Creating Movies Using Windows Photo Story 3
Photo Story 3 is a free Microsoft download. Once installed on your computer, you can create custom videos that integrate images, your narration, and music.
1. Open Photo Story 3 from your programs list.
2. Import your pictures. Remember: you can import more than one picture at a time by holding down the ctrl key.
- Edit your pictures. You will be able to rotate, crop, add effects, or adjust the color levels.
- Click next, and add titles to your pictures.
- Don’t forget to add your PowerPoint slide saved as a JPEG that includes your photo citations (see below).
3. Narrate and your pictures and add customize motion.
- Click the record button to add your own narration to the picture. You may type in notes to aid you during the recording. The notes will not appear in your movie.
- Click “customize motion”under each picture to add transitions and to determine the start and stop positions of each picture.
- Once in “customize motion, choose the “transition” tab to add transitions between pictures.
- To determine the start and end position of motion for each picture, select “select start and end position of motion” and then crop each picture to how you want it to appear at the start and end of that picture’s clip.
- You may also determine the number of seconds that you want each picture to be displayed. It is a good idea to hit “preview” to ensure that your picture is sufficiently highlighted.
- Add your music.
- Choose “select music to add music saved to your computer. Remember copyright law restricts the music that you include to only copyright-free songs.
- You may also choose music from Photo Story’s collection. Click on “Create Music” to customize a song. You can choose the genre, style, band, mood, tempo, and intensity. Make sure that the music fits with the contents of your movie.
- Adjust the volume of your music. Make sure that the background music does not overshadow your voice narration. You will probably need to adjust the volume to a lower setting. Preview your movie to determine a good volume level.
5. Save your movie once your project is completed.
- Choose “save your story for playback on your computer” and choose the location where the movie should be saved (your account).
- Click “next” and wait for your movie to save.
- DO NOT do this step until you are completely finished working on your project. You want to choose “save project” and save your file as a Photo Story file until you are completely finished editing your movie.
Copyright-Free Images and Music
Mrs. Koshollek is likely to upload these videos to YouTube. Copyright law prohibits the republishing of others’ work (including photos, music, and videos) without permission from the work’s owner. In order to follow the law, you must use images and music from copyright-free websites. Use the following to find images and music.
Image Quest
Access this database containing over two million rights-cleared images from the “Library and Resources” link. The username is nlmsis and the password is library. Click on the image’s title to make it larger and to find the completed citation. Note: you must cite the image in order to legally use it. (See below for how to save your citations). Save each image to your account.
Soundzabound
Access this database containing copyright-free music from the “Library and Resources” link. Click on “category” on the left side to find many categories of music to browse. Choose “download MP3” to save the file to your account.
Creating a Citation Slide using PowerPoint
You will legally have to cite your images and music and include that citation list at the end of your movie. You will use PowerPoint to create a list of your sources. Follow these instructions:
- Create a PowerPoint slide with a black background and white text.
- Your type size can be 24-point.
- Copy and paste all image citations from Image Quest onto your PowerPoint slide.
- Cite your Soundzabound music by writing the following:
Royalty Free Music by Soundzabound.com
“Song Title,” Artist Name
- Once your citation list is complete, go to file-save as. In the “save as type” section (under file name), scroll down and select JPEG. Do not save as a JPEG until your citation list is complete.