Adobe is out today with a new app for iPad that leverages the use of multimedia and speech to create simple and creative animated videos. The app is called Adobe Voice (it may look familiar to you if you recall Ginger) and the creative software company thinks it can make you a better story teller using your iPad. Adobe Voice combines the use of narration, photographs, text, and iconography with a number of templates which include music to create a really neat experience for making crafty videos. Check out my experience (and videos) below. I got the chance to see a preview of Adobe Voice a few weeks ago and knew it was a fascinating concept, but when I got the chance to use the app for myself yesterday it became obvious to me how easy it makes creating this sort of content.
The two videos shown below were created in less than half an hour and without any planning or prior training. I really just opened the app after getting my hands on a copy and started snooping around like any ordinary consumer would and quickly came up with the idea for the clip using one of the suggested topics within the app. (It probably took me longer to upload each video with my mediocre network than it did to actually create each one.)
I started by opening a blank template which was labeled useful for telling about an event, then began populating various slides with photos from the Camera Roll on my iPad. Each photo I used was stored in a Shared Photo Stream with iCloud, and I could preview them within Adobe Voice, but to use them I first had to add them to my Camera Roll. (Shared Photo Streams catches a tiny sample image which Adobe Voice could present as available but not use; it distinguished which images were previews and which images were available fairly easily so it was somewhat apparent why certain images were unavailable outside of the Camera Roll.)
For the first slide in my video, I chose to use an icon. Adobe Voice lets you search from a database of icons available for use with crediting, and it even adds attribution automatically to the credit slide at the end of your video. The remaining slides were made from various template styles but took relatively no effort to differentiate and make unique.
The voiceover functionality is equally simple to include. Each slide features a record button for catching and applying speech to each individual slide. You can review and re-record clips again and again before you settle on a version you like. Keep in mind the quality of the iPad microphone as well as the noise levels of your current environment when creating a serious video with the app.
The app does not save previous versions of recordings, though, so in my experience you can potentially record over a good version mistakenly. It might be useful to keep notes on your script with this consideration in mind.
Just like a slide deck presentation app like Keynote or PowerPoint, Adobe Voice lets you easily manipulate the arrange of slides you have already created. You can also duplicate or delete slides including photos and voice recordings attached.
Once you finish creating a video, you can preview it and send it off to Adobe where it is hosted and can be shared. It would be nice to have a local copy of the content you create, but it’s understandable that Adobe wants to hold the content on its own (especially considering the library of resources like music and imagery it offers). You can choose to make hosted content you create either public or private, too, so you don’t have to worry about something you share being viewable by anyone without a link if you don’t want that.
Finally, below you can view the two examples of stories I created using Adobe Voice for iPad. Each one uses the same photos and voice, but I wanted to tweak the music and design to see how easily you can adjust how a template looks and feels. It really reminds me of using iMovie in a few ways but its design and function keeps it very focused and approachable.
Enjoy and try Adobe Voice for iPad for yourself. It’s free and out now on the App Store for iPad 2 or later with iOS 7.
