The next item that you can make in Windows Live Photo Gallery is Make a Movie. So let’s go ahead and make one shall we? You don’t need to own a cine camera to make a movie, all you need is your ordinary digital camera and to take lot’s of photographs with it. Because digital camera’s allow you to take lot’s of shots using a memory card then this is quite easy to do. Next time you are out for the day or just out in the garden, take lot’s and lot’s of snaps, then you can combine them into a Movie by using Live Photo Gallery. So,let’s make a Movie shall we?
1. First of all decide which photographs you intend to turn into a video or Movie by selecting them all in WINDOWS LIVE PHOTO GALLERY (if they are not all together then put them into the same folder to make selecting them all easier, then Click on the MAKE tab in the LIVE GALLERY toolbar, and then select from the drop down list, MAKE A MOVIE. NOTE. You have to make sure that you downloaded the MOVIE MAKER beta during the ESSENTIALS download from http://download.live.com in order to use this feature.
You will now be in the MOVIE MAKER screen with several options along the top of it. These are divided into three parts beginning at the left hand side you will see under the HOME tab, the ADD and REMOVE choices, then next to that we have the ADD for any AUDIO that you would like to add to your video, and greyed out (because we haven’t added any AUDIO yet, are REMOVE, FIT and MIX, and then next to that is a separate area called MAKE MOVIE where there are two other choices, PUBLISH AND OUTPUT. We will be moving along from the left to the right of this taskbar (called a ribbon) as we go along.
2. Click onto the very first photograph. We are going to give our video a title. Click on the EDIT tab and then click on TEXT BOX. A small white box will appear inside the photograph and you can resize and place this where it will stand out. This is for our title. I am going to call my video ‘Walk in the Park’.
3. You can change the size of the text (font) for your title. I have chosen Comic Sans size 24. I have placed it at the bottom of the photograph where the path is so that it stands out. So choose your text and size then type into the white box. Now because this is going to be the title photograph we need it to stay in view for longer to give our viewers time to read it before the program moves onto the next photo.
Now we are in EDIT mode the ribbon choices have changed. You will see a small ‘clock’ in the last PHOTO division of the ribbon, set currently at 03.00 seconds. This is the default but we want this title photo to stay there for longer.
4. Click on the small black arrow and from the drop down times select say 07.00 seconds. Now let’s move on to the next photograph.
5. For the next photograph place another text box into your photograph in the same way as before and in this one include who will appear in the video. In my case I have put ‘starring K, my grandchildren and an angry goose.’
6. It might be a good idea to make this photograph stay showing longer as well. I have made this one stay for 07.00 seconds like before.
Now we need to decide for the rest of the photographs how they are going to change over from one to the other. What TRANSITIONS are we going to use from one photo to the next. The best advice here is to experiment with each one so
7. Click on the VISUAL EFFECT tab and again you will be presented with a new set of choices to make for your effects. Also the program will have automatically moved onto the next photograph to be shown in the video. I am going to choose the first TRANSITION from the ribbon, the CROSSFADE transition. NOTE. The first blank icon depicts NO TRANSITION and the other choices are SLIDE and ROLL.
8. Click on each photograph in turn working your way along the top row and setting up a TRANSITION for each one. I am going to stick to CROSSFADE for most of mine because they are all of the same subject. You can also click on the first photograph (the TITLE one) and then press PLAY to run through the video so far and check just what your TRANSITIONS between each photo look like.
8. Try the other two TRANSITIONS out to see there effects and how they work. I usually employ them when the subject matter changes but you should decide what looks better for your particular photographs.
9. When you reach the last photograph its a good idea to insert ‘The End’ using the same method as before by selecting the EDIT tab and then inputting your text into the box. Also some of my photographs were changing fairly quickly (the default setting is 03.00 seconds) so I am going to change this for some of them.
10. To change the duration of any of your photographs, just click on the EDIT tab, then change the time to be shown as before. Next let’s add some music to the video!
11. Click on the HOME tab and then in the SOUNDTRACK area of the ribbon, click on the ADD icon. You will now be able to select a track of music for your video from your music files. Don’t worry if the track that you choose is much longer than your video in length, we can make our photographs FIT the audio track.
12. Once you have selected an AUDIO track for your video, its name will appear under the main video window beneath the play area, and the FIT icon will now be available. So just click onto that and the MOVIE MAKER program will then fit the length of your video to be exactly the same as your AUDIO file.
Now let’s test it all to see how it looks and sounds! I find that choosing the right music for a video can often be the hardest part! Once you are happy with your video, its time to save it in a form that will allow you to play it back or send it for others to view.
13. Under the MAKE MOVIE area of the MOVIE MAKER ribbon you will see two choices, PUBLISH and OUTPUT. You can publish your video straight away to SOAPBOX or upload it to FACEBOOK if you wish but for this how-to, I am going to save it in Windows Media Video quality so that I can send it on later or put it in this post via writer. You can also make it suitable for a portable device as well.
14. So click on the small black arrow under OUTPUT and then choose the top DVD choice, you will be asked to give your video a name and then it will be saved to your video files as a WMV file. You can always publish it to Soapbox later if you wish. So try making a video from your photographs, and don’t be frightened to experiment with those transitions and effects will you?
TG Have fun and here is my finished video for you all to enjoy!
