Guide to Windows Movie Maker

Do you dream of being the next great Hollywood director? Fancy trying your hand at editing your own home videos? Chances are if you use Windows XP, you already have all of the software tools you need to create your own movie masterpiece.

Most users don't know that Windows XP includes it's own video editing software, right out of the box. Windows Movie Maker is included with Windows XP and can be used to edit your home videos, including adding titles, effects and transitions, as well as adding audio and narration.

And if you don't own a video camera, there are still plenty of things you can do with Movie Maker, including making slide shows from your digital photos using all of features mentioned above.

Once you have finished your masterpiece, you can then package it to distribute to other users to send via e-mail, burn to CD or upload to the web or your digital video camera. You can also buy a software add-on from Sonic that will allow you to burn your edited video to a DVD.

Here is a quick run-down of what you will need to do to get started with Windows Movie Maker:

1. Download the latest version
Windows Movie Maker is installed with Windows XP but it is definitely worth updating your copy to the latest version. You can get the update to Windows Movie Maker through the Windows Update service, which is available from the Windows XP Start menu.

2. Collect all of your source material
When putting your masterpiece together, you will want to make sure that you have all of the source material easily at hand. It's a good idea to import all of this material first so you have everything you need. There are a number of ways you can obtain this source material — if you have a video capture card or cable on your computer, you can plug your video camera in and Movie Maker can capture the video directly.

Alternately, you can import video from a wide range of formats, including .AVI, .MPG, .WMV, etc. (unfortunately, Movie Maker does not support QuickTime movies).

Figure 1: Drag and drop material into the Timeline.

3. Drag and drop material into the Timeline
Once you have all of your source material together, you can then start dragging and dropping the movie clips, pictures, etc. into the Timeline at the bottom of the Movie Maker window, as shown in Figure 1 (right).

Drag your movie clips and photos into the large boxes in the timeline — the small boxes are for transitions between clips, which we will look at next.

Tip: You can also add narration to your movie by selecting Tools > Narrate Timeline. You will need a microphone attached to your computer and you can record a running commentary throughout the movie.

Figure 2: Add transitions to your movie using the
Video Transitions collection.

4. Add transitions to your movie
To see a list of all of the available transitions, use the drop-down list at the top of the page to view the Video Transitions collection., which is shown below in Figure 2.

To add a transition between clips, drag the transition graphic to the small box between your movie clips or photos.

There are over 20 transitions included, with effects you may recognise from television or movies, including fades, wipes, diamonds and circle effects.

5. Jazz it up with title and credits
And what would your masterpiece be without an introduction? To add titles and/or credits to your movie, select Tools > Titles and Credits to open the title options page. Click one of the links shown to add titles to the start of your movie, in between clips, credits at the end, etc. Once you select where you want to insert them, another page will open with a text box where you can type your title text. You can also change the font and formatting to suit your own style.

Figure 3: Options for saving your movie.

6. Finishing it all off
Once you have put it all together, it's time to finish your creation by saving it to your desired format. Select File > Save Movie File to open the Save Movie Wizard, shown below in Figure 3, which will help you determine the best format for saving your movie.

The wizard will use the best file format and quality for the purpose you select. For example, if you select e-mail as the distribution method your movie will be saved in a lower resolution format to create a smaller file. You can also burn your movie to a CD, publish it to the web or even record a copy directly back to your digital video camera.

And that is all there is to it! While Windows Movie Maker may not have all of the features found in high-end video software, it does provide the occasional "director" with everything they need to create their own masterpieces.