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1 Making a Movie in Beginner's Guide Xtranormal Movie Maker: The Getting Started (Important note: Before making your first movie, you'll need to set up your Xtranormal account via the Create Account link on the homepage. Account setup is easy, and once done, you'll be sent an activation for your account immediately. If you don't activate your account, you won't be able to log into your account on future visits! Contact Customer Support if having issues with account activation.) Once you've arrived at the Xtranormal homepage, you can jump right into the Xtranormal Movie Maker by clicking on the Make Movies menu on the Xtranormal.com homepage. Clicking here will take you to the page where you can choose which collection you want to make a movie in. Each collection has its own unique style with it s own set of actors and backgrounds: You can click on the collection thumbnail to find out more, or simply choose whether you d like 1 actor or 2 actors in your movie (in other words, whether you d like like to make a monologue or dialogue) and get started! In this example, we'll start a 2-actor movie in the "Starz" Collection. 1 P a g e

2 Excellent! You've just started a movie project in Xtranormal Movie Maker. Don t forget to read the instructions in the Movie Maker welcome screen, which change from time to time and contain the latest information. The next screen you see will be the Movie Maker with the default actors and background for the Collection you chose. This is where you'll create the movie's script. In our example, it would look like this: 2 P a g e

3 First: Set the scene Now that you've started a movie, choose set and the actors you want to use in it. You can choose from all the available assets from that collection by using the Sets, Actors, and Sounds tabs on the left of the screen: Use the tabs to choose what to change, and then click on thumbnails to see your selection in the main viewer. When choosing background sounds and music, click on the orange Listen button to preview your choice: (Important note: When choosing from other actors or backgrounds, there are three prices, 37XP, 75XP, and 150XP, according to the value of the asset. More info and FAQs about assets can be found here.) Actor tab, voices and languages Each actor has a default voice and language. To change the voice or language of your actor, click on the actor s tab and click on the voice drop-down menu. We offer a wide variety of male and female voices in many languages and are working to make even more available in the future. Click the little orange play button to play back a sample of your character s voice: 3 P a g e

4 In this example, we're going to use the Sets, Actors and Sounds tabs and have Jon Stewart meet a Pop Diva at a bar/bistro setting: Next: Write your dialogue Now switch to the Story tab. This is where you add dialogue to your actors via the speech bubbles: 4 P a g e

5 (Important note: only one actor can speak the dialogue or perform the actions in each dialogue box. Continue using the "+" symbol at the bottom of each dialogue box to open additional dialogue boxes and have a back-and-forth between two actors.) Direct the action! You can also add various actions and animations to your movie with the "Direct the action" area. Simply drag an icon into any part of your script to add the action at that part of the movie: Automatic cameras: For those hoping to make movies quickly, or if you only care about the dialogue, switch on automatic cameras. This option inserts clever camera angle changes throughoutt the movie's script automatically. The feature is "on" if it is illuminated (as pictured), and "off" if it's greyed out. If inserting camera angles manually, make sure automatic cameras are off. Cameras: Used to change the camera angle in your 3D movie. 5 P a g e

6 Motions: Have an actor perform various gestures and movements. (Tip: The number and variety of animations can vary across Collections and even individual actors due to varying themes and body types.) Faces: Give actors facial expressions to convey certain reactions or emotions while speaking. Look-ats: Adds a cue for the actor to turn and look at the camera. Pauses: Add a short or long pause to either break up the dialogue or give an actor the impression of thinking. Points: Have your actor do various pointing gestures. Sounds: Add various sound effects to the script. Saving, Listening and Previewing You can save your progress after making changes using the Save button in the lower right. (Important note: To resume your saved project later, go to the "My Movies" area of the website and click on "In Progress"): The preview button will give you a "rough" render of your script so far. Note that the preview renders are lower quality than the final look of the movie so that they can be animated quickly. (Tip: Want to just preview one dialogue box to hear how it sounds in Text to Speech? You'll now see an orange "audio" button in every dialogue box in your script! This saves you the time of having to render your entire movie each time you want to Preview a minor change.) Finally: Publish and Share Once you're satisfied with your script, hit the Publish button. Remember, if you used premium assets in your movie that you haven't paid for, you' 'll be asked to purchase these using Xtranormal Points, and pay the publishing fee of 100XP, before moving forward. 6 P a g e

