Windows Movie Maker
Physical World
Overview
Windows Movie Maker is a free download from Microsoft that allows you to easily create movies on your computer. In order to run either version of Movie Maker you must be using either the Windows XP or the Vista operating systems.
The Process
There are 4 basic steps to creating a movie using Movie Maker:
1) Locating source materials: videos, pictures, and sounds that will make up your movie.
2) Uploading/Importingsource materials into Movie Maker collections.
3) Edit your movie by arranging the video clips, pictures, and audio files in the order you wish and applying transitions, titles, narration, etc.
4) Save your movie in a format that is appropriate for your purposes.
Locating Source Materials
Before you can create your movie, you must gather your source materials.
Digital still images: scanned photos or moving images collected from the Internet. Movie Maker will accept standard jpg, gif, tiff, & bmp, formats, along with a few other less common formats.
DigitalAudio: use mp3 or wav audio files. For copyright-free music you can go to Soundzabound.com [Username: waunakee Password: warriors].
Digital video: Movie Maker will let you capture video from a video camera connected to your computer.
1) Click on “Capture from video device”
2) Select the device from which you will be recording your video click “next.”
3) Enter a file name for the video you will be creating and click “browse” to select the location where you will save your video. Click “next.”
4) Video Setting Selection: Choose “best quality for playback on my computer.” Please note that there are several options available under “other settings.”
5) Click “start capture” to begin recording from the device. “stop capture” ends the recording. Note that you can create multiple clips by simply selecting “start capture” again. This screen allows you to preview your video as you record and see the approximate length and size of your video. Check the box to allow Movie Maker to create clips at pauses or scene changes.
6) When you click “finish,” Movie Maker will import the video into a new collection.
Import Your Files into Collections
Once you have all your source files on your computer, you need to import them into Movie Maker so that you can work with them. Movie Maker does not actually move or change your original files. It simply makes note of where they are and creates an internal “pointer” to them that it uses. As a result, once you begin a Movie Maker project, if you move or delete your source files Movie Maker will not be able to find them, resulting in no movie
.
To import files, simply click on the type of file you would like to import, video, pictures, or audio.
1) Browse to the location where the files are stored
2) Select the files you want to include.
The basic method is the same regardless of the medium, with a couple of exceptions for video:
• You can select multiple image or audio files at once for importation into a collection, but you can only import one video file at a time into a collection.
• When you select a video file to import, you have the option of allowing Movie Maker to split the file into clips. Movie Maker will split the video file into smaller segments based upon pauses and scene shifts that it detects.
Editing Your Movie
Once you have all the pieces assembled, you are ready to begin the editing process. The easiest way to begin is to use the timeline view.
To Assemble Your Movie:
• Simply click and drag the items (video & still images) you would like to include to the timeline in the order in which you would like them to appear in the movie.
• To add audio, click and drag to the Audio/Music section of the timeline.
• You can rearrange the order of the items by clicking and dragging them on the timeline
To Trim Your Clips:
You may want to include only a portion of a particular video clip. You need to be in the timeline view to trim clips. The easiest way to trim a clip is to simply place your cursor at the beginning or the end of the clip until you get the double red arrows and move those to the point you want. Trims can be undone as you are not actually deleting anything when you trim.
You can also split a clip and delete the section that you don’t want.
Finding an Exact Location in the TimelinePlay the clip until you find the frame where you wish to trim. You can use Alt+Left Arrow and Alt+Right Arrow or the player controls to advance the video frame by frame.
Changing the Duration of a Still Image on the Screen:
By default, when you add a still image to your movie it will appear onscreen for 5 seconds. You can change the duration, however:
• Pull the clip out so that it is longer.
To Apply Transitions between Scenes:
• Select the Video Transitions from the Movie Tasks menu on the left.
• Drag the transition you would like to apply to the box between the appropriate scenes on the storyboard.
• Preview the effect by pressing play on the video monitor.
• To remove a transition, you can right click on the transition and delete.
To Apply Video Effects:
By applying video effects you can make your movie clips play faster or slower, can blur the picture, make the film appear aged, or any number of other effects.
• Choose Video Effects from the Movie Tasks menu on the left.
• Drag the desired effect onto the appropriate clip in the timeline
• You can preview the effect in the video monitor;
• You can apply more than one effect to a single clip;
• To delete an effect, you can right click on it and delete.
To Add an Audio Track:
Movie Maker can handle two audio tracks simultaneously: the audio portion of imported video clips and a separate audio/music track. The second audio track could be a musical score, for example, or a voice-over narration. Audio tracks can only be added using the Timeline view. Video clips can be used as the audio on the audio/music track.
• Move to the point in the movie where you would like the audio to begin.
• Drag the audio clip from the collection area to the timeline.
• You can trim audio clips just as you can video clips (see above).
To Add Narration:
You can record narration for your movie directly within Movie Maker. Because the narration is stored on the same track as the audio/music (see above), you cannot have both narration and background music at the same time. Audio that was imported as part of a video clip is stored separately, so you can have narration and the ambient audio from your original video playing concurrently. To record narration, you must have a microphone connected to your computer.
• Make certain you are using the timeline view.
• Drag your timeline indicator to the spot in the video where you would like to add narration; the Audio/Music line must be empty at this spot.
• Click on the icon of the microphone.
• A new screen appears; here you can adjust the input level of your microphone.
o Speak normally into the microphone and watch the level indicator;
o The level indicator should not go into the red, but should come close;
o Adjust the level up or down as required;
o Repeat the process until the levels are set appropriately;
• Click the “Start Narration” button to start recording.
• Your film will begin playing in the video monitor from the spot you indicated.
• Speak into the microphone.
• When you are finished, press the “Stop Narration” button.
• You will be prompted to save your file.
• The recorded narration will automatically be added to the collection currently open and added to the Audio/Music track timeline.
Managing Audio Tracks:
You can add a few effects to your audio and make some adjustments to its playback.
To mute an audio track:
• Right click on the track, and select mute;
• This is particularly useful for stripping out the audio for video clips you have imported.
Adding Titles:
Adding text titles to you film allows you, for example, to display the title of your masterpiece at the beginning of the film, or to put a person’s name onscreen during an interview segment, or to create the list of credits at the end of the film (you know, that part of the movie that is still playing as most people start to leave the theater).Click on “Make Titles or Credits”
You have the choice of creating a title at the beginning of the movie, at the end of the movie, before and after individual clips, and on an individual clip.
Select the placement for the title you would like to appear in your movie.
Another screen appears where you can enter the text.
Saving Your Movie
Once you have finished editing your movie you need to save your movie so that others can view it. This is different than just hitting the “save” button. When you press the save button you are saving the Windows Movie Maker project. This file contains the “pointers” to your source files and instructions for what you want to do with those files (all of your editing work).
Final Step: Render Your Movie:
• From the main menu, select “Save to My Computer” under the Finish Movie section of the Task window.
• Important: provide a filename and a location that you have access to (NOT the C drive)