Professional movie makers make movies using a specific procedure. You can follow the same procedure when you are going to make your own movie using Windows Vista Movie Maker.
These are the steps you need to follow:
-Import a video, photos and music for your movie in Movie Maker.
-Remove bad parts which you do not want to use.
-Order the good material which is left.
-Add some cool things like photos, titles, special effects, background music, spoken text and sound effects.
-Publish the finished movie to DVD.
In the left pane of Windows Vista Movie Maker you find all the 'Tasks' for the movie you are going to make. Right near the word 'Tasks' there are a few buttons where you can switch between 'Tasks' and 'Collections'.
Program options
Before you are going to work on a video you should walk through the options of Windows Vista Movie Maker. Please do the following:
-Click 'Tools' -> 'Options' in the menu.
-Click on the 'Advanced' tab.
-In the 'Video Properties' section you should choose for the option NTSC if you live in the United States. If you live in Europe or in another country that uses PAL, choose PAL.
-Choose as Aspect Ratio 4: 3 for a normal television and choose 16: 9 for a widescreen television.
-Click 'Ok'.
Now you have set the standard options and now you can import a video in Windows Vista Movie Maker to work with that video.
You can work with all kinds of video files, music files and image files. The following formats are compatible with 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 which says that a movie can consist only material from one video tape, one folder, etc. Every movie you make can contain material from a combination of media files. To keep everything ordered well, you can create collection folders in Windows Vista Movie Maker. A colletion folder is the same as a normal folder.
The collection folders you create in Windows Vista Movie Maker will be displayed in the left pane by clicking the 'Show or hide collections' button.
To create a new collection folder, do the following:
-Right click 'Imported Media'.
-In the menu that appears click 'New Collection Folder'.
-Typ the name of the folder.
Import material in Windows Vista Movie Maker
If you want to use something in your movie, you have to import a copy from 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 video from Photo Gallery
– Open togehter with Windows Vista Movie Maker the Windows Photo Gallery.
– Make sure you have opened both these windows next to each other to make dragging files more easy.
– Select the photo (s) and video (s) you need for the video in Photo Gallery and drag them on the collection folder you want to place them in.
Import photos, video and music from folders
– Click on the collection folder in Movie Maker where you want the files in.
– Click on the button 'Import Media' on the toolbar.
– Browse to the folder which contains the photos, video and music and click on the file or hold Ctrl down to select multiple files.
– Click on the 'Import' button.
Import video from tape and DVD
If you click in the menu on 'File' you see the option called 'Import from digital video camera'.
This option only works if you have a digital video camera connected to the IEEE 1394 port or to a USB 2.0 port of your computer. There has to be a tape in the camera and the camera has to be powered on.
If all this is true then the tool 'Import Video' will be opened. Follow the instructions on the screen to import the video from your camera.
If you want to import a video from a DVD, you have to copy the .vob files from the disc to a folder on you hard drive. Then you can often rename the .vob files into .mpg files so you can import the .mpg files in Windows Vista Movie Maker.
Now you have material where you can work with. The video, photo and music files you import in Windows Vista Movie Maker will be displayed a icons which are called 'Clips'. Each collection folder has its own unique clips collection. To watch the clips you first have to click on the name of the collection in the left pane.
You can also play a little with the view (small icons, details, etc.).
Split Clips
Sometimes there are bad parts in a clip which you do not want to use anymore and which have to be cut out of your movie. If this is in one of your clips you can split the clip in more parts, so you can select which part should stay and which part can be deleted.
To split a clip you do the following:
– Click on the click you want to split and play that clip by clickin the play button.
– Pause the click on the place you want to split the clip (just before the bad part begins).
– Use the buttons 'Next Frame' and 'Previous Frame' to navigate to the exact frame where you want to split the clip. The frame that is being displayed on the screen will be the first frame in the new clip.
– Click on the 'Split' button.
– As you wish you can give the clips a different name or you can delete the bad part of the clip.
This can be done exactly the same with an audio clip.
Make a movie automatically
If you have a few clips in your collection, you can make an automatic movie. This function does not give you a lot of control of the clips order, special effects or titles, but it is 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 automatic movie or press Ctrl + A to select them all.
– Click on the button 'AutoMovie' in the toolbar.
– Select an AutoMovie editing style.
– Click on the link 'Enter a title for the movie' to add a title to the movie.
– If you have selected an audio clip in the first step, then click 'Select audio or background music' and pick an audio clip from the list.
– Finally click on the 'Create AutoMovie' button. This can take a few seconds.
In the storyboard you see the title, the clips and some special effects. Choose Play -> Play Storyboard in the menu to play the automatic movie. If the automatic movie looks fine then you can save the movie by clicking 'File' -> 'Publish Movie' in the menu.
If the movie does not look fine you can always edit it to make it look better.
Succes making your own movies!
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