Creating Your First Movie with Windows Movie Maker
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Abstract
Provides an initial analysis of the appropriate video creation tool to use for beginner moviemakers. This article then focuses on the Windows Movie Maker 2.1 user interface and key features.
So, you've decided that you want to get on the digital media bandwagon by sending a more compelling version of your photographs to friends and family: your first digital movie. In your research for this new-found interest, you've discovered that there are many tools available to make your movies. And now you have to make a decision.
What is the best tool for someone creating videos for the first time?
Fortunately, you have four excellent choices:
Microsoft® Producer for PowerPoint® 2003
Microsoft Windows Media® Encoder 9 Series
Microsoft Plus! Photo Story 2
Microsoft Windows® Movie Maker 2.1
Because each of these Microsoft tools is built on a common platform, the tools overlap and have some common features. However, each is intended for different uses. The following table compares the features available in each tool.
Table 1. Features available in Microsoft moviemaking tools
Producer 2003
Windows Media Encoder 9 Series
Plus! Photo Story 2
Windows Movie Maker 2.1
Drag-and-drop user interface
Importing audio and video files
Capturing live audio and video
Narration
Transitions and video effects
Editing
Synchronizing media elements
Automatically making a movie
Publishing your movie
Because Microsoft digital media tools include as much feature overlap as they do, the reason you are creating your movie drives the selection of the tool you choose.
Producer 2003 is a downloadable add-on for Microsoft PowerPoint, which is part of the suite of Office tools. Producer 2003 lets you enhance your PowerPoint presentations by synchronizing your PowerPoint slides with audio, video, images, HTML, and other media elements to create a synchronized rich-media presentation that others can watch in a Web browser. Producer 2003 always includes integration with the slide component of the PowerPoint program. Producer 2003 is the best tool for enterprise or academic programs in which the creator wants to explain topics to viewers.
Windows Media Encoder 9 Series is a powerful production tool for compressing audio and video content into Windows Media Format that is suitable for streaming over the Internet, downloading onto users' computers, or playing back on hardware devices. This downloadable tool includes many high-performance features: high-quality multichannel audio sound, high-definition video quality, new support for mixed-mode voice and music content, advanced compression configurability and processing support for both deinterlacing and maintaining interlacing, and inverse telecine. This is the premier tool for content creators to use when producing professional-grade audio and video content.
After the big event—wedding, birthday party, or vacation—is over, Microsoft Plus! Photo Story 2 allows you to show photos from the event and tell the tale behind them as well. With this tool, you can add photos to the Photo Story film strip and then add your own narration and background music. From there, you can add titles, credits, and zooming and panning effects to the photos.
From camera to computer to finished product, the ease of Windows Movie Maker 2.1 makes it the best tool for the novice moviemaker. This tool makes creating home movies amazingly fun and easy. It allows you to create, edit, and share your home movies right on your computer with a few simple drag-and-drop moves. You can later add special effects, music, and narration. Then, you can get right on that digital bandwagon and share your movie via the Web, Digital Video tape, e-mail, or CD, or DVD.
The remainder of this article focuses on Windows Movie Maker 2.1.
Windows Movie Maker 2.1 features three main areas: the menu bar and toolbar, the panes, and a storyboard/timeline.
Figure 1. Windows Movie Maker 2.1 user interface
Menu Bar and Toolbar
You can use the commands in the menu bar to perform tasks in Windows Movie Maker 2.1. The toolbar provides an alternative to selecting commands on the menus. You can use the toolbar to perform common tasks quickly.
Panes
The main features of the Windows Movie Maker 2.1 user interface appear in separate panes. Depending on which pane view you are working in, the Movie Tasks view or the Collections view displays. When the Collections view is selected, the Contents pane displays as well.
The Movie Tasks pane lists the common tasks that you may need to perform when making a movie: Capture Video, Edit Movie, Finish Movie, and Movie Making Tips.
The Collections pane—shown in the preceding figure—displays your collections, which contain clips. Windows Movie Maker 2.1 automatically divides video into clips that you can arrange in any order. The collections are listed by name in the Collections pane on the left, and the clips in the selected collection are displayed in the Contents pane.
