Making a video using Windows Movie Maker

In this blog I am going to discuss the steps involved in making a movie using Windows Movie Maker.

1. Open Windows Movie Maker. Usually you dont find the icon on the desktop, so you have to search for it or open it from the start menu.

2. Select all the pictures, videos and the audio songs (for Background of the movie) which you want to involve in the movie. You can do this by dragging and dropping the items in the windows movie maker or Click on File -> Import Media Items.

3. Once you select all the pictures that you want to include in your movie, you are at the door step of creating your first movie.

4. The simplest way to create a movie is to click on the option "Auto Movie" on the top of the toolbar. This would arrage all the pictures and videos you imported into a movie and you can see a preview of the movie in the window to the right.

5. But if you want to make a sensible movie, by selecting an audio song matching the situation of the pics and videos you have, you need to spend a little more time. Well, infact quite some time. If you observe the windows movie maker screen, you will find a Video, Audio/Music and the Title Overlay options.

6. From the imported media, select the pictures you want to add to the video and drag them and drop them on the Video Bar.

7. Select the Song or Audio file you want to use as a background into the Audio Bar.

8. You can arrange the timing of each picture by dragging the length of the picture in the video bar. You can see the timing of each picture by looking at the timeline bar above the video bar. If you want to go to minute timing details, you can zoom into the timeline by clicking on the zoom option.

9. To add special effects to the pictures in your video e.g. Zoom In, Fade, Pixelate etc, right click on the picture in the video bar and click on the effects option. Select the effect you would like to use and click add. You will find all the effects in the window to the right and click OK. To get a preview of how your pic looks with the special effects, you can click on the play button on the right and view the pic.

10. Adding titles and credits. You can do this by clicking on Tools -> Titles and Credits. Then you can either add the titles at the beginning of the video on a blank screen or select the picture on which you want to add the titles. By doing this you can make your video more inteactive. You can do this to any picture and add the subtitles to make the video informative.

11. Transitions: You can manage how one picture disappears and the next picture appears in your video by using the transitions. Click on Tools -> Transitions. Select the transition style you would like to use and drag and drop that in the timeline where you want to use this transition.

12. Sometimes you might want to remove the audio of the video you recorded and just use the background music. When you add the video, you find an additional Audio bar added to the video bar. You can right click on that Audio and click the option mute.

13. Once you make all the arrangements of the pictures, transitions, audio, titles and credits, you have to save the movie. Click File -> Publish Movie -> This Computer -> Enter the Name of the Movie and select a place to save the video -> Select the Recommended option and click Publish.

This might take a few minutes but you are all done, and you have a mpg video saved on your computer.

You can play this on any computer now, you can write a CD or a DVD and play it on your TV or projector. You will love to see yourself on a huge screen dont you?

I tried to cover most of the points but of course not every detail. I am sure you will be able to figure out the other trivial parts of this process. If you got any questions, feel free to post them and I will reply to you personally or make a post addressing the issue.

Hope this post helps some of you create some simple videos. This is a sample video that I made picturizing the feelings of my undergrad friends, when we met 2 years after our graduation. Feel free to leave comments on the video too.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7102057580557078607&ei=SckFSp2SCZSkrQL2p4nFCw&q=auroreunion

Thanks,
Krishna Chaitanya Emani.