Create Beautiful Videos for Free with Animoto

This article is going to show you how to make high quality videos in a few minutes. By the time you are finished with this article, you will have all the training you need to create professional videos for free. To do this, we are going to use a site called Animoto.com.

What is Animoto?

Animoto is a custom video template site. Basically, you can choose one of their video templates, add your photos, videos and text and produce a pretty good looking video.

To get started, go to Animoto.com and create an account. Don’t worry, it is completely free. I am going to follow along with you and create a contracting and basement remodeling video for our imaginary friend, Frank Murray. Mr. Murray is looking for a flashy way to show off his work and we have just the thing for him.

Once you create your account, click “create” on the upper right corner of the page. This will take you to the style and themes page. This is where you will choose your video template. With a free membership, you will have access to all of the templates except for the Pro exclusive ones (which aren’t many). You will be able to switch you theme later so don’t worry too much. Look at a few previews and pick one out that you like.  For our example, I am going to use the Simplicity theme.

Click “make a 30-second video for free” and you will arrive at the video editing interface. Grab a few images. You can either grab some from Google images or upload your own. We should be able to fit in around 8-10 images in total.

Upload your images and start playing around with the interface. See what looks nice and what doesn’t. You can also add text to your images or full slides of text. To the right, you can see a look at my final edits.

Next, you will want to add some music. You can upload your own or choose from Animoto’s very limited collection. I chose “I Want You” by John Garrison.

*Note: The music provided on Animoto is safe to use with their videos

Add the music, reorder the images and add any text and you are just about finished already. Click “preview” and add a title/producer. When you are happy with the final product, click “produce”.

Take a look at Frank’s fancy new video!
Frank T Murray Contracting and Basement Remodeling

If you look around the Animoto site, you will see there are a few pricing options. Paying the fee will unlock a few useful functions for you.

Plus Plan – $30/yr

Make 10 minute long videos

36 video styles

Ability to edit the length of each slide

Pro Plan – $249/yr

Make 20 minute long videos

Add multiple songs

11 additional styles

1,400 additonal commercially licensed music tracks

Ability to create HD videos

Ability to create unbranded videos (you can take out the Animoto logo at the end with this plan)

A few more tips before I go:

You can create multiple 30 second videos and string them together with Windows Movie Maker or another video editing software to make one long video for free

You camn edit out the Animoto logo in the end with video editing software

You can add video clips in the same way you would add images

You can download your videos with a Firefox video download plugin