What's New with Animoto
Looking for the latest and greatest features in Animoto? You've come to the right place. Jump to a new feature below, or keep reading for a rundown of what's new.
Jump ahead:
- April '24: Text and Element Timing
- April '24: AI Script Generator
- March '24: New Text Styles & Themes
- February '24: New releases
- October '23: New improvements to make Animoto easier than ever
- August '23: Professional Plus plan
- August '23: Elements
- May '23: Multi-song
- February '23: Screen and webcam recording
- 2022 Updates
- New templates
Text and Element Timing
Launched April, 2024
Animoto’s new timeline controls blend the precision of timeline editing with the simplicity of our drag-and-drop interface, it’s the best of both worlds. Elevate your videos by syncing text and elements perfectly with the narrative flow of your visuals. Here's how to access the timeline:
Use timing to:
- Build anticipation and excitement by teasing your text out.
- Caption your videos word by word.
- Introduce people and products in your video with a professional touch.
- Use the playhead to make your text and elements appear or disappear at the perfect moment.
- and a whole lot more!
Get our full list of timing tips and tricks in this guide and learn how to create videos your audience can’t stop watching.
AI Script Generator
Launched: April '24
Animoto just got better with AI!
You know your business. We know video. Input your rough ideas and let our AI Script Generator polish them into an engaging script. Your script will be automatically applied to your video, giving you a starting point that's completely unique to you. Then, just use our drag and drop tools and licensed media to make the video your own.
New Text Styles & Themes
Launched: March '24
You've got five new text styles to play with. Elevate your storytelling with five new text animations featuring a combination of stylish animations and text treatements.
- Slide Left: Your text glides in from the left with a word by word text reveal.
- Vertical Slide: Text cascades into position with a line by line reveal.
- Back & Forth: Each line zips into place with energy and purpose.
- Rustic: Textured text styling with a touch of tradition and warmth.
- Rolling Text: A letter-by-letter reveal for a dynamic storytelling experience.
And that's not all, we've also launched 10 new themes which combine these text styles with professionally-curated colors, fonts, and transitions. You can find all the new text styles and themes in your design settings.
New releases
Launched: February '24
More text boxes per block
Tell your story without skipping the details! Now, you can add up to 10 text boxes to any block. Get creative with fun text layouts to use all ten to tell your story.
Instant video preview with audio
Block previews now include your video's audio! Instead of previewing the entire video to hear the audio in one video clip, you can listen on a block-by-block level and make adjustments as needed. Just click the play button at the bottom of each block to see and hear the preview.
HDR tone mapping
There are no sacrifices when it comes to your video's resolution! With new HDR mapping technology, your video footage will appear in all its full-color glory.
Remove placeholders
Make room, layouts! Now, you don't need to fill each and every media slot in your video layout. Just fill the ones you like and the rest won't appear in your final video.
New improvements to make Animoto easier than ever
As of October '23
Our goal has been and always will be to provide you with the easiest video creation process possible. We've been talking to Animoto users to learn what we can do to make Animoto even faster, easier, and more fun for users. Thanks to your feedback, we just rolled out some small but mighty features to help you overcome your most common issues and get to finished videos faster. Check them out below or start exploring in your workspace!
Add up to eight voice-overs
With up to eight tracks per video, adding your voice to your videos just got a lot easier. Now, you can record in pieces without worrying about a few stutters or tongue-twisters ruining your perfect take.
Modify multiple block lengths at once
Gone are the days of manually increasing or decreasing your length of your blocks one by one. Now, you can save time by selecting multiple blocks and increasing or decreasing their duration at the same time.
To do this, hold the shift button and click on two blocks. From here, you can either tick the "Select all" box, or continue selecting additional blocks. Then, use the up and down arrows to increase or decrease the duration of each block in increments of one second. To make all your blocks one uniform length, just type your desired length into the duration field and watch as each one automatically adjusts.
More font size options
If you're looking for a quick and easy way to upscale or downscale your text, we've got you covered! From 8pt all the way to 432, all you need to do is click your desired size to transform your text.
Reminder: You can always change the size of your text by typing in a custom number.
Better asset upload experience
Bulk-uploading media can be a pain, especially when you don't know how long it will take. We get it! To make things more transparent, we've added loading spinners on each file in your media library so you can see their progress.
Professional Plus plan
Launched: August '23
Want to expand your team? You can add your team members, set user roles, and purchase additional seats right from your account.
Invite others to watch, edit, and leave time-stamped feedback all within your Professional Plus Workplace. Set yourself and your team up for success with Saved Brands and Templates. Upload your font and add your colors, logos, music, message, and more to enable anyone to create on-brand videos in minutes.
Creating and collaborating with your team has never been easier! The Professional Plus plan has everything you need to create professional videos independently or with colleagues, clients, friends, and more. Learn more about all the features included in the Professional Plus plan and give your team the tools they need to turn ideas into videos, fast.
Elements
Launched: August '23
Bring your videos to life with the magic of Elements! Our Elements library contains thousands of illustrated shapes, frames, arrows, symbols, and calls-to-action that you can “stick” to your video Blocks.
