Using Windows Moviemaker to create video slideshows with voiceovers
Step 1: Import Your Pictures
Transferring your still pictures to your PC is the first step in making your own slide show. Then you'll need to import them into Windows Movie Maker.
A tip before you begin to assemble your slide show: Pictures that are wider than they are tall (landscape orientation) fit the shape of
computer monitors better, so use horizontal pictures whenever possible.
To import pictures into Windows Movie Maker:
- 1.Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Windows Movie Maker.
- 2.In the Movie Tasks pane under Capture Video, click Import pictures.
- 3.You'll be prompted to import your pictures, so browse to the folder where you keep your photographs.
You can select several pictures in a single folder by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking each picture.
- 4.When you've selected your pictures, click Import. If you have pictures in other folders to import, click Import pictures again and repeat the process.
Your pictures will appear in the Collections pane of the Movie Maker window. We're actually working with representations of your pictures,
so there's no risk of damaging your original images. (If you edit the source file in another program after it is already imported into Windows Movie Maker,
the changes that you make to the file automatically appear in Windows Movie Maker and in any Windows Movie Maker projects that include the edited clip or picture.
And, if you delete the thumbnail or clip for the file in Windows Movie Maker, the source file still remains unchanged in the original location. To ensure that you
can continue to work with a project, avoid renaming, deleting, or moving the original source files. For more information, search Windows Movie Maker Help topics
for source files.)
Don't worry about the order of the pictures just yet—you'll have the chance to specify their sequence in the slide show later.
If you want quick results, in the Movie Tasks pane, under Edit Movie, click Make an AutoMovie. This choice automatically adds the pictures in your collection
to the storyboard, creates a default title, and adds a blank set of credits. Afterwards, you should right-click both the title frame and the credits frame and
click Edit Title to customize these pages. Then skip straight down to Step 6 to narrate your slide show and Step 7 to send it on its way.
Top of pageTop of page
Step 2: Add Your Pictures to the Storyboard
When you import pictures, they're added to Movie Maker as collections. Collections aren't automatically added to your video,
so you should drag your pictures from the Collections box into the storyboard at the bottom of the window.
Now is the best time to put them in the correct order, but you can always reorder them later simply by dragging and dropping them on the storyboard.
Figure 1 shows the storyboard filled with pictures.
Step 3: Adding Titles and Credits
Once you've added all your pictures to the storyboard and put them in the right order, you can add a title.
A title is a great way to tell viewers a little about the pictures before the show begins.
To begin, in the Movie Tasks pane, under Edit Movie, click Make titles or credits.
You'll be prompted to choose where to add the title and select a style for your title screen.
There's room for creativity here, because a title can be one line of simple text or several pages that fade into the distance.
Take some time to explore, and choose a style for the title that sets the mood for your slide show.
Step 4: Adding Transitions
Now that you've added a title and (possibly) credits, you've got all the content you'll need in your slide show.
You can preview your slide show by clicking the Play button in the preview window.
The transitions between the pictures are a bit abrupt right now and don't stay on screen long enough to get a good look at them.
We can fix that by creating new transitions:
- 1.In the Movie tasks pane, under Edit Movie, click View video transitions. The Collections pane will become the Video Transitions pane.
- 2.Drag the video transition to the video transition cell between two pictures on the storyboard.
These transitions are one of the greatest features of the new version of Movie Maker.
Take some time to experiment with them, Fade and Wipe transitions are the most popular.
Step 5: Adjust the Timeline
Your slide show is almost ready. You'll probably want to make the pictures stay on the screen for more than a couple of seconds, however.
This is easy to adjust by using the timeline to modify the timing of clips in your project.
Your Timeline shows the pictures that you've added and how long they'll each be displayed.
The time is displayed as hours:minutes:seconds.hundreths of a second (h:mm:ss.hs).
- 1.Click Show Timeline above the storyboard.
- 2.To make a picture appear on the screen longer, select the picture, and when the pointer becomes a red arrow, drag the picture's right border to the right.
The individual pictures probably appear too narrow on the timeline, so click the button with a magnifying glass and a plus (+) sign a
couple of times to zoom in on your pictures.
Step 6: Add Sound
One of the greatest benefits of using Windows Movie Maker to create a slide show is that you can add your own voice-over.
You can also add music files by clicking Import audio or music on the Movie Tasks pane
under Capture Video and following the prompts to Add an audio file to your slide show. Narrating the contents of the timeline serves as
another way for you to enhance your presentation.
To add your voice to the slide show, grab your computer's microphone and select the Timeline view. If you're not already looking at the timeline,
click Show Timeline above the storyboard. Next, click the timeline where you'd like your voice-over to start.
The second button on the toolbar that looks like a microphone is Narrate Timeline. Click this button and the screen will
switch to show your narration controls, as shown in Figure 2.
The Input level control lets you adjust your microphone so you don't sound too loud or too quiet—as you talk,
you should see a bar moving. Instead of adjusting your own volume, move the slider up or down so that the bar hovers near the middle of the graph.
When you're ready to go, click Start Narration. Your slide show plays as you talk, so you'll know which picture you're talking over.
When you're done, click Stop Narration and you'll be prompted to save your recording.
The narration you capture is saved as a Windows Media Audio file with a .wma file name extension in the Narration folder under My Videos on your hard disk.
Don't worry about this extra file, because Movie Maker has already mixed it into your movie.
Top of pageTop of page
Step 7: Save and Upload Your Video
All that's left to do now is save your video as a.wmv file and upload to your Real Estate In Motion account
|
