Slideshows are boring. Your images are not.

With all that's possible with TV & film these days, how is it that we are still in the "next slide please" stone age of image presentation?

This question prompted the guys at Animoto Productions, a bunch of TV/film producers and techies, to lock themselves in a room and nerd-out. Their mission? To make the type of stuff they did while producing shows at MTV, Comedy Central & ABC available to everyone. Their first release, Animoto, does just that.

Animoto users simply choose which images they'd like to display and a song. Animoto then produces a fully customized & unique video to them. Produced in a widescreen format, the result is a video that has the visual energy of a music video and the emotional impact of a movie trailer.

Welcome to the end of slideshows.

Best of all, no two videos are ever the same. Ever. Even videos generated with an identical set of images and music selection will each have an entirely distinct set of motion design. Sharing them is easy too, as they can be emailed, downloaded, and embedded on websites including social network sites like Facebook and MySpace.

The heart of Animoto is its newly developed patent-pending Cinematic A.I. technology that thinks like an actual director and editor. The technology takes into account every nuance of a song - the genre, song structure, energy, rhythm, instrumentation, and vocals. Whether it's punk, pop, hip-hop or a classical Mozart piece, every Animoto video is totally customized.

Animoto is inspired by the digital camera revolution where taking dozens, even hundreds of pictures at a time gives people the ability to think more like a video producer capturing an entire experience, not just individual moments. As users are discovering the limits of traditional photo services, the guys at Animoto are innovating new ways for people to share their stories and express themselves through media.

Animoto is also dedicated to supporting new artists and music. So while users can upload their own music, the guys at Animoto also proudly feature a regularly updated selection of fresh music that they truly dig. No stock music, no cover bands and no elevator music.

Animoto's front end is built on the open source web framework Ruby on Rails, facilitating rapid "Web 2.0" (Ajax, etc) application development. Animoto has partnered with Amazon to leverage multiple offerings in their Web Services (AWS) platform which, in conjunction with Animoto's own render farm, constitutes the Animoto web infrastructure.

Based in New York City with an office in San Francisco, the founders of Animoto have worked in the entertainment industry, studied music in London, and played in indie rock bands. They share a passion for helping people better share their stories and express themselves through online media by innovating technologies in the field of video production.

They plan to acquire Google next year.

Animoto.com is a web application that creates MTV-style videos with the click of a button.

Users simply choose a song and images. Animoto then automatically generates a unique video for them. No two videos are ever the same.

Many of the post-production techniques that the founders used while working as producers for MTV, Comedy Central & ABC are used in Animoto's patent-pending Cinematic Artificial Intelligence developed to think like an actual editor and director. The resulting video is produced in a widescreen format, containing the visual energy of a music video and the emotional impact of a movie trailer.

Animoto Productions is based in New York City with an office in San Francisco.

Animoto is a web application that, with the click of a button, produces videos using images and music that a user selects. Using their patent-pending Artificial Intelligence developed to think like an actual editor & director, the resulting video has the emotional impact of a movie trailer and the visual energy of a music video.

Animoto Productions is a bunch of techies and film/tv producers who decided to lock themselves in a room together and nerd out. They share a share a passion for helping people better share their stories and express themselves through online media by innovating technologies in the field of video production. Using the latest in entertainment post-production technologies, they seek to bridge the gap between the high production value inherent film & television, and the more "amateur" feeling of most user-created Internet videos and multimedia pieces. Animoto has been in the works since November 2005.

Animoto is a web application that automatically generates professionally produced videos using their own patent-pending Cinematic Artificial Intelligence technology and high-end motion design. Each video is a fully customized orchestration of user-selected images and music. Produced in widescreen format, Animoto videos have the visual energy of a music video and the emotional impact of a movie trailer. The heart of Animoto is its newly developed Cinematic A.I. technology that thinks like an actual director and editor. It analyzes and combines user-selected images and music with the same sophisticated post-production skills & techniques that are used in television and film. The technology takes into account every nuance of a song - the genre, song structure, energy, rhythm, instrumentation, and vocals. Whether it's punk, pop, hip-hop or a classical Mozart piece, every Animoto video is totally customized. Even videos generated with an identical set of images and music will each have a completely distinct set of motion design. No two videos are the same. They can be emailed, downloaded, and embedded in pages on websites including social network sites like Facebook and MySpace.