Storyboard/Timeline
The remaining area of the user interface is the storyboard/timeline. This area is displayed in two views, the storyboard and the timeline. You can switch between these two views when making a movie.
The storyboard is the default view in Windows Movie Maker 2.1. You can use the storyboard to look at the sequence or ordering of the clips in your project and easily rearrange them, if necessary. This view also lets you see any video effects or video transitions that have been added.
You can import existing digital media files that are supported by Windows Movie Maker to use for your movie. The files you can import might be stored on your hard disk on your computer, a shared network location, a CD, or removable media. If the files are located on a CD or removable media, you may want to copy them to your hard disk first. When importing files in Windows Movie Maker 2.1, you can import one file or multiple files at one time.
A source file you import remains in the same location from which it was imported. Windows Movie Maker 2.1 does not store an actual copy of the source file; instead, a clip that refers to the original source file is created and appears in the Contents pane. Because Windows Movie Maker 2.1 works in this way, you cannot move, delete, or rename the source file.
Windows Movie Maker 2.1 also includes the ability to separate imported video files into more manageable sizes—clips—for use in your movie. Clips are created through a process called "clip detection." If you select the Create clips for video files check box when you import video files, clips are created based on the type of video file or files you choose to import. If you do not select the Create clips for video files check box when you import the video file, you can easily separate the video file into clips later.
You can capture live video and audio to your computer by using Windows Movie Maker. Before you begin capturing, a video capture device must be properly connected to your computer, and Windows Movie Maker 2.1 must detect it. Some audio and video capture devices and sources that you can use include digital video (DV) cameras, analog cameras, video cassette recorders, Web cameras, TV tuner cards, and microphones.
When you capture the content live, Windows Movie Maker 2.1 saves the file to a location you choose. While you are capturing the live content, you can mute the speakers on your home system so as not to distract you from your moviemaking tasks. You can stop the capture of your content manually or through a dialog box where you designate the capture duration.
In addition to capturing live audio and video, you can also capture video from tape. Complete instructions for capturing live or recorded content are available in Windows Movie Maker 2.1 Help.
Windows Movie Maker 2.1 provides you with easy-to-use tools for turning your video clips and collections of video clips into movies. To make the movie-creation process even easier, Windows Movie Maker 2.1 includes an AutoMovie tool, which will automatically transform a collection of video clips into a movie. And while manual editing provides greater flexibility and greater control, if you are in a hurry or want a new approach to assembling a movie, AutoMovie provides a great alternative.
The new AutoMovie feature in Windows Movie Maker 2.1 enables you to create a movie almost instantly by automatically editing together the individual clips or collection of clips that you select. AutoMovie analyzes the selected video, pictures, and music and combines the different elements to make one movie based on the automatic editing style you choose. Of course, if you're feeling comfortable with Movie Maker 2.1, then manual editing may be just the option for you.
With Windows Movie Maker 2.1, you can easily add a voice-over to your home movies. Adding narration lets you use your own words and voice to describe the scene that viewers are seeing.
You can add voice narration to your movie, but first you need to connect a microphone to your computer.
Once you have assembled the elements of your home movie on the timeline, you are ready to start your narration. Complete instructions for narrating your movie are available in Windows Movie Maker 2.1 Help.
The audio narration you capture is imported automatically into the current collection and the narration is added automatically to the point on the Audio/Music track where you started the narration.
Windows Movie Maker 2.1 also includes the ability to tune the volume level of the narration or background audio tracks so you can focus your viewer's auditory attention. For example, you can set the audio levels so that dialog in your video can be heard over the music that plays in the background of your movie. In this example the background music appears on the Audio/Music track of the storyboard, and the narration appears on the Audio track.
There are times when you may decide that you want to use only the audio from a scene that you shot with your video camera. Windows Movie Maker 2.1 makes it easy to incorporate the audio portion of the scene without displaying the video in your movie.
Editing enables you to create a story, to turn disconnected shots into a great home movie that has real meaning. Remember, movies are made in the editing room. Although Windows Movie Maker 2.1 is not intended to be an audio and video editing tool, it provides some editing features.
