Windows Live Movie Maker - Basics Skills Videos

NOTE - These videos are silent.  There are some simple subtitles at the bottom of the screen to inform you of the processes completed.

Adding Title and Credits

Add title and credits to a Windows Live Movie Maker project. You can also learn how to change text, fonts, background colours and animations.

Updating Scene Duration

Update the duration (time taken) for each "scene" within a Windows Live Movie Maker project. A scene can be a video clip, an image, a title or credits page.

Upload a Video

Upload a video file into Windows Live Movie Maker.

Rotate Images or Videos

Sometimes you need the ability to rotate either images or videos because the source footage is in landscape or portrait, and you need it reversed.  Never fear, here we see how to complete this simple process in Windows Live Movie Maker.

Crop Scenes using the Trim tool

Changing scene lengths is not simply a matter of changing duration. By using the Trim tool in Windows Live Movie Maker, you can select exactly what part of a video you wish to start from, rather than being limited to cutting from the start or finish.

By working with the Split tool, you can capture exactly the scene fragment that you need to work with.

Add Text to a Scene

Sometimes you need to add text to a scene within Windows Live Movie Maker.  This process is completed simply, and contains the same options as covered earlier in MMBasics skills video 1, which include changing font size, style and colour.

Add Animations between Scenes

Windows Live Movie Maker gives the opportunity to create transitions between scenes.
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A key to creating good animations is not to over-do it. A good phrase to hold in your mind is "less is more". The less you do with animations while still carrying out your purpose, the better.  You don't want to distract viewers from your actual scene.

Add Visual Effects

Visual Effects are options within Windows Live Movie Maker that can change a video or image file's looks without requiring much effort on the editor's behalf.

Take a scene and add Visual Effects (there is an option to create and use Multiple Effects) which can create some very interesting visuals for your viewers.  Again as with Animations/Transitions: less is more.

Save Project and Export File

Windows Live Movie Maker projects remain in a specific project file format, which is important to keep in addition to any exported files created.  This is because you may find a problem with an exported file (e.g. a simple spelling error) that you can easily correct in the project file, and then export the final MP4 file again.

Some versions of Movie Maker only allow exporting in Windows Media File format.  These files should be converted to MP4 for easy viewing on the vast majority of media players.