Animoto- Digital Storytelling

Animoto is a form of digital storytelling that has brought a whole new life to posting pictures. Hence how it got its quote “The End of Slideshows.” Animoto is a slideshow but in movement and not just flip the page movement, it can twist and turn, fade, everything. It is also very simple, all you do is choose your own personal photos stored on your computer, upload them, choose a song and Animoto does the rest. And what I mean by Animoto doing the rest is unlike PowerPoint where you have to sit there and listen how long it takes each slide to turn and will it be long enough for the audio I am playing. Animoto simply and automatically sets up your slideshow so the photos follow the song. If it is a long or short song no worries! All Animoto will do is either keep a picture up longer or have the pictures on a fast pace. All videos up to third seconds are free! Anything over that is a cheap monthly fee but having a site that practically throw your digital stories together for you fast and easy, you can’t beat that!

I can use Animoto in the advertising field by creating pictures and videos for upcoming events and it would be a great promotional tool. It will allow viewers to get a great outlook on what they will be experiencing if they attend our events.

I chose the video called “Animoto Promo” because it was one of the tools we used in class and even when class ended I wanted to do more. Animoto is able to document someone’s life experiences and feelings through the use of story and digital media. This video will help you get a glimpse on how you use Animoto.

Visual Literacy

Visual literacy is the ability to interpret and make meaning from information presented in the form of an image.One may ask well what exactly does that mean? After never using photoshop until EME 2040 I learned by using visual literacy it is using a piece of your imagination. For example in class our professor showed us a picture of a monkey and throughout the slide show that monkey appeared on the beach, the Eiffel tower, just about anywhere you can name. And how that monkey got there was by cropping the monkey out of your own photo or a cited photo and to use photoshop techniques and piece together images that you will like to see your image perform. While it may sound easy there are certainly a lot of steps you will need to learn as a first time user. But shortly after you will get the hang of it and it will be a piece of cake! A great quote that I read from our visual learning e-Reading online is "The image survives the subject and becomes the remembered reality." (John Szarkowski). By exploring a photo through one lens it will install that image in your head and explore beyond just a photo.

As an advertising major I can find great use of visual literacy because visual literacy catches the eye of the people and that is exactly what my job intails. Trying to promote a product that viewers will remembered! Such as coca-cola commercial or billboard, I can design an image or slides of the coca-cola bottle and place it with people at the beach or people enjoying a refreshing coke float with their family at home. Visual literacy allows me to design an image that I want people to capture, a photo cant always have exactly what you want in all the time but being able to play around with a photo you can portray the exact image you are looking for. So certainly applying visual literacy to promote my advertisement will come in handy in the future.


I chose an YouTube that captures the great understanding of what visual literacy is and why it is so important. It explains to us that we all the see the world differently through one eye but lets see the world through one lens together and find the true meaning of the image is trying to capture. Don't just scan pictures, look at the expressions of the peoples' face and trying to feel like you are in their shoes even if the picture takes place accross the world. So, take a look at this video and look beyond just the image!