Adding Video Effects to Your Movies with Windows Movie Maker 2
Updated: November 13, 2003
Windows Movie Maker 2 for Windows XP makes it easy to add a wide variety of eye–popping effects to your home movies.
A video effect determines how a video clip, picture, or title looks in your final movie. For example, you might have video that would look great if it had a classic, old–time movie look. With Movie Maker, you can add one of the Film Age video effects to give it that old–fashioned look. A video effect is applied for the duration of the video clip, picture, or title. You can add any of the video effects that appear in the Video Effects folder in the Collections pane.
Video effects are maintained when you split, cut, copy, or move a video clip or picture. For example, if you add the Grayscale video effect, and then split the clip, the Grayscale video effect is applied to both clips. If you combine two video clips, the video effects that were associated with the first clip are applied to the new combined clip. The video effects that were associated with the second clip are removed.
The following illustration shows a project on the timeline with an added video effect. An icon appears on the video clip or picture that you applied the effect to.
Figure 1: Project on timeline with an added video effect.
The following illustration shows a project on the storyboard with an added video effect. An icon, highlighted in the red square, appears in the video effects cell to indicate that a video effect is applied.
Figure 2: Project on storyboard with an added video effect.
To add video effects to your video clips, pictures, or titles:
1. | On the storyboard/timeline, select the video clip, picture, or title that you want to add the video effect to. |
2. | On the Tools menu, click Video Effects. –or In the Movie Tasks pane, under Edit Movie, click View video effects. |
3. | Double-click the effects to see how they look in the preview window. |
4. | Drag the effect you want to use onto the clip in the storyboard and place it on top of the star in the lower left-hand corner of the clip. |
You can also add an effect by clicking on the effect, then going to the Clip menu and clicking Add to Timeline or Add to Storyboard.
