- Making Movies with Movie Maker
- Step 1: Capture Video
- Step 2: Edit Movie
- Step 3: Finish Movie
- Tip Sheet
- Summary
Like this article? We recommend
Like this article? We recommend
Like this article? We recommend
Step 2: Edit Movie
Do you have your creative hat on? This is the fun bit.
Under the Edit Movie task, you can view video effects, use transitions and titles, and even make an AutoMovie.
Before you can do anything, you need to add some content to the storyboard.
Select a collection. You can drag a picture or movie onto the storyboard (see Figure 9). Similarly, you can drag a whole collection onto the storyboard.
)
Figure 9 A movie being dragged onto the storyboard.
When you have your content on the storyboard, you can play around with it (see Figure 10). You can drag and drop elements and move them around. Consider this fact...only a few years ago this process would have required editing videotape. It was expensive and time-consuming. Now, if you don't like a movie in one place, you can move it a fraction of second.
){kind=link}
)
Figure 10 A storyboard with pictures and video.
You can preview your movie. The movie plays. But you are only just starting.
You can add a transition effect between each movie and picture. Transitions are visual tools that bridge the gap between one scene and another. My favorite transition is the good old-fashioned alpha fade—where one image fades into the other. Movie Maker, however, gives you a whole collection to choose from (see Figure 11).
Press the Collections button and choose Video Transitions.
)
Figure 11 Movie Maker gives you lots of video transitions to use.
You can choose form Bars, Checkerboard, Dissolve, Eye, Keyhole, Circle, and so on. You can select any one transition and then see a demo of the transition in the video preview player.
Adding a video transition is as easy as adding a picture. Simply drag the transition to the small square in-between each clip (see Figure 12).
)
Figure 12 Transitions have been added to the space in-between each clip.
Select the video preview player to see what the transition will look like.
Under the Collections list, you also see Video Effects. A video effect visual distorts the video or picture. As with video transitions, there are plenty of video effects to choose from (see Figure 13).
)
Figure 13 Movie Maker comes packed with a rich collection of video-altering effects.
The role of a video effect is to distort the movie video. For example, you can age your movie or add color distortions. Video effects add video movement, so this is a way to animate a still image. The Film Age, Old Movie effect is especially good at this.
Effects are easily added to any clip. Just drag the effect onto any given clip in the storyboard. The Video Effect icon in the bottom left corner of the image changes to blue, which indicates that a movie effect is applied (see Figure 14).
)
Figure 14 Video effects have been applied to the bottom-left corner of each clip.
Preview your effects.
If you go back to the Task Pane, you will see that you should be adding titles or credits. Again, this is easy to do with Movie Maker.
Select the link labeled Make Titles or Credits. The Title and Credit Wizard, shown in Figure 15, displays.
)
Figure 15 The Title and Credit Wizard.
You can choose to add a title onto the video clip you are working on in the storyboard or add a title to the movie or credits at the end.
Choose Add Title At The Beginning Of The Movie. The screen shown in Figure 16comes up. You can add a title in the top box and a subtitle in the lower box.
)
Figure 16 Adding a title to your movie.
If you don't like the text font or color, you can select the link at the bottom of the page. You can also change the animation sequence for the title. Select Change Title Animation. You can really have a lot of fun choosing the different animation sequences. As you select a sequence, the animation appears in the preview viewer on the left.
The final step is to add a soundtrack to the background by using the timeline view of your content. Press the Timeline button on the storyboard and select the sound you imported earlier for your background track. Drag it onto the Audio/Music track of your timeline. You then see the name of the music appear on the timeline (see Figure 17).
)
Figure 17 Music can be added to the Audio/Music layer in the timeline.
Your music will probably not exactly fit your movie. If the audio is too long, move your cursor to the end of the audio clip. The cursor changes to a red arrow. Click and drag the audio timeline; you can match it up to your video timeline.
To give your soundtrack a professional edge, right-click on the track in the timeline. Choose Fade Out from the menu, which will fade your music in sync with your last frame.
Save your work. You are now ready for the final step.