I created these videos below using the new “auto awesome” feature in Google+ Pictures. Each took less than 10 minutes to create. They’re not perfect, but they didn’t take thousands of dollars to pay a third party to produce, or require a lot of time. It’s a great way to get new content onto your website or social media profiles quickly and regularly to showcase what your contracting company can do.
I’ll describe below how to do it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYJ3P-30DJc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgSZKoTeqB8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHPXrUpUYCs
If you use the Photos area in Google+ to manage your pictures, or if you have an Android smartphone, you’re probably familair with the “auto awesome” feature. For pictures, the software will — for certain random pictures — automatically add filters and borders or create collages to spruce them up. It’s neat, but I’m not overly impressed with this feature.
But, for videos, it’s pretty cool. It will recoginize videos that were taken at the same location or event and merge them together in a sort of “highlight film.” And it will add some music. Knowing that this feature existed, I wondered whether there was a way for me to tell it which videos to use, where to make the transitions, how long to make it and what music to play.
There is.
You’ll need the Google Photos app on your smartphone. Google currently only allows this feature on the phone app, and not within the brower version of Google+ or Photos. I have an Android smartphone, but I presume that this is all possible on an iPhone or other smartphone as long as you have the Google Photos app.
To make things easiest, I have enabled the auto upload function on my Android smartphone. That way, my photos automatically show up in my Photos area. [Two optional features you may want to consider are to only allow uploads when connected to wifi (to save data usage) and to only allow uploads when the battery is charging (to save battery life). Because I always charge my phone overnight when I’m at home connected to wifi, each morning I always have all my newest photos and videos ready to organize.]
I would recommend getting a tripod and a tripod adapter for your cell phone. You can buy the adapter, but I went the low-budget route and built my own by finding a tutorial on YouTube. Taking your footage with a tripod will make your videos steadier and look more professional.
Depending on how long you want your video, I would also recommend making each “take” relatively short, no more than 6 or 8 seconds. Google is going to make them even shorter by default, about 2-3 seconds each (you can make them longer, which I’ll describe below). I like my promo videos to be pretty short, less than a minute.
My preference is for each video to showcase a single project through the whole process — beginning, during and after. You might want to create a highlight reel of many projects all at final completion. Personal preference.
Inside the photos app, click the enhancements button. It looks like one big star and two small stars.
Click “movie”.
Select the clips you want to include in your movie.
Add a title and choose your length.
Click the musical note to change the music. You’re limited only to their selections.
Click the film real icon to adjust the starting and stopping location of each segment.
Click “save” and select the quality you desire.
Now wait for a few minutes while the system creates your video. Once it’s done, click the “share” button.
Select your method of sharing. I like to share it to our company YouTube account first because I can then make some further edits (remove shakiness, additional options for background music, etc. Once it’s in YouTube, inserting into your various other platforms is a cinch.
If your contracting business is like ours, you’re constantly adding new service offerings and capabilities. And there are always new high-profile projects you’ve completed that you want the world to know about. Using this function in Google Photos is a great way to do that quickly, easily and professionally.