Through the storyboard and timeline, you can complete any of the following tasks:
Rearrange the clips in the sequence you want
Create transitions between clips
Add video effects to video clips and pictures
Trim the clips to hide unwanted segments (in the timeline view only)
Split and combine audio and video clips
Add narration that synchronizes with the clips (in the timeline view only)
The easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface allows you to move clips from the Contents pane or a collection from the Collections pane to the storyboard/timeline—the area where you create and edit your movie. You can also preview all of the clips in your movie. To hear the audio clips, however, you must be in the timeline view.
From the timeline, you can review or edit the timing of clips in your movie, zoom in or out to see details of your movie, or adjust the audio levels. The time is displayed as hours:minutes:seconds.hundreths of a second (h:mm:ss.hs).
With Windows Movie Maker 2.1, you can make your home movies look more polished and professional by adding video transitions. A video transition controls the way one clip or picture in your movie moves to the next. You can add a transition between any combination of video clips, pictures, and titles on the timeline or in storyboard view.
Transitions include bars, circles, dissolves, fades, fills, pixelations, and wipes. They can move horizontally or vertically in either direction. Effects include adding titles, with or without animation, and making your movie assume an old-time quality. Your choices are broad and rich. Don't worry if you are not familiar with these names. Once you see the Windows Movie Maker interface, look at the transitions and effects, and begin hands-on work with the tool, it will all become clearer. And, one of the great things about Windows Movie Maker is that if you do not like the transitions or effects—or any action you take with your clips—with Windows Movie Maker it's easy to change the movie back to its original appearance.
Transitions are stored in the Video Transitions folder in the Collections pane. You can control the playback duration of a video transition, but it cannot be any longer than the shorter of the two adjacent clips. Select the video transition you want to add, and then drag it between the two video clips or pictures to add a transition between the two clips. If you haven't specified a transition, a crossfade is the default transition that is automatically added between the two clips.
Any transitions you add appear on the Transition track of the timeline. To see the Transition track, expand the Video track. The video transition length, highlighted in the square, is determined by the amount of overlap between two clips.
Windows Movie Maker 2.1 makes it very easy to synchronize all your audio—narration and music—and video files to make your movie exactly how you want it.
After you've added any imported or captured video, audio, or pictures to the storyboard/timeline, you can begin synchronizing the elements.
You can use the storyboard/timeline to create and edit projects. The storyboard and timeline both display your work in progress, but each provides a different view of your work:
The storyboard displays the sequence of clips.
The timeline displays the timing of clips.
You can switch between the storyboard and timeline as you work on a project. You can copy, move, or delete clips on the timeline. The timeline includes tracks for every level of your movie: audio, music, transitions, effects, clips, and titles. With this amount of detail to the elements of your movie and the drag-and-drop user interface, you can easily change and rearrange elements.
Movie files are large. Uncompressed, they can overburden typical broadband or dial-up modem connections; they must be compressed before they are sent. Compression removes redundant data from a digital media file to reduce its size and bit rate.
Windows Movie Maker 2.1 simplifies and automates the process of assembling your clips and compressing digital video to create movies you can show to friends and family. Here are five easy ways to save and share your movies:
Save the movie to your computer
Save the movie to a recordable CD
Transfer the movie back to your digital video camera
Send the movie in an e-mail message
Use non-Microsoft tools to burn a recordable DVD
Post the movie to the Web
Each saving option may be appropriate for different circumstances. You can save the movie to your computer when you won't know how the file will be used until a later time. You can save the movie to a CD for those family members and friends who aren't yet as technically savvy as you now are. You can transfer the movie back to your digital video camera when you know you'll be seeing friends and family members soon—you can show it to them on the spot through a television or the camera itself. You can send the file in a size supported by e-mail messages and servers. For really long movies, you can use non-Microsoft DVD-burning tools to save it to a DVD. Or you can post it to the Web.
For information on using the Windows Media Encoder 9 Series SDK to create your own automation for encoding files, go to the Windows Media 9 Series SDK page.
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