How to Use Windows Movie Maker (for beginners)

How To Use Windows Movie Maker

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Why use Windows Movie Maker?


With Windows Movie Maker, you can quickly and easily


create eye-catching movies from your videos and photos


PART 1 > Installation > Interface Tour > Adjusting the View > File Types


> Adding Videos and Photos > Adding Sound Effects and Background Music


Make sure it’s installed in your computer


To check, click the Start button or Windows Logo


Click All Programs


You should see Movie Maker in the list


If not, open up a browser


like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox


On your chosen browser, click on the address bar


Type http://windows.microsoft.com/ en-us/windows/downloads


Hit the Enter key.


Scroll down


until you see Windows Movie Maker. (Click!)


Click Download now


Click the downloaded file to run it.


The first option lets us install the entire suite


For this tutorial, we only install Windows Movie Maker


Click Choose the programs you want to install


Uncheck all boxes except for Photo Gallery and Movie Maker.


Click Install


The installation is complete. Click Close.


Launch Movie Maker by first clicking on the Windows logo.


In the search field, type moviemaker


Click moviemaker to launch it


Tour of the Movie Maker Interface


On the title bar is the name of your project



Here is the quick-access toolbar with shortcut buttons


Here is the ribbon broken up into several tabs


where you see groups of commands (e.g. Add, Editing)



Down below the ribbon are two panes: Preview and Storyboard


The Preview pane shows you the preview of your project


The Storyboard pane allows you to add assets (e.g. photos)


Let’s add photos by clicking on the Storyboard pane


You can also click on Add videos and photos


Find the location of your files here


Click on the file that you will use


To select more, click them while holding the CTRL key


on your keyboard


Notice that the selected files get highlighted


Click Open


Here are the files that you have opened


By default, each photo appears in the movie


for 7 seconds. Since we opened 3 photos,


the length of the movie is now 21 seconds


Save the project by going to the save button.



You can also click the moviemaker tab


and click Save Project


Navigate to the location where you want to save it


For this tutorial, we’ll save it on the desktop. (Click!)


Type in your preferred file name


Click Save


Go to your desktop and check the saved project file


Do you notice the small file size on mouseover?


The photos we used were just referenced in the project


They’re not actually a part of the project file.


Make sure all files used are in a fixed location


Adjusting The View


Use the zoom time scale to increase the timeline view



It’s useful when editing specific locations in a photo/video


Also do this in the View tab on the ribbon



Click here to increase/decrease the storyboard thumbnail size


Click here for a full screen preview of your project


Adjust the Preview and Storyboard panes by moving the separator


What type of video files can you use?


What type of photo files can you use?


What type of audio files can you use?


For more details, click the Help button on Movie Maker



This launches your browser and shows the Support page


In this case, we refer to the 6th question


Let’s add photos and videos


using either of the methods we’ve learned


In this example, we add 2 videos and 3 photos.


Again, click to select one file,


Hold down the CTRL key


then click on other files to select them as well


To select a block of files, again, click one file


hold down the Shift key and click the last file


After you’ve selected the files that you need, click Open


You might want to rearrange your photos and clips


Click and drag a clip to select and move it


Here, we’ve moved the clip down to the very end


Notice when you select a clip, you also preview it


Click the play button to check a video clip


When done rearranging, move back to the first clip


and click play to preview your project


You’ll see the accumulated time here


Again, save your new project through the Save button


or through the Moviemaker tab


Now, you can also add sound effects or background music


The Add Music button is broken up into two parts


The top button is the default button.


If you click the bottom half, you see two headings.


Find new music online and Add music from PC


The latter has two options


The 1st option lets you add a sound file


to the beginning of the project


The 2nd option lets you add music at the current point


Say, a sound effect before the last video clip


If you click on the first option (Add music)


it’s the same as clicking the button’s top half


Find the sound file that you need (e.g. mp3, wav)


As you hover over a file, you see the type


and length of the music (2 minutes & 49 seconds)


Select the file


and click Open


Music gets added to the beginning of the storyboard


You see the song in green


at the end, you see the song cut off


at the 1:02 (1 minute & 2 seconds) point


If you remember, the music file is 02:49 long


So how do we deal with it?


We can add more photos or more video


OR


Manually manipulate the length of time that a photo appears


OR


Use the Fit to music feature


Click on the Project tab


On the Audio group, you’ll see Fit to music which


automatically adjusts the duration of any photos in the project


Video clips will always stay the same length


Once you click Fit to Music, the photos get longer


They’re going to appear for much longer


The last photo stretches out


to the length of the song


which, in the preview pane, is now set to 02:49


That’s now the length of the project as well


This saves you manipulating the durations for individual photos


Let’s preview it again by clicking the play button


So because of our Fit to music function,


The photos now appear for much longer


than the default of 7 seconds


We might want to add some more photos


We could even start working with the video clips


We will continue to do this as the tutorial progresses


Coming Soon: Part 2 How To Use Windows Movie Maker


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How to Use Windows Movie Maker (for beginners)