7 Upon hitting the Publish button, you' 'll be given the opportunity to provide info about the movie, including the Movie title, the Description that will be shown for it, and the Content Rating. Ratings include G, 13+, and 18+, and typically correspond to the similar G, PG-13, and R ratings of mainstream movies. The Xtranormal community uses an "honor" system to rate movies correctly for their subject matter, but Community Managers can manually change ratings if necessary. Note that you can edit the title and the description again after the movie has been published. IMPORTANT: notifications : You will receive an message to let you know when your movie is ready that includes a link to the movie. Make sure to check your junk mail or spam folder if you don't receive your notification. Remember, some web mail services don't forward junk mail to your local mailbox, so be sure to login to your webmail provider and check the junk mail folder there. If you find a message from us in your junk mail box, please mark it as 'not junk' or 'not spam' and set all future s from xtranormal.com as 'not spam' to make sure you receive future notifications. Sharing By default, your movie is published to your My Movies page. To find it, log in and go to the "My Movies" section. Want to share the movie with others? Click on your movie in My Movies to load it into the movie player, and you'll see a variety of sharing options for it: Share button: Click the "Share" button to use sharing options like sending the movie's link via and posting the movie on sites like Facebook and Myspace. This is the same as the "Send it" button you'll see available for any movie on Xtranormal when logged in. YouTube Publish: Click this once and use the "edit" area to connect Xtranormal and YouTube, then click it again and use the "Publish" command to quickly publish your movie to YouTube. Embed: Use the embed code in the lower right to add the movie player to your blog or website easily. HQ Download: Use this button to request a high-quality render of the movie that you can download to your computer. Once your render is completed, it will be available in the "Hi-Res Downloads" area of My Movies. Note that HQ downloads require additional, intensive rendering and encoding processes, and therefore cost 120XP. Each HQ download is stored on our servers for 1 month. Remix Button: The Remix button is displayed next to any publicly-shared movie on Xtranormal. Remixing a movie creates a new movie project that's an exact copy of the original on your account and is a simple way to spread public movies to your own networks. 7 P a g e

8 Private Checkbox: In the lower-right area is a small checkbox labeled "Private". Mark any of your movies Private, and they will not be visible to others on your Xtranormal profile (only someone with the direct url to the movie can view it). Private movies cannot be remixed by anyone. The Busymeter As our regular users are well aware, every couple of weeks a movie made by an Xtranormal user goes massively viral, and we suddenly get very busy with all kinds of new people trying out the service. In the past this has resulted in erratic service and previews and publishes get really slow. In order to mitigate this situation, the new Movie Maker includes a brand new feature - the Xtranormal Busymeter: The Busymeter provides continuous feedback about the status of our services, and when things get really bad, will automatically disable the preview function to help the server farm catch-up with the backlog of movies. In these exceptional situations, you can either stick to listening to dialogue instead of previewing, or you can publish right away - or you can save and come back later when the server farm is less busy. Well, that's it! You now have a basic rundown on how to start a movie, use assets of your choice, create a movie script, and share your published work. Frequently Asked Questions I can't log in! Why did you lock me out!? We didn't, but perhaps you didn't activate your account? Remember, you won't be able to log in or successfully reset your password if you haven't done this. Check your Inbox or Junk folder for your activation link. Mark any mail from us as Not Spam if your client will let you to make sure you receive our messages in the future. Activated, but seeing a strange login issue still? (Like constantly being asked for login info when trying to start a movie, seeing invalid login messages after activating, etc.) Try clearing your Internet browser's history and cookies before attempting again. If you can't find your activation or are seeing another issue, just contact Customer Support and include your username, and we'll be happy to help. OMG I saved my movie where is it? If your movie was saved but not published, you'll find it in the In Progress section. If it was published successfully, it will have been moved from In Progress to My Movies. If in the exceptional case that the publish failed, don't worry - you've been refunded. Still can't find it? Just contact Customer Support. 8 P a g e

