Advice for How To Create a Film Project in Windows MovieMaker This document was compiled to provide initial assistance to teachers and/or students to create a movie project using the Windows MovieMaker program. Open MovieMaker Click on the Start button; select All Programs Windows Movie Maker (if you do not see Windows MovieMaker, select All Programs Accessories Entertainment MovieMaker) Remember to save your movie as you work on it! In the upper toolbar Click on File Save Project As, and name it. This is your working file name and ends with.mswmm. This file can only be used in MovieMaker (not a program you want to use to view it). It usually has a film icon. Import a Picture File REMEMBER Files do NOT reside in MovieMaker, so the path to the file (i.e., picture, video, audio) has to stay valid. For example, if the picture is on a USB stick, that USB stick has to be plugged into the computer for MovieMaker to access the picture. It s easiest to keep all the pictures downloaded onto the hard-drive of the computer you are using to create the movie. To import new pictures into your collection area to use, Click on Import pictures (Movie Tasks 1. Capture Video). An Import File dialogue box pops up; find the picture file you want to use, click on the file name to highlight it, and then click on the Import button (lower right corner).
Import a Video File To bring new video into your collection area to use, Click on Import video (Movie Tasks 1. Capture Video). An Import File dialogue box pops up; find the video file you want to use, click on the file name to highlight it, and then click on Import button (lower right corner). OR Click on Capture video from device (Movie Tasks 1. Capture Video) to capture it directly from the video camera. This is what shows up when the path to the picture or video is lost I must have forgotten to download it to the hard drive Import a Sound File To bring new audio file into your collection area to use, Click on Import audio or music (Movie Tasks 1. Capture Video). An Import File dialogue box pops up; find the sound file you want to use, click on the file name to highlight it, and then click on the Import button (lower right corner). A new thumbnail will appear in the Collections area with a music note on it and the title of the sound file. To hear the sound file (clip), right click on the thumbnail and select Play Clip.
You can also rename the sound file (clip) by right clicking and selecting Rename. See the Advice for How to Create Sound Files document for tips on how to create sounds files (at http://coseenow.net/mare/ocean-day/). Adding Music from CDs First you have to save the song as a file on your computer. Insert CD into the computer. When prompted, select Copy music from CD using Windows Media Player. This will open Windows Media Player, if it is not currently running on your computer. The program will automatically start to copy all of the tracks onto your computer (all of the boxes along the left side of the track names will be checked). You can select Stop Copy on the right side of the top menu bar, if you do not want all of the tracks to be copied. Make sure that you can copy the music as unprotected files. If this is the first time you have copied music using Windows Media Player on your computer, answer the prompted questions about protecting the digital music rights to not protect the music rights. Or if you have copied music previously with Windows Media Player, go to Tools Options Copy Music. Make
sure under the Copy Settings section of the folder that the box next to Copy protect music is unchecked. Note this is also where you can choose the location for where the track files will be saved (under the Copy music to this location section, choose the Change button and select the desired location on your computer if you want to change it). To copy only the music that you want, uncheck the boxes to remove tracks that you do not want to copy onto the computer.
Then select Copy Music (round white circle with inner red circle along the top menu bar) to start copying the track onto your computer. Along the bottom of the screen in the black bar there will be information about how many tracks you are copying and in what location on your computer they are being saved. You can watch the progress of the copying also in the column with the heading Copy Status. Once the tracks are copied onto your computer the cell in the Copy Status column of the track will state Copied to Library. You can now import the saved music files into MovieMaker like any other audio file. Building Your Movie Decide which image or video clip to use first, then left click and drag the thumbnail into the far left box at the bottom of the screen in the storyboard section. If the screen doesn t look like this (but rather what is below), then you are in the timeline view ~ just click Show Storyboard in the bottom left corner.
Each picture will stay onscreen of the final movie for 5 seconds. If you would like to make the picture appear for less or more time click Show Timeline in the bottom left corner. Then put the mouse pointer over the far right side of the picture file until it turns into a red double-sided arrow. Then left click and drag to the left (less time) or the right (more time) to change the length of time the image will be on the screen in the final movie. Now add the remaining images or video files into the boxes at the bottom of the screen in the storyboard section. Edit Transitions between Images Make sure the Move Tasks 2. Edit Movie on the far left is showing the expanded list. Click on View video transitions, and then drag in the one of the transitions you like. Repeat for all transitions.
Adding Sound Click Show Timeline to view the 3 horizontal tracks (Video (pictures) on top, Audio/Music in middle, and then Title Overlay on the bottom). Left click and drag the sound file you want as opening music into the Audio/Music track. Where you drop it in the horizontal row will be the time at which it will begin to play. To move the sound file, place the cursor over the middle of the sound file box so that the cursor turns into a hand. Left click and drag the box to your starting point. Repeat for all sound files.
Editing Sound You can cut off the beginning or the end of the sound file by holding the cursor over the end until it turns into a red double-sided arrow. Click and drag the file to truncate the sound file to the length that you want. Saving Your Movie Make sure the Movie Tasks 3. Finish Movie on the far left is showing the expanded list. Click on Save to my computer. Follow the steps in the Save Movie Wizard pop-up to save the movie file so that it can be played using Media Player or other video software programs.