Move, Text!

April 7, 2011 7:59 PM

I need to animate text (short quotes, one or two sentences each) for a video presentation. Are there any (free or cheap) softwares other than Keynote/Powerpoint that do this?

I am on Mac. I would like to paste short quotes in a software that would animate them (or give me animation options such as movement, zooming, fades, etc.) over a simple background (and image, or just one plain color) and then output the result as a video file. This is for a video projection to accompany a performance. No need for any syncing, just a total playing time. Note that I don't mind animating the whole thing in keynote, but perhaps there's something out there that would be more polished/faster out of the box?

posted by ddaavviidd to computers & internet (5 answers total)

HTML 5 + CSS3 + a modern browser can do this, for many types of transformation. movement, zooming and fades are definitely in the set.

I have no idea if that helps you or not, but it's possible with just Safari.
posted by Mad_Carew at 8:29 PM on April 7, 2011

You don't even need that stuff. All you need is the HTML "MARQUEE" tag.

Along with "blink" it's the most hated feature of original HTML, so no one uses it and few people even remember it exists.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 10:25 PM on April 7, 2011

I haven't played with it much myself, but maybe there's something useful in Aviary? My students talk about it a lot, with varying levels of love/hate. The Effects Editor might be able to do what you need.
posted by ann_disaster at 11:28 PM on April 7, 2011

Prezi? I think you need internet access for it to work.
posted by azarbayejani at 2:25 AM on April 8, 2011

But also, there's a desktop player with a 30 day trial. Oh, and you can download them to play them later. Great!
posted by azarbayejani at 2:26 AM on April 8, 2011