Categories: creative nourishment, technology, videos, visual

Today I signed up for an ANIMOTO beta account which I found thanks to David Robinson. ANIMOTO is a web application that automatically generates professionally produced videos using patent-pending technology and high-end motion design similar to the techniques used on television and film. I can forsee this application to be useful in my graduate courses, especially on design assignments where I need to present or conceptualize my ideas visually.

Here is a 30 second experiment I created in an hour on one of my favorite hobbies as a kid.

Photo Credits:
metroblossom, jroeloffs, Streetwave, Steven Bornholtz, Anthony’s Workshop, doppelbelichtung, Stu Willis, bitnoots

Music:
Dilated Junkies by Dilated Peoples

One thing I found annoying about this application is the time it takes to produce the video once you uploaded all your pictures and music. There are five steps in the process:

1. Initializing the video
2. Analyzing the images
3. Analyzing the music
4. Customizing the video
5. Waiting in render queue
6. Rendering the video.

On a connection speed of 1681.1 kbps, it took five minutes to just to complete step #4. Unfortunately, my first attempt was unsuccessful because my video caused a system error due to corrupt/funky media files that ANIMOTO’s system isn’t used to. Unfortunately, the system only accepts mp3 music formats which was the cause of the system error.

Despite the long video production time and issues with my files, the video production quality is far more superior than creating a video using iDVD.