Slideshows and disruptive technologies

TeetimeNC wrote on 1/30/2009, 5:39 AM
From Wikipedia: A disruptive technology or disruptive innovation is a technological innovation that improves a product or service in ways that the market does not expect, typically by being lower priced or designed for a different set of consumers.

I would suggest that Animoto is doing that for video slideshows. Watch one of their creations and if you are like me you might be thinking "Ken Burns slideshows are so 20th century".

Try creating one yourself and you will be amazed at how drop-dead simple they have made it for non-professionals to create gorgeous slideshows. My very non-technical wife could do this.

And now Animoto lets you (for $5 upcharge) download dvd quality h.264 and ISO file of your creation.

I may never make a slideshow in Vegas again. Well, that's a bit of an overstatement, but I'll bet most of my photo slideshows get done in Animoto for the forseeable future.

Here is one of a mission trip to Ecuador that I created last night and uploaded to Vimeo. It took me about 10 minutes to pick my photos and set up the creation. A quick search of Vimeo found 162 other videos that were tagged with Animoto. Probably many more like mine that were created that way, but not tagged specifically with Animoto.

It is not difficult to imagine the next steps for a company like Animoto. I suspect video (not just images) will be added as an option down the road. And they will likely continue to improve the control users have over the creative process. For many of us who make money doing videos and slideshows, this may truly become disruptive.

There is little in an Animoto generated video that can't be done (given enough time) in Vegas today. I think if I were Sony I would love to have an offering like Animoto, but that would additionally permit professional videographers to download the resulting project veg file for continued tweaking locally in Vegas. I know as a Vegas user I sure would like to have something like that available.

Jerry

Comments

ritsmer wrote on 1/31/2009, 1:34 AM
Hi TeeTime

Thanks for sharing your video.

10 minutes? awesome. Interesting to see how Animoto works.
Talking about art - and video making is art - there are as many opinions as there are spectators...

And when one sits there with - say - like 900 pictures and videos and recorded sounds from my last trip to Beijing - it really can be challenging to choose how to make a video out of that material - and how to tell The Story that every artist want to tell.

In my case I took the long road, and used some 270 stills/videos/sounds out of the 900 to make a 25 minutes video.
Editing time for this was 2 weeks - about 70 working hours :-)
The video tells several 2-5 minutes stories about our experiences there (Haggling at the Tibetan market, Metro during rush hour, Beijing seen from the Western Mountains, Diner at a very local restaurant, Life in the old town etc.)
Each story kept together and adapted to my wishes by music, soundtrack and narration. Adapted? yes, of course you can not spend 70 hours nudging media back and forth on the timeline - many hours are used on other things, i.e. finding -not the right music- but down to the right recording of that music (no vocal karaoke versions - or midis where the instrumentation can be changed to give precisely the mood you want for that scene.
Imagine Amy Winehouse played on a single bright piano...)

Some of the stories were recorded over several days which was made possible because we had the same weather/light for the whole stay and because my understanding wife - even rather reluctantly - accepted to wear the same colours of clothing all the time.

So this was just another view on how to turn a bunch of holiday stills and video into a video.
Chienworks wrote on 1/31/2009, 1:47 AM
Interesting what can be done with it. However, it doesn't prevent the same faults that people make when assembling a slideshow in Vegas. In fact, it probably makes it easier to commit those faults.

I gave up watching your slideshow after about 30 seconds. There was too much movement! I wanted to look at the pictures but you just didn't let me. Everything kept bouncing around so fast i never had time to focus. It reminds me of when someone wants me to read an article in a magazine, but instead of handing me the magazine they hold it in front of my face ... and then their hands start shaking.

The enormous variety of transitions was quite distracting too. After a few seconds really all i was noticing was how many different ways the pictures changed instead of seeing the pictures themselves. There was no reason for the different changes and they didn't help promote the story. They were just transitions for the sake of putting in as many random transitions as possible.

As with the advice given with Vegas, the same applies here. Make sure your message is shown clearly. This is the most important thing. Add the fancy stuff very sparingly, and only to enhance or lead the viewers to the next image. Your video was almost entirely showing off the "fancies" that Animoto can do. The missions trip is almost completely lost in the background.
John_Cline wrote on 1/31/2009, 2:04 AM
I was about to respond when I noticed that Chienworks had already made exactly the same comments I was about to make. As a transition demonstration, it's interesting, as a slide show, it isn't.
farss wrote on 1/31/2009, 2:41 AM
Jerry,
watching your "Misssion Ecuador 2008" clip on Vimeo shows the difference between man and machine.

