Birthday Gift Idea! Make Your Own Video Slideshow Gift Memento and Happy Birthday Present!

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Birthday Gift Ideas Video Slideshow Intro

Giving a happy birthday present to family and friends is something we all do.

Sometimes you may want to come up with a unique birthday gift idea.

You may even want to give a gift memento, something that will commemorate or be a tribute to the life of the birthday person.

Why not make your own video slideshow gift memento like I did!

My friend Ian was going to host a house party for his birthday celebration.

I was invited and I wanted to give him a unique birthday gift.

I had known Ian for several years and had quite a few photos and video clips of him doing various events and activities.

I decided that I would create him a special birthday gift memento in the form of an Animoto video slideshow.

The video slideshow would be a gift memento of our friendship and a record of our times together with other friends.

The video slideshow would be something that could be watched repeatedly over years to come and would be a happy memory of past times.

I used the Animoto Video Slideshow Maker to make this birthday gift memento.

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Contents On Birthday Gift Ideas Video Slideshows

• Birthday Gift Ideas Video Slideshow Intro
• Example Of A Birthday Gift Ideas Video Slideshow
• Making The Birthday Gift Ideas Video Slideshow

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Example Of A Birthday Gift Ideas Video Slideshow

The following video slideshow entitled Birthday Gift Idea! Make Your Own Video Slideshow Gift Memento And Happy Birthday Present! is the gift I produced using Animoto:

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Making The Birthday Gift Ideas Video Slideshow

The first thing I did when planning this unique birthday gift memento was to go through all the photos and video clips that I had of my friend. I decided to make a video slideshow covering the time I had know him. We were both members of the West Midlands based group of an organization called SPICE (Special Programme of Initiative, Challenge and Excitement). Quite a lot of the material I had was of our activities within this group, from balls and parties, to hiking and Centre Parcs weekends, etc.

The length of Birthday Gift Idea! Make Your Own Video Slideshow Gift Memento And Happy Birthday Present! was not critical. However, I decided that I wanted to create a physical DVD and get Ian to watch it on a television in front of our friends during the party. To this end I thought that a video slideshow length between 5 to 10 minutes was a decent time. The length would be long enough to show sufficient of our times and activities together over the years but not too long as to bore the rest of the audience. The final video slideshow length was about 6 minutes 9 seconds long. I made this unique birthday gift memento with the Animoto Video Slideshow Maker. However, before touching Animoto I made copies of all the material I was going to use, grouping and numbering the images and video clips on my computer:

1. I organized my photos and video clips around various activities and facets of Ian’s life and these would form the main body of the video slideshow. The text for these categories also served as the text messages for the Animoto text boxes at the start of each section:
   1. Ian in the driving seat – image of Ian driving his car;
   2. Ian relaxing – Ian relaxing in various places;
   3. Ian at the table – Ian at various dining tables at differnt events;
   4. Smart Ian – Ian dressed smartly at various functions;
   5. Ian the dancer – Ian in dance mode at various parties;
   6. Playful Ian – humorous material showing Ian’s playful side;
   7. Ian celebrating – Ian celebrating his birthday and at other occasions;
   8. The many faces of Ian – Ian wearing various fancy dress outfits;
   9. Ian the hiker – Ian walking in the great outdoors;
   10. Ian the entertainer – Ian playing the piano to a live audience;
   11. Passenger Ian after a long day out partying – Ian asleep in the back of our car;
2. Next I decided on an introduction to the video slideshow. This consisted of some text message together with images and video clip combinations from the Animoto Image and Video Clip Libraries:
   • An image saying happy birthday;
   • Happy Birthday Ian! Let’s Party! – followed by these 3 Animoto images:
     • Party balloons;
     • Party hats;
     • Other party items;
   • Are you too old? For one of these? LOL – and an image of a birthday cake/candles after it;
   • If not, don’t forget to save me a piece! – followed by an image of a piece of cake with candles image;
   • Hope you get plenty of these! – and then a video clip of a lady offering a gift box to the viewer;
   • And I’m sure you’ll have plenty of these! – then a video clip of hands with champagne glasses in them celebrating;
3. Then I chose to end the video slideshow simply with the following personal message and video clip from the Animoto video clip library:
   • From Richard & Anne, don’t stay up too late! – with the video clip of the moon descending across a darkened sky;

After the planning stage was over with I began to make the unique happy birthday gift memento with the Animoto Video Slideshow Maker online service:

1. I arranged and numbered the photos and video clips on the PC;
2. Then I designed my video slideshow:
   • I selected the “The Animoto Original” template style for the video slideshow;
   • Next was the photo and video clip uploading to Animoto;
   • I included the items planned from the Animoto Libraries;
   • I added all the text boxes and messages planned;
3. To complete the video slideshow I: selected an appropriate music track from the Music Library, that of “Serenade No. 13″ by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as Ian loved to play classical music on his piano; set the video slideshow pace to normal; typed in the slideshow title and description; and clicked the “Create Video” button;

A fabulous low resolution Animoto video slideshow entitled Birthday Gift Idea! Make Your Own Video Slideshow Gift Memento And Happy Birthday Present! was ready quite soon. As I was to present a physical DVD to Ian, I then produced high resolution versions of the video slideshow, downloaded them to my PC and created a DVD on my computer’s DVD writer.

At Ian’s birthday party I presented the birthday slideshow gift memento and got Ian to watch it in front of all the party guests. The video slideshow was a great success as everyone enjoyed it, especially Ian. He enjoyed it so much that he said he would show it to his mother the next day. He did and she also enjoyed it very much!

Note: I am able to produce high resolution or high definition video slideshows depending on the style of template used, whenever I choose as my Animoto account is the commercial Animoto Pro version. For those people who have an Animoto Plus Account for everyday non-commercial purposes, you can get higher resolution versions of your video slideshows by paying a small fee on a slideshow by slideshow basis. Alternatively, you could upgrade to the Animoto Pro account for 1 month and create as many as you like in that period. Visit Animoto to see the ANIMOTO PRICING PLAN to evaluate the various kinds of account and decide which is best for your circumstances.

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