Way back when, one of my main motivations for ditching my flip phone and getting a smart phone (best thing I ever did) was the camera. As much as anything, I got my iPhone 5c to take, edit and manipulate photos. I wanted to be able to illustrate poems and other works.

I’ve also had some ideas for videos I’d like to make and the video below is my first experiment. I used Animoto, a cloud-based service founded in 2006 according to Wikipedia. Honestly, it was just the first service that came up when I started my search. No analysis went into the selection. I didn’t comparison shop. Since I’ve never done this before, I can’t tell you how easy or not Animoto is to use relative to other tools.  The video is not exactly what I envisioned, but the problem is mine, not Animoto. After awhile I just got tired of fussing over which photos, what order and what music.

I found Animoto easy – intuitive, as they say – to use and affordable, though that’s a relative thing.  The videos are loaded into a WordPress post the same way you’d load a YouTube video  – by using the URL. Easy.

You can log into Animoto and play around without making any committment to buy, so if it’s something you want to try too – GO FOR IT. The site offers direction, information on copyright, a limited selection of music and even stock photographs if you don’t have your own. Not bad. $8 a month if you pay for an entire year. Otherwise it’s $16 a month.  That’s just the basic package. There are two other options.

If you are viewing this from email, it’s likely you’ll have to link through to watch the video.