movmaker

Simple Python + ffmpeg movie maker.

Drop pictures, videos, music, and optionally one simple data.txt file into a single flat input directory. Then run one command to create an MP4 video.

No YAML. No required subdirectories.

Requirements

• Python 3
• ffmpeg
• ffprobe usually included with ffmpeg

Install on Debian/Ubuntu/Raspberry Pi OS:

sudo apt install ffmpeg

Fonts

The default title/stamp styling uses these fonts:

• Bebas Neue for the opening title, date, and location
• Noto Sans Bold for the bottom-left/bottom-right stamps and per-file captions

Both fonts support common Danish and Croatian characters such as æ ø å Æ Ø Å č ć ž š đ Č Ć Ž Š Đ.

Install them locally for the current user:

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/fonts/google
curl -L -o ~/.local/share/fonts/google/BebasNeue-Regular.ttf \
  'https://github.com/google/fonts/raw/main/ofl/bebasneue/BebasNeue-Regular.ttf'
sudo apt install fonts-noto-core
fc-cache -f

Check that fonts are available:

fc-match 'Bebas Neue'
fc-match 'Noto Sans'

Optional Pixabay music download

If the input folder has no audio file, movmaker can download one random track from Pixabay Music.

Save your Pixabay API key in either an environment variable:

export PIXABAY_API_KEY='your_key_here'

or in a local config file:

mkdir -p ~/.config/movmaker
echo 'PIXABAY_API_KEY=your_key_here' > ~/.config/movmaker/pixabay.env
chmod 600 ~/.config/movmaker/pixabay.env

The default music search query is:

cinematic punk rock

Override it with:

python3 movmaker.py input --music-genre "upbeat rock"

Input folder

Example:

input/
  IMG_001.jpg
  IMG_002.png
  holiday_clip.mp4
  music.mp3
  data.txt

Supported file types:

• Images: .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .webp, .bmp, .tif, .tiff
• Videos: .mp4, .mov, .mkv, .avi, .webm, .m4v
• Audio: .mp3, .wav, .m4a, .aac, .flac, .ogg
• Data: data.txt, info.txt, or title.txt

Files are ordered by filename, so names like this work well:

001.jpg
002.jpg
003.mp4
004.jpg

data.txt

data.txt is optional.

Simplest format:

Paris Trip
Paris, France
May 2024

Those three lines mean:

1. title
2. location
3. date

If the date line is omitted, movmaker uses the date from the first picture/video and displays it like:

May 14th 2026

If the location line is omitted and GPS coordinates are found in the first picture/video that has them, movmaker reverse geocodes them and uses that as the location. It tries to return only city/town/village, country; if no city/town/village is found, it uses just the country.

Key/value format also works:

title: Paris Trip
date: May 2024
place: Paris, France

Optional per-file captions are supported:

IMG_001.jpg: Eiffel Tower
IMG_002.jpg: Louvre
IMG_003.jpg: First line | Second line

Usage

Basic:

python3 movmaker.py input

With options:

python3 movmaker.py input \
  --out-dir . \
  --image-duration 6 \
  --fade 3 \
  --audio-fade 10 \
  --audio-fade-in 2 \
  --video-fade 1.5 \
  --music-genre "cinematic punk rock" \
  --resolution 1920x1080 \
  --fps 30

Fast preview render:

python3 movmaker.py input --preview

Current behavior

• scans one flat input directory
• auto-detects media/audio/data files by extension
• shows each image fully visible for 6 seconds by default, not counting crossfades
• keeps the first image longer so the first transition starts after 2x image duration, 12 seconds by default
• includes video clips inline
• crossfades between media items over 3 seconds by default
• loops/trims music to match the video
• if no audio file exists in the input folder, searches Pixabay Music using --music-genre and downloads one random track; default query is cinematic punk rock
• reads the Pixabay API key from PIXABAY_API_KEY or ~/.config/movmaker/pixabay.env
• fades music in over 2 seconds and out over 10 seconds by default
• fades video in/out over 1.5 seconds by default
• overlays the opening title for the first 6 seconds: large title, then date/location on one line
• displays optional per-file captions at bottom center with a thin black outline; use | to split caption lines
• adds persistent bottom-left title/date/place and bottom-right @bubulescu stamps
• preserves special characters in rendered overlays and metadata
• uses safe ASCII only for generated filenames, so special letters become readable equivalents like Č -> C, å -> a, ø -> o
• embeds MP4 metadata: title, date, location/place, QuickTime location name, artist, comment, and creation_time
• writes an MP4 file named like YYYYMMDD_title.mp4 in the current directory by default; use --out-dir DIR to choose another output directory
• takes YYYYMMDD from the first picture/video metadata, falling back to file modification date
• uses local ffmpeg/ffmpeg and ffmpeg/ffprobe when present, otherwise system tools

Notes

This is an early version. The intended workflow is deliberately simple: dump files into one folder and run the script.