Windows Movie Maker allows users to create movies by importing video, audio, and pictures. Users can edit their projects by adding transitions and effects between clips in the timeline or storyboard views. The finished movie is saved as a .wmv file after converting the project file.

1. How to use Windows Movie Maker

2. Using the Tools 1 2 3 4

4. The Collection Field The Collection field is where your picture, audio, and sound files will appear after you import them from Step 1 of the Capture Video option. Above, you see a sample of a sound file, video file, and a picture file.

5. Your Video The Video gives you the preview of the movie you’re making. After placing an object into a timeline or storyboard field, you can run your movie to see how it will look.

6. The Timeline Tool The timeline allows you to edit sound and pictures together. You can drag video and sound files from the collection field to the Audio track. It’s best to use audacity of you want to use multiple sounds. Along the top, you can see the time sequence of the movie. You can use the magnifying glass to zoom in or out on the time. You can shorten a video clip from the end, but you cannot make it longer. You can edit the middle, but it’s tricky to do.

7. The Storyboard Tool The storyboard is easier to work in, especially for pictures. From the Collection . Just drag and drop the file into the larger boxes in the order you want them to appear. You can drag and drop pictures and videos, but not sounds files with it automatically switching you back to the Timeline view.

8. Video Effects You can add effects to your pictures and sounds using Video Effects found in Step 2, Edit Movie found in the Task Pane . When you select this, you’ll see a small star appear on your storyboard slide. Just click on View Video Effects and drag the desired effect onto the star. You can add two effects to one slide. Video Effects

9. Transitions The smaller boxes are from transitions you pick from Step 2, Edit Movie. Just click View Video Transitions from the Task Pane and click and drag the desired transition effect. If you want to use the same transition, you can insert the transition into the first small box, click back in the box, copy it, and then paste it into the rest of the small boxes. Sample Transitions

10. Make Titles or Credits In Step 2, Edit Movie, click on Make Titles or Credits . You’ll get this menu in the next window.

11. Make Titles or Credits Places a title as the first slide. Places text before the chosen slide. Places text on a slide. Places text after the chosen slide. Places a title as the last slide.

12. Make Titles or Credits Each option allows you to pick an effect, font, color, and font size. You can also pick animation for your text. For each of these, you can see how it will look in the Video field.

13. Audio/Music Field In your Timeline field, you can add different sounds. However, in Movie Maker, you can only have one sound playing at a time. So, if you want soft sound playing behind your recorded voice, you cannot do that. You should use Audacity to layer sounds, save that as an MP3 file, then import that MP3 into Movie Maker. With other sounds, you can shorten them by moving your mouse to either end of the sound file (where the triangle is in the picture above for example, and once the hand turns into a double red arrow, you can shrink the size of the audio file. You can also shift the sound files in the Timeline view by clicking and dragging the sound field to the left or right.

14. Converting your project To finish your movie, Got to Step 3, Finish Movie. Choose Save to My Computer. The Save Movie Wizard window will open. Step 1, Name Your Movie Step 2, Save it to your desktop

15. Converting your project To finish your movie, Got to Step 3, Finish Movie. Choose Save to My Computer. The Save Movie Wizard window will open. To get the best quality: Step 3, You’re best off choosing the bottom button and choosing High Quality Video. This may not always be the best option however. When you click next, the movie will convert. It may take a while depending on the length of your movie.

16. Reminders While you are working on your project in the .mswmm file, you can edit anything you need to edit. This is not the final copy. Once converted, your movie will be a .wmv file. You cannot edit this anymore. But this is the version you want to give people. So make sure you are 100% satisfied with the .mswmm version before converting to .wmv.

17. Movie Maker Ideas Student Uses Digital Stories Multimedia Research Project Interviews Digital Poems PowerPoint Reviews Study Guide for iPods Documentaries Teacher Uses Digital Stories PowerPoint Reviews Study Guide for iPods Create your own 5 minute movie Create a movie for classroom rules

18. Cross Curricular When creating an assignment with your students, see if you can incorporate another class. For example, can your project on the 1930s Dust Bowl also use “The Grapes of Wrath” from English. If you’re creating a documentary on a volcano in science, can you use math standards to show the calculation of the eruption, or volcano created tidal wave? Can your art class draw pictures that match a geography lesson in a Spanish class?