Click on the Element you want to add to your video. Then, just drag and drop your Element to emphasize your text, highlight images or photos, or add motion. Change the color to match your brand or aesthetic, and watch your videos come to life! Learn more here or get started on your next video.
Multi-song
Launched: May '23
You're no longer limited to a single song in your videos. Now, you can use up to eight tracks to capture the mood of your video from start to finish! Adding additional songs is easy:
- Browse the music library and find the songs you want to include.
- Click the plus sign on your first song to add it to your music timeline.
- Trim your music track to leave room for additional songs.
- Click the plus sign on your next song(s) to add them to your timeline.
- Rearrange and trim each track to sync with the various parts of your video.
Screen and webcam recording
Launched: February '23
With new simultaneous screen and webcam recording, you can take what you know and explain it just like you would in person. Simply record what you want to show, explain what they need to know, and start connecting with any audience. Here's how it works!
- Click the record button at the top of your workspace and select “Screen and Camera”
- Choose the screen, window, or tab that you want to record
- Start your webcam recording to explain as you go
- Drag and drop both recordings into your video using the "Picture in Picture" layouts
- Share your video and make communication a breeze, even from a distance
2022 Updates
Webcam recording
Launched: November '22
Looking to connect with your audience, build trust, and communicate more effectively? Good news – you can now record your camera with Animoto and seamlessly add it to your videos!
Here’s how to get started:
- Start your camera recording right from your Animoto workspace, no apps or downloads required
- Trim, merge, and customize camera recordings with text, animations, and more
- Share your video anywhere via email, social, or shareable link
Create your own templates
Launched: October '22
Creating similar videos again and again? Turn your favorite videos into ready-to-use templates with your brand, story, media, and music already in place.
How to use saved templates:
- Create a new video or revisit a favorite then save it as a template right from your video workspace or share page
- To use your template, click the “Saved Templates” tab next to “My Videos”
Saved templates are now available on our Professional and Professional Plus plans. Learn more about how to used Saved Templates below.
Import media from Drive, Dropbox, and more
Launched: October '22
Skip the downloads. You can now import your media from Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and Box straight into your Animoto workspace. Check out our blog post below for our quick guide to connecting your cloud storage and importing your media in just a couple of clicks.
Add two video clips to one block
Launched: October '22
Captivate your audience with motion-packed videos. You can now add up to two video clips to a single block to play simultaneously. Check it out in action, then try it for yourself.
Fine-tune your audio
Launched: October '22
Your voice-overs, video clips, and background music should be working together, not competing for attention.
You now have the power to adjust the volume of individual clips and voice-over tracks. To adjust the volume of a clip:
- Click on the video in your workspace
- Select the volume icon
- Adjust the volume of your clip
To adjust an audio clip, follow the same process in your video's audio tab.
On top of that, Animoto will now automatically adjust the volume of your background music while your video clips or VO tracks are playing so your audio can shine through.
Minimalist video style & themes
Launched: August '22
Our newest video style, Minimalist, is a clean style featuring an accent color, smooth, dynamic transitions, and layouts with negative space. It's designed for a wide range of industries and videos, including internal communications, marketing, trainings, and more.
Watch it in action with this spin on our Video Resume template.
Along with the video style, you've also got three new themes to play with. Themes are sets of color, font, and style combos, curated and ready to apply to your videos in a click.
Summer Times:
Cool Collective:
High Intensity:
The Minimalist style and all three new themes are available now to all Animoto customers. Give them a try now.
Screen recording
Launched: July '22
Power up your communications in a hybrid workspace. Use screen recordings to create engaging and informative presentations, demos, trainings, walkthroughs, and more.
Screen recording is available to everyone for free for a limited time. To get started with screen recording, just open up a project and select the Record button at the top of your workspace.
Learn more about how to use our new screen recording tool below, and stay tuned because we're just getting started.
Time-stamped Commenting
Launched: July '22
No more juggling messy email threads and contradictory comments. Invite anyone to add time-stamped comments to your video. Reply and implement feedback right from your video editing workspace.
Simply put, it's the easiest way to get feedback on your videos. Commenting is now available on our Professional Plus plan. Check out our complete guide below to learn everything you need to know about how commenting helps you get your team on the same page.
Voice-over
Launched: March '22
Tell your story with voice-over. Animoto now supports uploading or recording voice-overs to your videos.
Animoto makes it easy to add high-quality voice-overs that take your videos from ‘good’ to ‘great’ in minutes. Here are just a few ways you can use voice-over.
- Add context to presentations
- Narrate marketing videos
- Create heartfelt family videos
- A whole lot more
Voice-over is now available on our Professional plan. Learn more about the feature below.
Templates
Here are a few of our newest templates. Try them out or browse through our "New" template category!
As of July 16, 2024
Volunteer Recruitment
School Donor Thank you
Fundraising Walk
Open House
Food Drive
Rental Listing
Sales Team Weekly Update
Back to School Promo
Teacher Appreciation Deals
School Supplies Checklist
School Syllabus
Get in touch
If you have ideas for tools or templates you'd like to see added in Animoto, let us know! Get in touch with our team via this link. In the meantime - happy video making!