle.

I understand their reason for having it, but it would be nice to be able to remove it altogether.

Update: The logo branding has recently changed. The great guys at Animoto have now removed this logo for the pro-level subscription package they offer. Now the videos you create no longer carry the Animoto logo at all.

After awhile, you’ll build up a collection of videos and be able to manage them all from the simple interface at Animoto, then go back and remix older videos, share them, and download them.

Is it Worth it?
So if you can’t go in and tweak certain things, but the overall video is usually pretty good, is it worth it in the end?

I’d say yes, for one reason: time. I could spend a week making a custom video, with 3D graphics, video, animation, and the works, and in fact, this is what I spend most of my time doing.

However, when Angie comes back from a gig with a digital camera filled with pictures of caricatures that she has drawn, she loves being able to spend a few minutes to upload the pictures to Animoto and hit “create video.”

By the time she has time to make a tea and walk back into her studio, the video is finished. She uploads it to Facebook or a private server we have, then emails the client the following morning with a link to the video.

Talk about a nice gift for the client. And when they say under promise and over deliver, this really does just that!

Clients rave over these and they love sharing them with everyone at the event.

In the end, this is a great gift that we normally wouldn’t be able to afford to give as they would take too long to create. But now that its a three click process, it is a perfect gift that costs us next to nothing and is a wonderful thank you to a client.

And there’s nothing like sending it to them the very next morning, while they still have the emotion from the night before.

You can find them at http://animoto.com and as a bonus, we have a code for you, too. Use the promo code wxvpzoqu on their site when you sign up and save $5 off.

Hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

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