Windows Movie Maker is a free and easy-guided movie editing software for beginners. WMM has also been popular in creating ePorfolio and digital storytelling. This tutorial leads users to create a short digital story by using basic functions and a few effects in WMM.

1. 2013
Sirui Wang, PhD candidate
University of Southern Mississippi
1/12/2013
Image Tutorial on Windows
Movie Maker

2. Workshop on February 12, 2013
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Create a Movie in Windows Movie Maker
Sirui Wang, Graduate Teaching Assistant
The University of Southern Mississippi
[Preparation]
 Create a folder on your desktop and place all of your pictures and videos in this folder, and
name it as “Movie”.
 Open Windows Movie Maker. (Start  All Programs  )
 Once inside the program, click Tasks on the Tool Bar to show movie tasks if it did not show by
default. You will see your windows just look the same as Figure 1.
[Add Title]
Name your movie first!
 Click Tools (in the tool bar) Titles and Credits, then
 Click “Add title at the beginning of the movie”
as shown in Figure 2.
 Then type your preferred title and name in the “text area”;
in the preview window, your title will be previewed
as you typing, as shown in the image below (Figure 3).
Figure 1
Figure 2

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 Click Change the title animation to choose the Title Animation. Select a title animation
from the list as shown below (Figure 4).
 Click Change the text font and color, and then on the Select Title Font and Color page,
choose the font, font color, formatting, background color, transparency, font size, and
position of the title.
 Click “Done, add title to movie” to accept the title. Now you will be directed back to the
task panes (Figure 5).
Figure 5
Figure 3
Figure 4

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[Import Video]
Now, it is time to import the video to the movie.
 Click Import Video under Capture Video on the Movie Tasks pane, as shown below (Figure 6):
 In the pop-up dialogue box
(Figure 7), look for your desktop
and find your movie folder.
 Double click the Movie folder
 Select the video you need for
the movie (Figure 7).
NOTE:
If you did not have video shown
in the “import file”, but you do have
video files in your folder, you
probably have to convert video
format to *wmv, *avi, etc, which are
the types that could be recognized
by Windows Movie Maker.
 Click Import to add video (Figure 8)
[Edit video clip]
Trim your video length to 60 seconds - 120 seconds.
 After you import video clips, they will appear on the right side of the panel. One by one, click
and drag the video clips to the timeline, as shown in Figure 9.
NOTE:
Same as pictures, you can move and delete video clips if you get them in the wrong order
on the Storyboard.
 Move the video: Click the video and drag it to another place on the
timeline/storyboard.
Figure 6
Figure 7
Figure 8

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 Delete a video clip: Click the video clip in the collection  choose Delete under the
Edit
 Move your mouse to the start point of each video clip on the timeline, you will see a tag with
words “click and drag to trim the clip”; at the same time, your cursor becomes as a red vertical
line with arrows on each side (Figure 10).
 Click and drag to trim the clip to a proper length.
NOTE: In the preview window, (Figure 11)
watch time to make sure your video clip is in
proper length, as shown in the left.
[Add Video Effect/Transitions]
Switch the Timeline to Storyboard, (Figure 12)
 To add Video Effect (A video effect determines how a video clip or pictures displays in
your movie), you need to:
Figure 9
Figure 10
Figure 11

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 Click Down arrow beside Edit Movie to open Edit Movie Panel. Click View Video Effects to
open all effects on the middle panel (or click Tools  Video Effects)
 Choose a video effect and drop it on a video clip (by moving your cursor over and
drop when you see it is highlighted) on the storyboard.
 Add Video Transitions (a video transition affects how one picture transferring to the
next)
 Click View Video Transitions under the Edit Video (or click Tools  Video Transitions). All
Video Transitions are displayed on the middle panel.
 Choose a video transition and drop it between two video clips on the storyboard
[Import Images]
You can insert as many images as you need for the movie (Figure 13).
 Click Import pictures under Capture Video on the Movie Tasks pane
 In the pop-up dialogue box, look for your desktop and find your movie folder.
 Double click the Movie folder
 Select the images you need for the movie
NOTE:
The steps for importing images are very similar to steps of importing video. As indicated in
the image below, you can import all the images you have to the movie collection for later use.
After that, all the videos and images you have imported are in the collection.
Figure 12
Figure 13

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[Add Narration] Locate your microphone on the computer and turn on the speaker.
Select the Narrate Timeline icon above the storyboard/Timeline zone. Narrate Timeline window
opens as the following:
NOTE:
Background music and narration file to the audio/music track cannot be added at the same time, so
you have to do one task each time. That means: if you added the music file to the video but also want
to narrate your story, you have to save your current project as a movie file with the music. Then
import the movie file back to the story board to add the narration. You can follow the steps in
“Import Video”.
[Add Credit]
Steps for adding credit at the end of movie is the same as “Add Title”, Figure 14:
 Click Tools (in the tool bar) Titles and Credits, then
 Click “Add credit at the end of the movie” to add credit. You can change the font, color and
add animation to your credit also.
Adjusts the
volume of
captured audio.
 Click Start Narration button to start your
narration. You will see the movie is playing in the
display window. You can follow the movie to
speak.
 Click stop narration when you finish.
 You will see a Save Windows Media File window,
save it to your movie folder  give a file name 
click Save (the sound clip will appear on the
Audio/Music trace)
 If you are not satisfied with your narration, you
don’t have to save it. Click Cancel and start
another narration.
 Click Done when you finish your narration.
Figure 14

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[Preview your Movie]
Click Play button on the preview window area to view your movie.
[Save your movie project]
If you haven’t finished your project and need
to work on it later,
Click File  save project as  save in to
your movie folder 
give a file name  click save.
(as indicated in Figure 15)
[Save Your Final Movie to a Windows Media Video (WMV) file]
 Click File on the menu bar  Choose Save Movie File Click My Computer  Click Next
(Figure 16)
 Enter a File name  Click Browse and locate your movie folder  Click OK  Click Next 
Click Next again (Figure 17)
NOTE:
Remember that your project file won’t work if you move it outside your movie folder before you
save it into a WMV file.
Get your
Badge!
Figure 15
Figure 16
Figure 17