I came up with the idea of this video as I was discussing a lesson plan with a colleague , his project being to have his students decide who the 5th face on Mount Rushmore could/should be.
I then remembered a tool that allows you to make your photos speak: www.blabberize.com (suscribe for free)
The online tool contains a small editor to create the moving area around the mouth.
The next step was to find some audio that would fit the picture. I searched VOA News (Special English), which remains one of my favourte sites for US civilization and history stuff, and found this article entitled “Visiting 7 Man-Made Wonders in the US” published on 3rd, March 2009 and from which I extracted the specific part about Mount Rushmore.
The audio file attached to a “Blabberized photo” can last up to 30 seconds. The tool does not offer a “save on computer” option, so I used CamStudio to record each animation and save them in .avi format. I eventually used Windows Movie Maker to create the final Movie, as well as Audacity to extract the sound I needed. I used one of the many free .flv converters available online to complete the video below.
- a video montage: the Rushmore faces are talking to you