Remember when home slide shows were the bane of personal relationships. There was no quicker way to end an evening with friends, than to haul out the slide projector, and stacks of Kodachrome from the last vacation. Those days are gone. Today we have Flickr and iPhoto. Slideshows, though, have entered the 21st century with chic flair and eye candy.
Animation, Graphics, Video, Music
I remember the last Kodachrome slide show I gave. The darkened room could hide closed eyes, but not the yawns. Today’s slide shows are beautiful productions with a few clicks; vastly superior eye candy in every way.
PulpMotion is a relatively inexpensive Mac app that brings professional level presentation elements to photo slide shows.
In a way, it’s like a very focused iMovie. Drag and drop photos, videos, and music onto a timeline. That’s easy enough, but it’s the finish product that counts.
PulpMotion exports your finished production as a QuickTime file so it can be viewed online, via email, or as a podcast. Even sweeten the production in Garageband, iMovie, or FinalCut Pro X.
The secret to a quick and not dirty production is in the themes and the timeline. PulpMotion themes work similar to themes in iMovie and iDVD. Drag and drop photos into zones in the themes. Change transitions on the fly.
PulpMotion picks up where iMovie leaves off, adding more functionality, yet retaining the time-honored timeline to drag and drop elements (photos, music, video, etc.).
The drag and drop is easier than expected. Drag photos or other elements into the PulpMotion composition window (ditto for music, video clips, etc.). They automatically appear in sequence in the timeline.
Video clips can even be edited right inside PulpMotion to match your presentation time requirements. Drag a sound track to the timeline and match it to the video.
Themes can be tested on the fly, too. Try one. Don’t like it? Click to try another.
If you find iMovie and iPhoto’s presentation production export options to be limited, check the videos on the PulpMotion site. They’re stunning.
Some of the themes are sophomoric, but usable. The only notable issue I’ve experienced so far is the need to have a very recent Mac, preferably one with SSD storage and plenty of RAM.
Multimedia presentations are CPU and resource hogs. PulpMotion is easy enough to use for basic slide shows with photos, music, background audio, and video clips, but larger, more complex presentations with more elements requires more serious horsepower.
Both versions of PulpMotion are available in the Mac App Store, but the developer’s site has an option to try-before-you-buy.
About Ron McElfresh
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