9 What are Xtranormal Points? Xtranormal Points (or XP) are the virtual currency used in Movie Maker to purchase assets like additional actors and backgrounds, or to publish your movie. Note that, once assets are purchased, they can be used in as many publishing attempts and future movies as you'd like, you only pay for the final publish. For all the info on our XP system, see the info here. I have a scribble of a skateboarding dog on a cocktail napkin. Can I turn this into a 3D asset for my movie? Kthxbai! Sorry, but there's no way to offer this level of customization in the asset database as of now. Remember, you can use the tabs on the left of your script to browse the actors and sets already available in Movie Maker. There are hundreds to choose from now and more launched every month. We're happy to take and respond to suggestions for new assets via Customer Service or the forum, but in most cases cannot design custom, one-time assets without larger-scale commercial contracts because of the design and engineering involved. My movie is going to make me and my business super Internet famous. Can I use my movie commercially? Xtranormal has no problem with a movie being used for business purposes or commercial gain. All we require is that the company be represented somehow in the movie's context for having done the animation. To do this you need to make sure that the Xtranormal watermark is still in the movie. If unsure, just contact us atcustomer Support and we'll provide more info. Can I edit the finished animation's script after I've published it? Not exactly. The final, published movie cannot have its script altered, which is why we highly recommend doing as much previewing and tweaking to your script as possible the first time through -- after all, previewing is free! -- but remember you can use the "Remix" button to create an exact copy of the movie should you need this. Try remixing your movie then simply editing the script on the Remix before publishing it. Quick! The Internet is after me! How do I delete my published movie!? Remember, movies shared on your Xtranormal profile are not indexed or searchable anywhere unless you've shared them to other websites. Regardless, if you need to delete a movie from your profile, simply go to My Movies and click the "X" delete control that appears when you mouse over the thumbnail of it there. Having issues with this? You guessed it -- just contact Customer Support. How long does it take to Preview or Publish a movie? T-t-t-t-t-TODAY, JUNIOR! 9 P a g e

10 Actually, under normal conditions, you should only wait a couple minutes to render a preview and minutes max for a final publish. Sometimes, in extreme circumstances, movies can take an hour or so to be rendered. Preview and publishing render times can vary depending on movie length and site traffic. If it's been longer than 4 hours, you've probably had a render issue with that particular attempt and will need to try again. Just try the info and simple troubleshooting options explained here to solve this. Something doesn't work when I click it. Why did you break your site (and my heart)? Believe it or not, we're extremely vigilant about site issues and quality testing. Movie Maker works in Flash in any browser on any computer (yes, Mac and PC) though, so display issues can happen that are sometimes out of our control. If you are seeing errors, unresponsive buttons, or strange display issues, a lot of times trying these common browser display troubleshooting tactics can help: Clear your Internet browser's history/cookies/etc. to make sure any recent additions or fixes on the site are being used. Try in another browser if available to see if the issue is just in one browser you're using. In extreme cases, make sure you have the latest version of your Internet browser and Flash installed, then restart your computer. I have a question unrelated to everything here. Should I leave it in a Forum comment instead of searching the Forum or contacting Customer Support? Well, that one's up to you, but searching the Forum is a great way to save yourself some time by finding the answers to FAQs quickly or joining conversations already in progress about requests. Contacting Customer Support instead of shouting out a specific account issue also goes a long way in preventing you from looking like a n00b ;) On behalf of the entire Xtranormal team, we hope this helps and you enjoy Xtranormal Move Maker as much as we do. Once again, if you need help with anything else, feel free to either search the Forum for more info or contact us via Customer Support anytime. Now, put your Director hat on, have fun, be creative, and welcome to the world's easiest form of online movie making! Cheers! Xtranormal 10 P a g e