How to Get Started With Animoto
Animoto is an easy-to-use web app that will help you create a video from your own photos. Animoto will add music to the video and email you a copy or post it online in a number of ways. There are paid plans, but you can make 30-second videos for free. Here is how to get started.
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Instructions
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Sign up for an account at the Animoto website. Give them your email, create a password and tell them who you are. They will also ask your birth date, which is a bit odd, but you can't sign up without giving a date.
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Click the button to create a new video. If you are trying it out and want to make a free video first to see how it works, check the Animoto Short button.
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Tell Animoto where to get your images. You can grab them from your computer, another site such as Flickr, Facebook and Picasa or choose from their library of images.
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If you decide to get your images from another site you will be sent there to select the images. Keep in mind that you only have 30 seconds to fill if you are creating a free video.
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You can reorder the images during the image-selection process by dragging and dropping them.
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Next you add music. You can use your own or choose from their library.
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You now have the images and the music. Click Save and Continue. You can still go back and make changes if you want.
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There are some customization options next. Make your choices there and click Continue.
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Give your video a title and write a description. Then click Create Video. It takes a while for the whole thing to be put together.
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When the video is finished you can preview it. Under the preview there are a number of options for what can be done with the video. You can remix it, email it, post or embed it, download it, send it to YouTube, upgrade to DVD quality or check out the options for iPhone.
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In this example I've selected the Post/Embed option and chose to post the video to Facebook. A Facebook page opened and I simply clicked one button to post the video to my profile.
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Animoto only gives you a taste with its free option. The paid plans include an all-access pass for $30 a year, which will let you make unlimited full length videos (with a $5 extra charge if you want DVD quality) or a professional plan for $249 a year (as of this writing). The real selling point for me with this site was ease of use. Everything is obvious and clear; there is no problem understanding what you need to do.
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Comments
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Gardengates
May 03, 2009
I have to try Animoto. I'd never heard of it, but now I'm interested. Thanks so much. This one's going on my Favorites list.
