Adobe Spark Video

Adobe Spark Video is a video storytelling application for the iPad and iPhone developed by Adobe Systems.^[1] It combines motion graphics, audio recording, music, text, and photos and is used to produce short animated, narrated explainer videos.^[2] It is part of the Adobe Spark suite of design and storytelling apps. It became the company's first application to be named by Apple as an App Store Best App of the Year^[3] and has been downloaded over 3.5 million times.^[4]

Adobe Spark Video

Developer(s)	Adobe Systems
Initial release	May 8, 2014 (as Adobe Voice) May 19, 2016 (as Adobe Spark Video)
Development status	Active
Operating system	iOS
Platform	iPad, iPhone
Type	Animation software
Website	spark.adobe.com

Description

Unlike traditional video and animation software applications that rely on a timeline or keyframes, Adobe Spark Video presents a unique, simplified narration-based animation model: users read a line of their story to their device (pressing and holding an on-screen button as if using a walkie talkie), choose a visual (e.g., photo, icon, or text), and repeat these steps for each line ("page") of their story to create a complete animated, narrated video.^[5]

Spark Video normalizes the volume of and optimizes the user’s narration, adds backing music, and then automatically generates animated motion graphics synchronizing the narration and corresponding visuals, dynamically adjusting the length of animations to smoothly align with each line of the story.^[6] It includes several dozen motion graphics themes that apply custom typography, color palettes, and digital effects and animation designed using Adobe After Effects, such as motion blur, drop shadows, zooming and panning, 3D, camera motion, textures, and animated masks.^[7] The software claims to allow non-professionals to create animated narration-driven short videos “in minutes.”^[8] Videos can be shared via a custom web page, email, SMS, Facebook, Twitter, or exported as H.264 video files. The application is popularly used by students and educators, small businesses, non-profits, and others intending to create short narrated videos to present ideas and stories online.

Designed by an educator, Spark Video includes several features intended to scaffold storytelling and media literacy concepts.^[9] These include a built-in searchable library of Creative Commons licensed vector images and photographs, automatic tracking and generation of attributions, a library of music organized by emotional sentiment, and story guides with narrative story structure prompts (such as a simplified “Hero’s Journey” storyboard) to help users learn about narrative structure.^[10] It attempts to encourage rapid revision and iteration though its touch-based recording model: to re-record a specific line in the middle of their story, users press and hold the record button to overwrite their old recording, and the application will automatically adjust audio and animation across the entire video to smoothly accommodate the new recording.

References