- If you've seen posts on Instagram like this animated photo
and you've thought, how do they do that?
Well no matter what you call them, cinemagraphs,
plotagraphs, or the much more technical name,
I like to call them moving pictures,
in this tutorial I'm gonna show you exactly
how to create moving pictures, or plotagraphs,
or cinemagraphs or whatever you wanna call them.
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Hi, it's Justine Brown here from Primal Video
where we help you amplify your business
and brand with video.
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So, let's jump into it.
If you've been on Facebook or Instagram at all lately,
you've most likely stumbled across some amazing posts
that are essentially moving photos.
Some of the image is frozen, like a photo
and other parts are moving like video.
What?
I'm sure if you've seen one of these,
then it definitely grabbed your attention.
So the next logical thing I'm sure you asked yourself
was that's awesome, how can I do that?
Well the good news is they're not hard to make
and there's some great apps that let
you do it right on your smartphone.
That's what we're gonna be covering off in this video,
exactly how to create your magical moving pictures right
on your iPhone or Android device.
It's incredibly easy.
To start, we actually have to go back and look
at that whole naming thing again because there actually
are two ways to do this, we're gonna be covering off both.
To put this issue to rest, what exactly
are these magical animated picture things called.
Well, you might have heard them called both plotagraphs
and cinemagraphs, and in reality both of them are correct.
It actually just depends on how you actually create
your final image.
A cinemagraph starts off with video footage
where you're freezing an element of the video
and loop the movement part around.
Whereas, a plotagraph on the other hand, is the opposite.
You're starting off with a still photo
and you animate things like water or clouds
to make it look like video.
So, one starts with a photo the other one starts with video.
But, in either case it's important to know how to do both
so you can create moving picture awesomeness no matter
what files you're working with.
Now that we got that out of the way,
let's jump into how to make them.
We're gonna start off looking at cinemagraphs
which is where we start with video.
There's an absolute heap of apps out there
for creating cinemagraphs on both IOS and Android
but without a doubt, the clear standout,
the absolute best app, is called Cinemagraph Pro.
Cinemagraph Pro is currently selling in the app store
for $139.99, so it's definitely
not for someone just dabbling in this,
it is definitely aimed at the professionals.
If you're gonna be creating a heap of this type
of content, then it might be a fit for you.
Don't worry, because we're gonna be showing
you a much cheaper app that will work on both IOS
and Android and still get you great results.
So, the app that we're gonna be looking at,
again on both IOS and Android, is called Loopsie.
The app itself is actually free but it does put
a small watermark on your finished product
unless you pay to remove it with the in App purchase,
which is around $4 U.S.
Just before I show you exactly how to do it,
my number one tip when you're creating cinemagraphs
whether you're doing it on your phone,
which I'm gonna show you, or whether you're using
your DSLR video camera and you're using software
like Adobe Aftereffects, all cinemagraphs
you need to make sure you're camera is on a tripod
or as stable as possible, wherever possible,
to give you the best results.
That's because we're actually recording video footage
to be looped around and around so you don't wanna
have any motion or movement in there from the camera itself.
Once you've got the app installed all you need
to do is point your phone at whatever it is you wanna shoot,
press and hold the camera button down at the bottom
as you normally would with the Facebook camera
or the Instagram camera, and you wanna hold the button down
until it finishes capturing your scene.
Once it's done it's gonna open up your video
and then all you need to do is to draw
out the section of your video
that you wanna have the motion brought back in.
Now you got two really simple drawing modes.
Of of them is to animate and the other one is to freeze.
By default you're entire image is set to freeze,
so it's a photo and you're only using the animate tool,
the animate pen really, to draw out the section
that you want to animate.
If you do too much and you wanna undo it
then you can just draw back over it with the freeze tool
or with freeze enabled.
You also pinch to zoom in and out to get more detail
to really dial this effect in.
Once you're done all you have to do is hit Export
and then you just need to choose where you wanna save it.
So whether you wanna directly share it to Instagram,
whether you wanna just save it to your phone
or whether you wanna share it out direct
to any other app on your phone.
Now while this will give you really great results
and it's such an easy app to use,
if you are looking for something on IOS
that's gonna give you a bit more control,
then you can check out the app
called Cinegraph Living Photos.
Currently sells for around the $3 price point.
This ones very similar in the way that it works.
Again, you do your video recording,
you then draw out the sections you wanna animate.
