Presidents Day 2027 is Feb 15: a sale clip from five photos

The US federal holiday designated Washington's Birthday, commonly sold as Presidents Day, is Monday, February 15, 2027 (OPM, read 2026-10-12). That makes the long weekend Saturday Feb 13 to Monday Feb 15, and Valentine's Day falls inside it on Sunday Feb 14. A retailer can run a 20-second sale clip from five photos, a bed and cues for $0.425 in Sume rates.

OPM notes the statutory name is Washington's Birthday, so use "Presidents Day sale" only as a retail label.

How should the weekend be sequenced?

Plan three posts from one rendered MP4. Only the cue text changes, so each variant costs one $0.20 caption job.

What goes in the photos and cues?

Four seconds each: storefront, hero product, shelf or rack, a happy customer pickup, the price card. Cues: "Presidents Day sale" (0 to 8), "Ends Mon Feb 15" (8 to 16), "In store and online" (16 to 20). Do not state a discount percentage the shop has not set. Prompt an upbeat instrumental bed, 20 seconds, no vocals.

How do I build it with the Sume API?

Import the photos first (POST /v1/media-imports), because Timeline only accepts files already hosted on media.sume.com. Still photos are static holds, so the fades carry the motion. Re-run the caption call with new cues for each day of the weekend.

Each call returns a job. Poll GET /v1/jobs/:id/status and read GET /v1/jobs/:id/result for the video_url, then pass that URL to the next step. You can call POST /v1/timeline-1.0/plan first: it is unbilled and returns the duration and estimated cost before you render, which is a cheap way to catch a timing mistake. The placeholder URLs below are examples only.

# 1) bed: POST /v1/music-router/generate (prompt: upbeat instrumental pop, 110 BPM, 20-second track, no vocals) -> audio artifact
# 2) assemble five imported photos (media.sume.com URLs) over a silent spine + bed
curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/timeline-1.0/render \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: presidents-day-timeline-001" \
  -d '{"audio":{"mode":"silence","duration_seconds":20},
       "video":[{"source_url":"https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/photo1.jpg","start":0,"duration":4},
                {"source_url":"https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/photo2.jpg","start":4,"duration":4,"transition":{"type":"fade","duration":0.5}},
                {"source_url":"https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/photo3.jpg","start":8,"duration":4,"transition":{"type":"fade","duration":0.5}},
                {"source_url":"https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/photo4.jpg","start":12,"duration":4,"transition":{"type":"fade","duration":0.5}},
                {"source_url":"https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/photo5.jpg","start":16,"duration":4,"transition":{"type":"fade","duration":0.5}}],
       "soundtrack":{"url":"https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/bed.mp3","gain_db":-6,"fade_out_seconds":2}}'
# 3) burn authored cues on the finished MP4 (no speech needed)
curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/video-captions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: presidents-day-captions-001" \
  -d '{"video_url":"https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/timeline.mp4","style":"slam","cues":[{"text":"Presidents Day sale","start":0,"end":8},{"text":"Ends Mon Feb 15","start":8,"end":16},{"text":"In store and online","start":16,"end":20}]}'

What does the 20-second version cost on Sume?

The photos are yours, so there is no image or video generation line. Rates come from the Sume docs: Music 1.0 and Music Router charge $0.125 per generation, Timeline 1.0 charges $0.10 per ceil(output minute), and a standalone caption job is $0.20. Check GET /v1/catalog, the live catalog, before you budget. Three cue variants cost the render once and the caption job three times: 0.125 + 0.10 + 3 x 0.20 = $0.825.

When is this the wrong approach?

A photo slideshow with cues is the cheap, fast option. It is not the right tool for every job.

• You sell outside the US: this date is the US federal holiday only.
• You need price-by-price product video: use a per-SKU batch, not a slideshow.
• You need motion footage of the product: a photo slideshow only fades between stills.