Windows Live Movie Maker is Easy!

One of the things I wanted to work on this summer was making and editing videos using images, video, and slides. Well, I finally got around to it!

I love watching the slideshows in Windows Live Photo Gallery and didn’t realize how easy it would be to turn them into a video and add a sound track with Windows Live Movie Maker (which automatically opened for me when I clicked on the movie option on the Create ribbon in Photo Gallery). Here’s my first attempt.

 

 

All you need is the free Windows software and a series of photos you want to use. If you’re not familiar with Photo Gallery, here’s a webpage with info on basic things and a download link: http://www.digitalmediausers.com/Tutorials/WindowsPhotoGalleryTutorial/tabid/57/Default.aspx

And here’s a great tutorial from YouTube to help you walk through the steps of using Movie Maker:
 

Video on using Movie Maker

 

I wanted to narrate my movie though, rather than adding music. So, I recorded what I wanted to say with the free online service at: http://vocaroo.com/

Once I had finished my soundtrack I save the recorded file to my own computer as an MP3.

Following the instructions on how to add music to the video, I just selected my soundtrack. One neat trick I discovered was that I could adjust how long each slide was shown using the duration option, so that I could coordinate the sound better to the images.

Before I uploaded the video to YouTube I converted it to MP4 format, which is more compressed and loads better. It was easy and only took a few minutes using conversion software.

Anyway, have fun turning your slideshows into videos!