This ones got extra things like filters,
and color correction, and a few more advanced controls
if you really wanna dial in the look
of your finished product.
So next up we're gonna take a look at plotagraphs,
which is where we're gonna be animating an actual photo
and making it look like a video.
For this, whether you're on IOS or Android,
there's really two main apps that I would suggest looking at
and both of them are very very similar.
The first one is called Plotaverse
which is probably the most popular app in this space.
And the second one is Zoetropic.
Now while the creation process for creating plotagraphs
is almost identical between these two apps,
Plotagraph does have a fair bit more in the pro version
of the app that will let you add in filters
and other sort of effects, and video overlays
to really take your plotagraphs up a notch.
But as for the actual animation or creation
of the actual plotagraph itself, the two are very similar.
Now at the time of filing this video,
the Plotaverse app itself is actually free.
You will need to sign up for an account, a free account,
to be able to get in and create your plotagraphs
but they will be watermarked when you go to export them.
To remove that watermark then you will need to pay around $5
to upgrade your version so that watermark is gone.
The Zoetropic app is a paid app which is currently selling
for just under $4, I think it's $3.99.
Which obviously being a paid app,
doesn't include any watermarks
when you go to export your image.
When you open up the Zoetropic app you just swipe up
and choose a photo.
Next you've got a heap of tools down the bottom here
to really dial in and create your animated photo.
To start to add some animations in click on motion,
and then come up to your photo and you can actually start
to draw arrows on your actual photo.
The idear is that you're drawing arrows
where you want the motion to be.
Tap where you want the motion to start
and swipe across in the direction
that you want the motion to happen.
Now creating a really short arrow
will create a really small amount of movement,
create a long arrow will create a huge amount of movement.
At any time you can preview your animation,
just by hitting play, and you can that straight out
we've got some animation but everything
is looking a bit warped and wobbly.
The idea then is once you've got your movement happening
you can then start to select elements of your scene
that you don't want to move, so you can fix them down.
You can lock them down two ways.
You can either use a mask and draw out the areas
you don't wanna be effected by the movement.
Or, you can add these little stabilizing markers
and everywhere that you drop these on,
then it's gonna stop the movement in those areas.
Now, if you make any mistakes or you wanna remove anything,
then come down to the select tool and draw out a shape
around the markers or anything that you wanna remove,
they'll then be selected, and then
you can hit the trashcan button and that will be removed.
If you wanna zoom in to get more accuracy on your animations
then you can just click the zoom tool down at the bottom
and then you can pinch to zoom in and out.
And you can also tap to drag around your image.
Once you're done you go up to the three dots
in the top right hand corner
to the menu and hit Save/Export Video.
In here you get to choose the actual speed
or how long it's gonna animate for,
the default is six seconds.
You can also set how many times
you want this animation to repeat.
You can see that we got six second, repeating one time,
the total video time is six seconds.
You can obviously customize that up.
Keep in mind that if you are gonna be posting
these to Instagram, the videos will automatically loop
themselves so you may not actually need
to increase the repetitions because
that will autoloop on Instagram.
You can also customize up the video resolution
there as well.
What I recommend is that you just leave that on ideal,
which is the best quality.
Once you're done, hit save, select MP4,
that's gonna save the file out to your phone.
And then, when you're in Instagram
or wherever you're gonna post it,
you just post it as you would a normal video.
One really quick bonus app that I do wanna mention in here
that I just came across, which is really cool as well,
it's not for creating plotagraphs or cinemagraphs
this one will let you create 3D moving pictures
from your existing photos.
It's very similar to a plotagraph style video,
except this is making it 3D.
The app that you need to do it is called Viewmee 3D
and again all the links are gonna be in the description.
All you need to do in this app is open up one of
your existing photos, tap on the section
that you wanna have in the foreground
and it's automatically gonna cut it out for you.
I was pretty blown away with how accurate
and how well this actually works.
And then it's gonna create a parallax effect
where it's gonna separate the foreground from the background
add some movement to your photo and make it look 3D.
So, super simple, really quick way
to create some awesome, different effects
for your still photos that you can post on social media.
So now that you know how to make awesome,
animated moving images for Instagram and social media,
directly from your phone, if you are looking
to up your video game as well then make sure
you grab our free PDF download linked on screen
for both iPhone and Android where it covers a heap
of tips and tricks to help you tannex your results
while you're creating videos on your phone.
There's also a gear list in there as well
of all our recommended gear to help
you get the best results from your smartphone.
I'll see ya next time.