App of the Week: Tellagami

Title: Tellagami
Cost: Free
Platform: iOS and Android

Tellagami is a video creation app for iOS and Android devices that allows users to create fun animated videos in minutes. The app creates simple animated videos with a single character talking to the viewer. The first stage of creating a video is customizing the character to your specifications. You can change the character’s gender, skin tone, eye color, head size, hair color and clothing to get exactly the look you want for your project. From there, you can set the character’s default mood and specify the background of the video. Backgrounds can be a photo from your device, a drawing you have done or one of the eight backgrounds provided by the app.

Once you have customized the look of your video, it is time to set the audio. You can either record your own voice or type in your desired text and choose from the selection of male and female speakers offered by the app. The app automatically animates your character’s mouth so that it matches the words in your message, which helps to make a decent quality animation quite quickly. I found that the sound on the recording option had a noticeable amount of background noise, though both recording my own audio and typing in my desired text worked well. If you are happy with your video, you can preview it, save it to your device’s library or share it via Facebook, Twitter, email or text message. Tellagami is a good option for creating animation and would be particularly good for classroom assignments since it is very accessible to younger users. I could also see using it for library outreach videos or as part of an activity or contest where kids make their own stories and animate them using the app. It is a fun video creation option!

For more app recommendations visit the YALSA App of the Week Archive. If you have an app you think we should review, let us know!