Xtranormal...making movies
I was looking for a new tool to create movies with and a stumbled across an interesting free software application. Well, almost free. You can download a desktop version or a use the online version. All you have to do is type in what you
want to say and it applies an animated character and voice to your words. The initial package is very limited with the character, voice and scene selection, but you can buy more. They use a points system and you can either buy points or you can earn them by having others sign-up for the service or entering contests. I choice to purchase points for $10 and I only used a third of those to create a 3 minute video. The nice thing is that you pay for the resources that you need, but you get to keep them. They are yours. The resources include voices, scenes and characters.
The desktop and online versions have slightly different features and some limitations. I originally started to try the online version, but I had browser issues and once I created the account I could not log back in. The only way to get support was to login, tThe old catch-22. I created a new account and downloaded the desktop version. I later was able to login using Internet Explorer, but have yet to get the online account to work on Chrome or Firefox.
Like most synthetic voice applications you have to adjust your sentences or spellings to make them sound right. The word "are" is an example. I ended up just using the letter "R" most of the time. Some voices sounded better than others so you had to do some experimenting. I was not going to post my movie online, but some places, like Facebook have a two minute limit. To view it you have to render it and that takes a little time. I ended up having a project that was only one or two speech units long so that I could get all my narration the way I wanted it to sound before I did my entire movie.
Once I had that done and had picked my scene, characters and voices I added gestures movement and different camera shots. It is a pretty sophisticated tool with plenty of options. You can actually record your own voices and upload and use them. In some scenes there are objects that will allow you to place movies or photos within objects like windows, TV's or other background elements. I kept mine simple and added a jpg to a window in the scene.
Overall it was a good experience. I was able to create a three minute video without having to get out a camera or audio device and it only cost between three and four dollars. The only drawback of the desktop version was that I was unable to add titles or text to my movie. I ended up using a video editing program to add titles and render it as an flv file. Here is a link to my video on creating strong passwords.
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