BTW, my wife quite enjoyed singing along to the music at the start of Mission Ecuador, in Mandarin. It's a Chinese folk song, Jasmin Flower. Well that's the closest translation she could give me. I wouldn't have picked the difference between the pan pipes of Sth America or China myself so I nearly fell over when she started singing along.

Bob.
blink3times wrote on 1/31/2009, 3:20 AM
Sorry TeeTime but I would have to agree with Chienworks. The speed was much too high and there were too many things happening. There was no flow to it at all and as a result, very hard for the eye to follow.

Some people get a kick out of those "flashy" transitions but I'm not one of them. If you're into that sort of thing though, Pinnacle Studio has a ton of them.... things like photos folding into paper airplanes and flying away..... arrows flying into the scene and pinning pictures onto a tree..... photos crumpling into balls and bouncing away. I however find all of this stuff very.......... "consumer-ish" though.

IMO, a good slide show comes more out of your head than from a program, with speed and transition type governed by the type of photo being seen. A sports slideshow for example where there's lots of action you can get away with a fairly fast pace and simple straight cut transitions that change out at the drum beat of a fast action peace of music To break the monotony and pace every so often you would hold and fade a photo at a musical note that draws itself out . The transitions have to be simple though because the "flashy" ones take too much time to present. To the other extreme, a good slideshow of a family picnic would be slow and graceful maybe.... with photos floating and fading in/out and gentle piano and violin music as background

Basic transition type would only change when moving from one type to another as the picture group changes.

If you do things this way then the eyes and ears stay in tune with each other and the information is taken in and matched by both thereby amplifying the viewer's experience.

These "flashy" transitions certainly are neat to watch, but they throw timing completely out of whack and add to the feeling of disorganization. The whole thing becomes like watching a video with out-of-sync audio...... rather annoying.
TeetimeNC wrote on 1/31/2009, 3:30 AM
Bob, yes it is Jasmine Flower, but it came to me as a South American panpipes piece - very interesting that it is actually a Chinese folk song!

I should have included the link to Mission Ecuador 2008 (the video) in addition to "Mission Ecuador 2008 (the slideshow)" in my original post, for contrast. I provide both the video and the slidewhow to those who were on the trip.

I appreciate the various opinions about the Animoto slideshow. I've received good reviews from the folks who are in the slideshow, but I think that might be because I also provided the more conventional video. I doubt they would be as happy with just the Animoto slide show. BTW, for the 2007 trip I made a video and a very traditional Ken Burns style slide show, which also received good reviews.

But one of the things that got me on the Animoto show was, I asked my wife to come look at my latest work. Without telling her I had used an automated tool to build the slideshow, less than a minute into the Animoto showing, she said "Wow, this is your best work yet". Ouch. That's when I started worrying whether I will be able to continue to charge for my work if it is this easy for others to create great slideshows.

I have in the past few months started putting more "Animoto-style" motion in my Vegas projects and I am impressed that Vegas can do almost anything that is in the Animoto productions. It is just a lot of work. I think there is a great opportunity here for SCS if they can figure out a way to make it as easy as Animoto AND give us the level of control over its usage that artists require.

Jerry

TeetimeNC wrote on 1/31/2009, 3:46 AM
Blink, interesting observation. I actually think Animoto does a very nice job matching the image motion to the music - I believe most reviews agree that is one of their strengths.

In all my slideshows to date, I am very Ken Burnish and I bet out of 20 or more slideshows I've done, I've had no more than 5 (total) transitions that weren't just a cross fade or straight cut. I normally HATE slideshows that use lots of flashy transitions - tends to scream AMATEUR! However, when combined with nice masking and motion graphics like Animoto does, I think it works. I also think it is something which you would quickly tire of.

I think the question for all of us is: If a client is looking at my extremely well-doen Ken Burns style slideshow, side by side with an Animoto creation using the same photos, will they see enough value to pay extra for my creation. I certainly hope so, but I think a lot of people like the Animoto style, and they would certainly like the price.

