Create Slide Show

A restaurant client has commissioned me to produce a slide show for the his new eatery. They want zoom in and pan movements of photographs to give like video feel like as well as static shots of most photographs. It will be shown on hd 60 inch led screens throughout the rooms in the business.

Animoto and Pro Show are my considerations,I have 5 months to produce and the fee is quite nice so all suggestions are appreciated. Here in Dallas many restaurants are doing this so a new market has opened up for photo art.
Thanks in advance for suggestions.
God Bless Texas

Rick, I use Animoto which has pros and cons. It does do some amazing things with photographs and video clips, displaying them in a way that if you tried to do manually with After Effects and Premiere, it'd take a long time. The down side to animoto is that they randomize how the slide show will look every time, so if you regenerate the MP4 it's going to be slightly different than the first time. That's how they guarantee that you will have a unique slideshow each time, but if you have to tweak it and then re-render the viceo clip it will have some slightly different transitions, etc. Just something to keep in mind. What I do is keep every MP4 that animoto gives you when you render, thus ending up with several versions of the same slide show if I redo and re-render a few times. Then I take th eparts I like most and cut them together on the timeline in Premiere. Animoto was decent enough to put a blank fram between each image's transition so there's a spot to cut in and replace if needed.

I know that might all sound a bit much and maybe doing video editing after the fact isn't what you want to get into, so the best plan might be to gather all of the images you know you want in there and extensively pre-plan the layout, then when you're ready you can sign up for one month of Animoto Pro for $39 (I think that's the price) and use that month to hammer away until you get what you need. One nice feature they offer is access to a large library of music by Triple Scoop, one of the better music stock houses out there. You WILL need to buy a month of the Pro Animoto if you use them because that's the only way you'll be able to create a full 1080p HD slideshow, the cheaper account don't offer that.

Hope that helps!

Paul,
Thanks for time to respond. This does help a bit. For my project there is no need for sound or music.

I am looking for a more controlled final product. Stills with zoom, pan and other camera movements.

Any reviews on Pro Show?

Hi Rick - You already know my views on Pro Show Gold but I'll answer here too if anyone else can benefit by it. Never used Animoto. I have used Pro Show Gold full program which costs $69.95 (not a monthly subscription). It also has an option to add music. For personal use I don't license music but for slide shows on my website I do use music I licensed from Triple Scoop (through my Zenfolio website). Scotland

I find Pro Show Gold easy to use with many of features you mentioned as well as many more - zoom in and out, pan, fade, fade color to B&W, image movement horizontally, vertically, rotate....... A lot that I have not explored. BTW - Pro Show does offer a free trial version. When you finish the slide show it also gives you a lot of options for output formats including 1080p HD. It never randomizes the slide order. Personally, I prefer control over that.

I assume you are using Windows. If you were using a Mac I would recommend FotoMagico.