Movie Maker in the Classroom

Music

2012-02-24T09:35:00.000-08:00

Adding music to your movie adds a nice touch. Freeplay Music is a fantastic resource to find theme music for your movie project but can also be used as background music for a powerpoint presentation. It is easily searchable according to type, tempo, style and feel. There are many different royalty-free instrumentals available. It can give a really original feel to any presentation you create.

Go to http://www.freeplaymusic.com/search/.
On the left write your keywords or choose your feel or tempo, etc. (You do not need to make a selection for each choice. I often just choose one and browse)
Click search
In each selection you will get a short description of the music piece. You can also preview it by clicking on a length of time of the clip on the preview side.
Once you have found the clip you like, right-click on the length you want on the MP3 side and 'save target as'
Save it someplace you will remember. It's usually a good idea to keep them all in the same spot to easily go through your choices.
In Moviemaker you need to choose import audio.
You can now drag the clip you want to use down to your timeline in the audio/music layer.

Sound Effects

2012-02-09T09:34:00.000-08:00

http://soundbible.com/ is a great site for free sound effects for your movie.

Click on sound effects
type in the sound you want (ex. splashing water)
You will get a list of suggestions. You can play them to preview them.
When you find one that you like click on it's title.
Click on the MP3 icon
Choose save
Save it into a place you will remember (Make a folder to hold all your songs)
Click close when it is done.
In movie maker, click import sound and find the file
You can now drag it onto your timeline in the audio/music layer

Using Only the Audio From a Video Clip

2012-02-08T13:35:00.000-08:00

Sometime I take a video and realize that I just want to use the audio from the clip and not necessarily the video. Separating the two is pretty easy.

Insert the video clip into your timeline.
Choose the little microphone icon to narrate the timeline.
From the 2nd drop down menu choose: Rec. Playback
Click Start Narration
Click Stop Narration when it is done
Save it someplace you will remember
The file should have automatically gone into your timeline in the audio/music layer of your timeline.
You can now delete the video clip from your timeline and the just the audio will be there.
Click done to get out of the narrate view.

Note: If you want to just use the video and not the audio from a clip you just have to mute the clip.

Understanding the Time Line View

2012-02-08T13:25:00.000-08:00

You can view your movie in 2 different views: the storyboard view and the timeline view.
The storyboard view shows you your clips and transitions. It is great because it is simple and clear but when you start editing your movie you will need to work in timeline view as well.
The timeline view shows you the layers of your movie as well as the timing.

When first looking at it can sometimes seem very overwhelming.

At the very top of the timeline there are controls. They allow you to

set the audio level
narrate
zoom in to make the timeline appear bigger (very useful when you want to see more detail)
zoom out to make the timeline appear smaller (useful when you want to see the time of your whole movie)
go back to the beginning of the movie
play the movie
go back to storyboard view

Video: The first layer of the timeline view has your actual videos and pictures as you have put them in your movie. You can also see how they overlap with each other when transitions have been used.
Transition: The second layer shows you your transitions. You can stretch them to get bigger. (For example if you want the two clips to fade into each other for a longer amount of time)
Audio: This layer has the audio for your film. If you want to mute a clip you can easily right-click here and select mute.
Audio/Music: This layer has any outside audio or music that you have brought in (ex. sound effects, narration, music). Note: When you insert it here, the audio is not attached to a clip so if you later rearrange or delete some clips you will probably have to move it's place in the timeline.
Title Overlay: This layer shows you any titles you may have put in your movie like a subtitle, a title page or credits. It is easy to change the length it appears in your film from here. Just stretch it and move it around. You can also easily double-click on it to edit it from here.

Bringing in videos or music from youtube

2012-02-06T08:46:00.000-08:00

Youtube has a great selection of sound effects that you can use for your movie and it's pretty easy to download and convert them into MP3 format. I use zamzar to download the videos or sounds I want to use.

Go on youtube and search for the specific sound that you want.
Once located, copy the URL (the internet address)
Go to http://www.zamzar.com/url/
paste the URL in the box.
Choose the format you want to use from the drop down menu. (If you just want to use the sound choose MP3)
Enter your email address. (It will be emailed to you soon after)
Click convert.
You will get a warning message, click OK
Check your email and click on the link. (It will be a long link that looks like this: http://www.zamzar.com/getFiles.php?uid=8322108895434001328543010&targetID=jtsRUSVJcF13Yyc75ptFJk_Y_Z8Y6VjCVQ)
Right click on the green 'Download Now' button and choose 'Save target As'
Name your file and put it in a place you will remember. It's probably a good idea to create a folder where you will store all of them.