Jerry

These "flashy" transitions certainly are neat to watch, but they throw timing completely out of whack and add to the feeling of disorganization. The whole thing becomes like watching a video with out-of-sync audio...... rather annoying.
ushere wrote on 1/31/2009, 3:48 AM
i don't think ken burns has anything to worry about, yet.....

jerry, to be perfectly frank, it's awful - too fast, too gimmicky, too... well, too over the top. i think when your creating a slide show the main factors should be the story telling (the script, or order of slides), the ability to time the image so that the viewer absorbs the scene and 'fits' it in with what's gone, and primes him/her for what's to come, and all done at a human pace and sensibility.

i think you'd probably get 2 to 3 carefully crafted 'burns' pictures in the time of the whole of your show....

please, please don't take my criticism amiss...

leslie
farss wrote on 1/31/2009, 4:22 AM
I think everyone is right. Blink nailed my objections to what Animoto is doing very well as have others. But. You're looking at it as a bunch of photos you're familiar with, you already know the story as does your wife, none of us do. You have to tell it to us, Animoto wasn't there, you were.
On the other hand if this was just a bunch of snaps from a buck's night then you could live (maybe) with what Animoto is doing although even then it does seem a bit too fast paced for even that.
So yes, there's probably a market for what Animoto is doing but it's not in competition to what we do for a living. No one is going to pay us a fair price to turn a bunch of family snaps from a day at the beach into a slide show like Ken would have done. On the other hand they will still pay us good money to tell a families history in photos because we spend the time to learn the history of the family and we tell it with the photos, with music and with dialogue.

I've done a few slide shows, 5,000 photos for one client. Only cuts. He choose the order and gave me the subtitles in two languages.

Another few I did for commercial release the photos were set to illustrate interviews and dialogue.

Animoto will not take any of that work from any of us. It will create a new market.

Bob.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 1/31/2009, 6:38 AM
it doesn't really matter what we say though.... many who would PAY for a slideshow & have seen ones done by that company thinks it's awesome.

Plus it's less then 30 minutes cost from a video editor.

Doesn't matter what I think. :)
winrockpost wrote on 1/31/2009, 6:47 AM
About 10 years ago walmart had a self service machine where you put photos in picked music and it spit out a cheesy video slideshow,, and a lot of people loved it
TeetimeNC wrote on 1/31/2009, 1:06 PM
I just got a call from a friend who is also an occasional client. He is asking me to do a memorial slide show for his mother who is near death. I won't be using Animoto for that one.

Jerry
alltheseworlds wrote on 1/31/2009, 4:05 PM
I hate to be harsh, but I think the example show at the top of this thread is truly awful. The subject has been almost completely suffocated and killed. A "plain vanilla" slideshow made in less than 30 minutes in some simple app like SoundSlides would have been far more effective imo.
TeetimeNC wrote on 1/31/2009, 6:30 PM
Bob, your point is a good one. My original post should have pointed out that there were two videos in the series. I did clarify that later in this thread.

The purpose of the main video is to tell the story of this mission trip. The other (the controversial slideshow) is intended as entertainment for those who participated in the mission trip (and who are also in the main video). I'm confortable that it did that well.

In all, the DVD I produced has these items:

1. Main video
2. Credits
3. Slide show
4. Out takes.

Jerry

I think everyone is right. Blink nailed my objections to what Animoto is doing very well as have others. But. You're looking at it as a bunch of photos you're familiar with, you already know the story as does your wife, none of us do. You have to tell it to us, Animoto wasn't there, you were.
ritsmer wrote on 2/1/2009, 1:17 AM
Some wrote: ...awful... etc.

... are we not discussing "Mona Lisa" and "Guernica" here?

... which painting is best?

... what is best?
deusx wrote on 2/1/2009, 1:27 AM
If I want to actually watch a slide show I'm doing it to see pictures not transitions or effects.

Just like with movies, a simple cut or with slide shows a dissolve are what works the best.

Everything else, in this context , is useless technology ( for me anyway ).
ushere wrote on 2/1/2009, 3:18 AM
hi ritsmer,

i'm one of the people who used the word 'awful' (with apologies).

when i'm asked to view something the best i can do is give my honest subjective opinion. that was 'awful'.

however, if i consider it objectively from 30+ years in tv / video production, i still get 'awful'.

but then again, if it makes you happy.....

