Week #3 - Item 7 Having fun with technology

I went along one of those side trips that get me in trouble....but I sure had a good time. Here is my "work in progress". I thought it would be nice to utilize "mash-ups" on my library webpage. With the arrival of summer, what better than a video introducing great summer reading suggestions?!
Herein lies my journey....
I wanted to create a slideshow/video with suggested summer reading titles for Grades K - 6, but with something more than photos of book covers and book description captions. Flickr Toys has a slideshow option but it was more limited than what I was after.
Photobucket has a great remix program but also did not allow for me to personal the slides like I envisioned. FilmLoop Studio allowed me to do some really cool stuff with my photos, BUT...I don't like their limited slide transitions. That's where Movie Maker came into play. I loved what I could do with Movie Maker with a recent attempt to make a "Flat Stanley" video for a relative. Great transitions, bubbles, etc.
The process went something like this:
1. Obtain a photo of the book jacket from Amazon.com - save as .jpeg to my computer.
2. Decide and locate photos, bubbles, tattoes, etc. that would enhance the book cover. Sources included FilmLoop Studio graphics collection, PrintShop 21, PC Hugware graphics, and Movie Maker.
3. Create a final photo utilizing FilmStudio and saving them as .jpeg files.
4. Import the above saved .jpeg files into MovieMaker and create a slide/video utilizing their slide transitions (great selection).
5. Save the file as a video file.
6. Import the above video file into Photobucket remix.
7. Add music from the selected titles.
8. Create video and save as file to embed on my webpage.
Here is the final outcome. Hope you like it.
http://edweb.pylusd.org/lib0320
Things that did not work out as planned:
1. The photos distorted when uploaded into Photobucket remix. This makes some of the slides more difficult to read.
2. The video was timed to the music but did not transition as planned.
3. Since I saved the photos as .jpeg files in FilmLoop Studio, I was unable to go back to make changes. I should have saved everything as a draft movie in the event that it would not have uploaded as desired. Now I know.
As I update the slideshow, I will make the necessary changes to the existing selections. It is going to be very time consuming since I have to re-create each slide from scratch.