Storyboard

2012-02-05T16:28:00.000-08:00

Once you have your idea it's a good idea to make a storyboard. A storyboard is basically a plan of your movie. When doing a google search for a template this was one of the first ones I found which I thought worked well:

http://www.printablepaper.net/preview/storyboard-letter-16to9-2x3
Each box represents each different shot in your movie. You can draw stick figures to represent your actors and write down any dialogue or special instructions. Making a storyboard is to help you organize yourself when filming so it's very personal. Some people might just want to write notes while others might want to draw. Here are some tips that I think are useful to stay the most organized.

Label your shots by number and then a short description (ex. 01 John in kitchen). You can then use the same title for the clip when you bring it into moviemaker. Make sure the number is first so that it will go in order in moviemaker.
Clearly mark the characters in each shot. This will make it easier to see which students you need to film at a given time.
As you film each shot, cross them out on your storyboard. It will make it easy to see what is left to film

How you organize your storyboard depends greatly on how you work best.

Here is one with pictures and small notes

Here is an example of just words.

Here are some common abbreviations for storyboard descriptions that might be helpful:

WS - Wideshot

CU - Close Up

Pan - Turn the camera left or right

Tilt - Turn the camera up or down

Moving shot - camera follows action

Cut to - switch to

VO - voice over (narration)

SFX - sound Effect

Fonts

2012-02-05T14:33:00.000-08:00

When creating titles sometimes the default fonts just don't cut it. It's nice to find a nice fancy font that will complement your movie. A site I like to use is 'abstract fonts'. There are so many beautiful fonts to choose from and a lot of them are free.

www.abstractfonts.com

Here are step-by-step directions to get them on your computer.

you can search for anything you like. Scroll to the bottom to find the free ones.

Downloading fonts:

1. Click on the font that you want.

2. Click on download

3. click open

4. when the file opens, click extract all files

5. click next

6. save to windows: fonts

-click browse
---click my computer
-----click local disk
--------click WINDOWS
------------click fonts

select ok

7. click next

8. finish

Bringing the clips into Moviemaker

2012-02-03T10:32:00.000-08:00

Locate the 'Task' button on the top. This will display all the things that you can do in moviemaker.
Choose 'import video'
Locate and select the clips you want to import. (Tip: pressing ctrl and alt will allow you to select more than one clip at a time.
Make sure to uncheck the box that says 'create clips for video files'. Otherwise this will cut your video in random places. Not useful when making a movie. You want to be able to control where you clip your video.
Click 'import'
Once it's in moviemaker all the clips will be assigned their own folder in your collections. If you click on the 'collections' button at the top next to the task button you will see a list of your clips.

Downloading the clips

2012-02-03T10:19:00.000-08:00

Once you have filmed your clips on your camera you need to put them onto the computer. You do this the same way that you would download pictures.

1. Plug the USB cord into your camera and into the computer
2. Turn on the camera.
3. The wizard should start right away. Put all your clips into one folder you create. Decide on a place to keep them (ex. on the desktop or in the my pictures folder) and always put your clips into that folder.

It is important to always keep them in the same folder because Moviemaker doesn't bring in the actual clips. It just remembers the place where you stored them (the path). If you move them around then you will get a big red x in your movie instead of the actual clip that you want.

What to do if you do get a big red x?
If you are working on a movie and one or more of your clips does get that x it just means it's location has moved. You need to right click on it and select 'Browse for Missing File...' . You then need to find the new location on your computer where your clip is stored. Often when you find one clip, most of the other clips are then found automatically. If not, then you need to do the same procedure for each red x.

Filming Tips

2012-02-02T07:57:00.000-08:00

What kind of camera to use?
When I make a movie with my class I usually just use a normal digital camera for pictures. I just put it in movie mode. I've always used a canon digital camera myself because I find it is very user-friendly but it can be almost any brand. Before starting, however, make sure that the format that the movie clip is in is compatible with movie maker. Not all digital cameras are compatible and having to convert a file first is an annoying first step and doesn't usually turn out that nice.

Once you have your camera and have storyboarded your idea you are ready to film.

Filming
One thing that I always recommend is pressing record before saying action. It is always easier to cut out that extra bit then to not have enough footage. Sometimes we might hit record a split second too late and miss on the very beginning of the scene. This is especially true if you will be using transitions because transitions make two clips overlap and you probably don't want to overlap on part of your dialogue. You need a little bit of wiggle room on your clip to play with.

Getting Started- Using the correct version.

2012-01-27T07:28:00.000-08:00

The program that I like to use with my class is Windows Movie Maker. It is already installed with PC's running Windows XP and is very easy to use. iMovie from Apple is also a user friendly, simple editing software but I'm not as familiar with it. The original Windows MovieMaker should not be confused with Windows Live Moviemaker which is found on the latest versions of Windows (Windows Vista and Windows 7). This is not the same and actually too basic to make a good movie.
To get the free download to Windows Movie Maker on a computer running Vista or Windows 7 you can find it here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=34