Making 2010 Memorable – A Year in Pictures Made Easy(ish)

I’m a sucker for “End Of/Best Of” slideshows – always have been. You know what I’m talking about… the look back on a year of school, a great road trip with friends, or even the ESPN “Best of the Year” year-end montage of the best sports highlights of the year. So one of the first things I thought of making to start a great personal history in 2011 was just a “Best of 2010” slideshow, especially since this was the first full year we had our wee little girl with us.

The problem was, I have no idea where to start.

I wanted to set it to music, to make it a really nice digital presentation I could send to our parents and friends to celebrate the year. How could I do that without learning some complicated software, or buying a Mac (which seems to have an easy solution for every challenge, including iMovie for digital films. I swear Apple’s going to release iRecovery next year and we’ll suddenly all be gainfully employed and out of debt).

My answer came in Picasa – in a wee little icon at the top of an album that I’ve shown below:

“Create Movie Presentation?” It was like finding an icon for “Eliminate World Hunger” – you have to at least CLICK on it. So I did – and although the process wasn’t quite painless, it was free, it was relatively easy, and my slideshow turned out great (humblebrag).

Here’s how you, too, can create a “Year of” movie using Picasa and one other free program, Audacity:

1. Create an Album for your slideshow.

3. Start Picasa’s Movie Maker feature. Click on the “Create Movie Presentation” icon, and you’ll get three tabs to review:

• “Movie” Tab changes the audio, speed and resolution of your movie.
  
  • Under “Audio Track,” click “Load” to insert music to your slideshow. Note that these tracks cannot be iTunes files, only MP3 files. If you’re desperate, you can find tons of single MP3 files for purchase on Amazon.com. NOTE: if you want to splice multiple songs together for a longer movie, read Step 4 to use Audacity (boo).
  • Use “Transition Style,” “Duration” and “Overlap” to determine how the movie will move from slide to slide – and how quickly.
  • Use the “Dimensions” section to determine the resolution and other appearance features you wish to use on your movie.
• “Slide” Tab helps you add text to any image in your movie – or create a standalone slide page with text.
  
  • Movie Maker offers a default slide to open your slideshow movie, but you can use the tools on this tab to change anything about that slide – or remove it entirely.
  • You can also use this tab to add text to any photo in your slideshow – just click on the photo and use the tools to add the type, font and size you want on that slide. It’s a great way to add context to photos so others understand their meaning to you.
• “Clips” Tab helps you add any other photos/images to your movie before you finish it.
  • This is a good point to review your slides and delete any that aren’t necessary, or add text where it may help the flow of the slideshow.

4. IF you are using audio and want to splice together a few favorite songs, read this – otherwise, move to Step 5.

• Picasa currently doesn’t have a way to let you play multiple audio tracks in one movie. So I used the free program Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) to edit several MP3 files together. I’m sure there are other reputable programs, but since I used this one I’ll tell you how to splice your tracks together:
  • Download the right Audacity program for your operating system, and then go to “File,” “Import” and “Audio” to download the tracks you want to use in your movie (I used three – long slideshow!).
  • Click on the label area (click below to see the “label”) of your second track and select “Find Zero Crossings” on the Edit dropdown menu. Don’t ask me what this means – I looked it up so I could tell you and appear intelligent, but ended up in a fetal position in the dark corner of the room, staring at my navel. Just trust me.
  • Select “Cut” from the “Edit” dropdown menu
  • Place and click the cursor at the place you want your second track to start – most likely, right after the audio ends on your first track.
  • Select “Paste” from the “Edit” dropdown menu
  • If you’re feeling particularly sassy, repeat to add a third track to your first audio track. If you only have two (<cough> <”wimp!”> <cough>), check your work by playing your track, and then “Export” if you like it and want to use as the MP3 track for your slideshow.
  • In Picasa, load your selected MP3 file into your slideshow
  • Go get yourself a cold drink and some gummy bears – you deserve them.

5. When you’re done editing your movie and your audio, click on “Create Movie” to let Picasa start to finalize your file.

• A draft will automatically be created – to confirm your slideshow, just press “Create Now.”
• This step can take a looooong time if you have a lot of photos – with my 254 photos and my audio files, I’d estimate that it took about 45 minutes for Picasa to finish with my movie.
• When the movie is completed, you can access it under the “Projects” area on the left side of Picasa.
• You also have the option of uploading your video directly to YouTube, although I’d recommend reviewing it first before loading it onto the largest video site in the Known Universe.

Whew! That was a lot to take in, but once you do it once it gets much easier and enjoyable. I now have a lovely, 14-minute slideshow of 2010 with great music in the background. Not that anyone outside of me and my wife will watch a 14-minute recap of our 2010, but it’s nice to have anyway.

As I look at starting to chronicle my personal history, it felt easy to start with the last 12 months. Now I’ve got that taken care of, it’s time to tackle more ambitious projects! Stay tuned… and let me know if you have questions!

PS – I highly recommend the following three songs for a great slideshow – they’re what I used. Amazingly, I heard two of them in TV commercials and loved them so much I downloaded them:

• “Sweet Disposition” by Temper Trap
• “Waiting for My Real Life to Begin” by Colin Hay (former lead singer of “Men at Work!”)
• “This is Us” by Emmylou Harris and Mark Knopfler (a personal favorite of me and my wife)

Let me know if you use — and have success using — these tips