You Tube Version of Book Trailer ...and Animoto

I have class today, so I'm a bit rushed this morning. Here's my booktrailer from You Tube, and here's the url. Feel free to repost. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHfM-zdPw2g

UPDATE: I wanted to talk a bit about making the booktrailer. I used Animoto and I wanted to talk a little about it.

I mentioned before it was easy, although it still took me four trys to get it right. Then I accidently uploaded to my You Tube channel titled, "Conmergence.4" which wasn't a good name. Also, I made a few mistakes. Instead of "Coming Soon," I should have put a date, like "October 2010," so that in a year, when the video will still be floating around You Tube, it still makes sense and people can tell it is already available.

Of course, I could have had more pictures, not just thrown the book cover in your face over and over. This was my fault, not Animoto's. I couldn't upload pictures directly from my computer. Animoto would only take them from another site, like Smugmug or Flickr. So I created a Flickr site, uploaded my picture to that, and then told Animoto to grab the picture from Flickr. It wasn't hard.

I picked the template of smoky blue from Animoto's palette. (It's called "Water.") I also chose music from their collection. I could have uploaded music from my computer. I think. I didn't try it.

Their trick is that they have some algorithm that bounces the picture around to the music. You choose the order of the pictures (and if you want any to be sideways or upside down). If you don't like the way it turns out the first time, you can "remix" it. The first time I tried it, I had different music and a different template and I didn't like the result as much.

For $3 a pop or $5 a month, you can go Pro, have a longer vid and remove their logo. I wanted to try it out first. I was happy with the experience. I could see how this could get addictive. It would be fun to do with photos of the kids on a regular basis.

There are some down sides.

Right now, they don't have that many different templates. Even if you go Pro, there's only 20 options max. Therefore, if a lot of people use it, or even if you alone use it more than a couple times, all the videos are going to start to look alike. The slick, professional booktrailer is going to look like just another knock-off. Not good. They need at least a hundred templates to keep it from get old. They seem to be still adding, so maybe they are working up to it.

The same criticism applies to their selection of stock footage and music. It could grow stale fast. And there's nothing even remotely helpful for most book trailers in the stock footage. Okay, maybe if you have a nonfiction book or a contemporary, but nothing suitable for romance, fantasy, sf, mystery or even literary literature. It's just not geared to that. However, the pictures and the music can be changed to your own, so this isn't as big a problem as the limited templates.

I haven't exhausted their selection yet, and maybe one of these days, I'll do a Pro vid. We'll see. I do hope they keep expanding their style selection.