Make movies with Windows Vista Movie Maker
Professional filmmakers make movies using a specific procedure. You can follow the same procedure when you create your own movie with Windows Vista Movie Maker.
These are the steps you must follow:
-Import a video, photos and music for your movie in Movie Maker.
-Remove the defective parts that you do not want to use.
-Order the good material that remains.
-Add some cool stuff like photos, titles, special effects, background music, spoken text, and sound effects.
-Publish the finished film on DVD.
In the left pane of Windows Vista Movie Maker, you will find all the ‘Tasks’ for the movie you are about to make. Right next to the word ‘Tasks’ there are some buttons where you can switch between ‘Tasks’ and ‘Collections’.
program options
Before working on a video, you should walk through the Windows Vista Movie Maker options. Please do the following:
-Click on ‘Tools’ -> ‘Options’ in the menu.
-Click on the ‘Advanced’ tab.
-In the ‘Video properties’ section you must choose the NTSC option if you live in the United States. If you live in Europe or another country that uses PAL, please choose PAL.
-Choose 4:3 aspect ratio for a normal TV and choose 16:9 for a widescreen TV.
-Click OK’.
You have now set the standard options and you can now import a video into Windows Vista Movie Maker to work with that video.
It can work with all kinds of video files, music files, and image files. The following formats are supported by Windows Vista Movie Maker:
-Video files: .asf, .avi, .m1v, .mp2, .mp2v, .mpe, .mpeg, .mpg, .mpv2, .wm, .wmv and dvr-ms.
-image files: .bmp, .dib, .emf, .gif, .jfif, .jpe, .jpg, .png, .tif, .tiff and .wmf.
– Audi files: .aif, .aifc, .aiff, .sf, .au, .mp2, .mp3, .mpa, .snd, .wav and .wma.
collection folders
There is no restriction that a movie can consist only of material from a videotape, folder, etc. Each movie you make can contain material from a combination of media files. To keep everything neat, you can create collection folders in Windows Vista Movie Maker. A collection folder is the same as a regular folder.
Collection folders that you create in Windows Vista Movie Maker will be displayed in the left pane when you click the ‘Show or hide collections’ button.
To create a new collection folder, do the following:
-Right click on ‘Imported Media’.
-In the menu that appears, click on ‘New Collection Folder’.
-Type the name of the folder.
Import material in Windows Vista Movie Maker
If you want to use something in your movie, you need to import a copy of an existing folder on your hard drive into a collection folder in Movie Maker. You can do this by dragging photos and videos from the Photo Gallery to a collection folder.
Import photos and videos from the Photo Gallery
– Open Windows Photo Gallery together with Windows Vista Movie Maker.
– Make sure you have both windows open side by side to make dragging files easier.
– Select the photos and videos you need for the video in the Photo Gallery and drag them to the collection folder you want to put them in.
Import photos, videos and music from folders
– Click the collection folder in Movie Maker where you want the files to be.
– Click the ‘Import Media’ button on the toolbar.
– Browse to the folder containing the photos, video and music and click on the file or hold down the Ctrl key to select multiple files.
– Click the ‘Import’ button.
Import video from tape and DVD
If you click on ‘File’ in the menu, you will see an option called ‘Import from Digital Video Camera’.
This option only works if you have a digital video camera connected to your computer’s IEEE 1394 or USB 2.0 port. There has to be a tape in the camera and the camera has to be turned on.
If all of this is true, the ‘Import Video’ tool will open. Follow the instructions on the screen to import the video from your camera.
If you want to import a video from a DVD, you need to copy the .vob files from the disc to a folder on your hard drive. You can then often rename the .vob files to .mpg files so that you can import the .mpg files into Windows Vista Movie Maker.
Now you have material you can work with. Video, photo and music files that you import into Windows Vista Movie Maker will be displayed with icons called ‘Clips’. Each collection folder has its own unique collection of clips. To view the clips, you must first click on the collection name in the left panel.
You can also play a bit with the view (small icons, details, etc.).
split clips
Sometimes there are bad parts in a clip that you no longer want to use and need to be removed from the movie. If this is in one of your clips, you can split the clip into more parts, so you can select which part should remain and which part can be removed.
To split a clip, do the following:
– Click on the click you want to split and play that clip by clicking the play button.
– Pause the click where you want to split the clip (just before the bad part starts).
– Use the ‘Next Frame’ and ‘Previous Frame’ buttons to navigate to the exact frame where you want to split the clip. The frame displayed on the screen will be the first frame of the new clip.
– Click the ‘Split’ button.
– As you wish, you can give the clips a different name or you can remove the bad part of the clip.
This can be done in exactly the same way with an audio clip.
Make a movie automatically
If you have some clips in your collection, you can make an auto movie. This feature doesn’t give you much control over clip order, special effects, or titles, but it’s a quick and easy way to make a simple movie.
This is how it can be done:
– Select the clips you want to use in the auto movie or press Ctrl + A to select them all.
– Click the ‘AutoMovie’ button on the toolbar.
– Select an editing style from AutoMovie.
– Click the ‘Enter a movie title’ link to add a title to the movie.
– If you have selected an audio clip in the first step, click ‘Select audio or background music’ and select an audio clip from the list.
– Finally click the ‘Create AutoMovie’ button. This may take a few seconds.
On the storyboard you see the title, clips and some special effects. Choose Play -> Play Storyboard from the menu to play the auto movie. If the auto movie looks good, you can save the movie by clicking ‘File’ -> ‘Publish Movie’ in the menu.
If your movie doesn’t look right, you can always edit it to make it look better.
Success making your own movies!
Learn more about Windows Vista at http://www.windows-vista-tips-and-tricks.com
Here you will find everything about Vista.
On this website you can find much more about Windows Vista. For example, you can read how:
– Windows Vista secure
– Vista tips and tricks
– online help with your Vista problems
– rip DVD on Vista
– burn DVD in Vista
– configure Windows mail
– Customize View as you want
– and much more…