OdieInAz wrote on 2/1/2009, 4:05 AM
I think the key point being overlooked is the disruptive nature of this innovation. By definition, the introduction of a disruptive technology / business model is that it is not good enough for the most demanding customers and indeed not good enough for the mainstream user. Most of the complaints above highlight this fact - and a typical response to a disruptive innovation is "retreat to the high end"

Animoto asserts their differentiating advantage is the ability "understand" the music and synch accordingly. Their answer to address complaints above is to choose slower music or upgrade to one of the pay packages, such as "Animoto for Business" Also, Animoto has secured the necessary copyright permissions for the music they use, and that is of significant value to the business user.

The other aspect of the disruptive innovation is that it may improve over time until it becomes "good enough" for the mainstream consumer.

I suggest a visit to http://business.animoto.com/casestudies.html and view business slideshows, including big names like Getty Images.

(finally got the html link right)
TeetimeNC wrote on 2/1/2009, 4:58 AM
They now have the option of choosing slow, normal, or fast action. I chose normal in the example posted here.

Also re disruptive technologies in general - they often "take" first with the younger generation, then slowly move to wider acceptance. Animoto appeals more to people that like MTV than those who know who Laurence Welk is ;-).

Jerry

Their answer to address complaints above is to choose slower music or upgrade to one of the pay packages, such as "Animoto for Business"

randy-stewart wrote on 2/1/2009, 5:58 AM
Relative to the disruptive part of this discussion, there are other programs that do animated slideshows and even have quite a bit of flexibility. 3d Photo Albumn comes to mind : http://www.3d-album.com/. It has been in the marketplace for years and, while not quite as "upload" friendly, all you have to do is identify the folder with all of your pictures and pick a theme, music, and time, and it does the rest. It's not too expensive for the home user and can be licensed for commercial use also. I've used it in slide shows and it really attracts attention at trade show events ( like for weddings and local handicrafters) because of the animation. My point is that this software hasn't disrupted business, in fact it is enhancing business. As Bob and others have pointed out, I think the draw of using a professional videographer is still the creative talent and knowing how to use the tools. The double edge of that sword is price point. Maybe this kind of software can help bring the price down to open a much larger "home" market for professional videographers. Food for thought.
Randy
jrazz wrote on 2/1/2009, 10:31 AM
I have a differing opinion. This is yet one more tool to put in the belt. I think it has good usage for differing subjects. I can see this being very effective for extreme sports or MMA or something of that nature as part of an intro or a backdrop. I can also see this being incorporated into a pan/scan montage if you have a little more fast paced section of music where you want to break away from the pan and scan (just put it on the timeline and remove the audio that it was originally done with).

I think there are plenty of uses for a tool like this- one just needs to think outside the box about how to incorporate it if the piece calls for such a thing as this. If it doesn't, no need; but if it will add to the piece, then pull out the tool and use it for the enhancement of your piece.

That's my thoughts. So, whether you think the piece is awful or whatever else, surely you can see a use for a tool such as this yes?

j razz
[r]Evolution wrote on 2/1/2009, 10:55 AM
- Are you able to set the 'Mood' - 'Speed' of your piece?
- Can you download your final Animoto piece?
- Will it output at least 720x480 DV comparable?
- Is there a Standalone app?

- Is this simply for being able to 'Embed' your Animoto to the web?

I liked the Vid/Slideshow posted. Although it does have a lot of transitions that steal your eyes away from the story/pictures... it has an uplifting & fun quality about it that made me feel like I was there with them; smiling, laughing, working, and enjoying every minute of it.

I have used Imaginate to achieve similar results in a short amount of time. It gives you the option of total control or fully automatic. Muvee appears to be similar for Video.
jrazz wrote on 2/1/2009, 11:28 AM
Hey Sync,

Check out their site- it will answer all of your questions.

And if you don't want to:

-yes, sort of.
-yes
-yes
-no (it is account-based and differentiated by corporate, free, & personal paid)

j razz
ushere wrote on 2/1/2009, 1:44 PM
hi j razz,

you're right of course, there are uses for this technology, but i can't think of a single instance where 'i' would use it....

then again, i like to be in control ;-)

leslie

btw. just went and checked out animoto's examples. you've seen one, you've seen them all.