Playing on a widescreen video format, Animoto Videos present the visual energy of a music video and the emotional impact of a movie trailer using the same sophisticated post-production skills & techniques that are used in television and film. As many say, you just gotta see it to believe it.

Traditional slideshows are meant to showcase individual photos that capture single moments, slowly transitioning between pictures one at a time. The guys at Animoto recognize that people have started to think differently about how they take photos with their digital cameras. They are thinking less like photographers of the past, who capture individual moments, and increasingly more like video producers who capture an entire experience through a series of images. Today it's not uncommon for people to take dozens, even hundreds of pictures at a time. Because traditional solutions like slideshows don't serve this way of thinking very well, new ideas for how to capture and share a whole experience are needed. Thus, the guys at Animoto are innovating new ways for people to share their stories and express themselves through media. They seek to bridge the gap between production value in what's seen with Internet video and what's seen in film and televsion today using the latest of cutting-edge entertainment post-production technology.

Animoto's front end is built on the open source web framework Ruby on Rails, facilitating rapid "Web 2.0" (Ajax, etc) application development. Animoto has partnered with Amazon to leverage multiple offerings in their Web Services (AWS) platform which, in conjunction with Animoto's own render farm, constitutes the Animoto web infrastructure.

Credits include: The 2003 Video Music Awards (MTV); 2004 Video Music Awards (MTV); Shelter From The Storm: Katrina Benefit (ABC, NBC, CBS); The Showbiz Show with David Spade (Comedy Central); Viva La Bam (MTV); Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn (Comedy Central); Crank Yankers (Comedy Central); Stankervision (MTV2); Worlds Aids Day Concert (MTV); Need For Speed (MTV2); The Big In '06 Awards (VH1); Dr. Keith Albow (Warner Brothers); The Daytime Emmy Awards Pre-Show (ABC); The Constitution (ABC); Alanis Morissette Concert (Viacom); Peter Jennings: The Kennedy Assassination - Beyond Conspiracy (ABC); Peter Jennings: UFOs - Seeing Is Believing (ABC); Steep: A Documentary of Extreme Skiing (The Documentary Group).

If we told you, everyone else would do it too. Next question.

Welcome to the Animoto.com Reviewers Guide. We're very excited that you have decided to take the time to review what we've built here. This guide will give you everything you need to know, including some tips as you review the web application. If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to get in touch with us (contact info below).

-- You will need to create an account at http://animoto.com before you can start making videos. However, you can share your videos with anyone --- even non-registered users.
-- With a free account, you can create an unlimited amount of videos that are 30 seconds in length. With an All Access account, you can create an unlimited amount of full-length and short videos for a full year. You can also purchase a full-length video for $3 per video credit. All these accounts include free re-mixing of any and all videos made.
-- When you're uploading images, it's faster if you're not using ginormous images. They should be smaller than 3 MB. Sized-down images work just as well and save you a significant amount of upload time. You can use simple image-resizing programs to downsize your images to a smaller size. If you have a Mac, we recommend using DroPic! (free). If you have a PC, we recommend using VSO Image Resizer (free). These are easy-to-use tools to help you resize your images to something appropriate for the web. We recommend a size of no less than 640x426 (about 50kb per image), and no more than 1024x768 (about 100kb per image).
-- We only support JPG and GIF image files.
-- We only support MP3 music files (iTunes files are not MP3s). All MP3s must be smaller than 10 MB.

-- To login, go to http://animoto.com
-- Once you are at the site, please click "Create a Free Account" to get started.
-- If you would like to request a temporary All Access account, just get in touch.

1) You will find two sample videos on the http://animoto.com homepage.
2) Animoto Videos only take a couple minutes of work to create. Depending on how large your images are and what sort of internet connection you have, it can take a few minutes to upload images. Once you've hit "Create Video," it will take a few minutes to render your video depending on if you're using Animoto during peak times or not.
3) Part of what's fun with Animoto is seeing how it produces fully-customized videos depending on what music you choose. Try a mellow song. Then remix your video using a upbeat song. You'll get two very different productions.

Please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Jason Hsiao
Co-Founder, President
jason @ animoto.com