With digital video editing software, you can mix reality and animation however you want. Your interests and motivation are key... followed by your hardware, software, and your skills to use them.
What's New?
July 3, 2009 - This video is the largest project yet in my quest to use video to show both a majestic scene and the parts of it that suck you in, catching your eyes and mind.
If you've been to Washington DC you know how difficult that is, coming home with the all-too traditional 'snapshots'. Click the image to see it and the steps I used to make it.
Click the image to go to the video tutorial.
June 22, 2009 - We just returned from a vacation to Washington DC, the Atlantic shore of Delaware/Maryland/Virginia, and the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.
While gone, Pixelan released version 5 of their SpiceFX packs. I like what I see in the new version and look forward to using the new effects, transitions and title overlays with my vacation pix and clips.
I'll start with the new Picture-in-Picture and Title Animations wizards.
June 9, 2009 - To check a search engine, it's easiest to use something familiar. I'm a long-time user of Google now checking Microsoft's bing. For my initial check I searched for 'windows movie maker papajohn'. I'm not only interested in the content links provided but the added paid-for sponsored ones.
The first content link from Google was an appropriate one to my main website page... with a side ad for pizza. It claims 17,100 hits for the search.
bing returned the same link to my main website page, but with a short paragraph not as meaningful as Google's choice. The main sponsored ads were for Windows Help & Support at iyogi.net and for house windows from Home Depot. Bing claims 2,310,000 results.
With the blossoming of the internet, search engines are needed to provide meaningful assistance to those who don't know my site. And with that blossoming comes the advertisers and spammers.
We'll see what bing and others add to the equation.
June 3, 2009 - The October 22, 2009 release date for Windows 7 will mark the end of Movie Maker's first 9 year era for me. It helped me take my first dive into computer non-linear digital video editing. It's been an interesting, educational, rewarding, and fun era.
Windows Live Movie Maker and whatever else we use in Windows 7 will begin the next era. It's only a few months away and I'm watching developments to see where it takes us.
June 1, 2009 - Here's my first sample video that effectively transitions from an overall scene stitched together from a batch of frame snapshots to an item of specific interest in the camcorder footage.
Click the image to go to the video tutorial.
May 28, 2009 - I uploaded a copy of my latest Chicago video to neptune's Mediashare service... and noticed a better viewing experience compared to vimeo.
Vimeo is a free service.... Mediashare isn't. Each has its place.
May 25, 2009 - A trip to Chicago last Thursday gave me another chance to make a movie using a mix of camcorder clips and 7 megapixel still shots from my Canon SD750.
I used the panorama-making feature of Windows Live Photo Gallery to stitch stills into large composites such as this 14,137 by 4,623 pixel image. Click it for more info and to watch the video.
Click this pointer for a rolling 12 month list of new items...
My software toolbox contains dozens of multimedia editing apps and utilities. This website has info about many, with a focus on Microsoft's Windows Movie Maker and Photo Story 3.
Many of the website pages are busy with content. And the hundreds of newsletters and Bright Hub articles I've written over the past 5 years provide even more depth. They are all online with links sprinked around the site.
Click this image or the link under it for a full table of contents to them.
Movie Maker is a wonderful easy-to-use entry-level video editing app included in all versions of Windows XP and Vista. Most people don't know they already have it. You can be up and running in a couple hours, mixing still pictures, video clips, music and audio into amazing home movies, and topping them off with a wide assortment of titles, text overlays, and credits.
Your movie projects can go wherever your creativity and imagination take them. Additionally, in the Home Premium and Ultimate versions of Vista, DVD Maker works hand-in-hand with Movie Maker.
The newest version of Movie Maker to come along is the beta of Windows Live Movie Maker. See the Setup Movie Maker > Windows Live Movie Maker branch of the menu.
Photo Story 3 complements Movie Maker by letting you pan and zoom using all the pixels in your high resolution still pictures... it's not included in XP or Vista, but is a free download from Microsoft.
The Photo Story Magic group is a virtual Photo Story 3 university, where PS3 buffs showcase their work and provide info about how they do it. Join in... click this widget to browse and view the stories... or the name vimeo in the lower right corner to go to the online service.
If you're not ready to jump into making advanced stories, my website has a full tutorial in the Photo Story 3 branch of the menu at the left.
With Microsoft® Expression® Media you can produce online video and Silverlight packages for the best and newest in website video distribution.
Use the software apps individually or together, along with other software tools in your editing toolbox.
Many of my online personal videos are short examples of amazing things you can do. Links to them are throughout the website.
Use the menu tree at the left to navigate the site. There are hundreds of pages loaded with information, samples and downloads. My goals are to...
Help you do amazing things with Movie Maker, Photo Story, DVD Maker and Expression by sharing my personal experience.
Provide an Online Companion to my book Movie Maker 2 - Do Amazing Things!, published by Microsoft Press on 12/10/03. The companion makes clarifying notes, provides source files, shows samples, and takes you deeper into selected topics... things often done with included CDs or DVDs. Being online, I can easily update it to stay current.
When you're ready to exhibit your work online, you'll need a web host. You usually have some space provided by your Internet Service Provider. There are hundreds of free service providers such as YouTube, vimeo, and FaceBook... and there are fee-based online hosts such as neptune and mydeo. This picture is a link to my online videos at neptune.
Provide a full tutorial about Photo Story 3, to get the most of using it by itself or hand-in-hand with Movie Maker.
Help you resolve problems with Movie Maker by providing insights into how it works and issues you might run into, and what you can do to resolve or work around them.
I don't have access to the source code, so I rely heavily on the collective experience of Movie Maker users and available information from Microsoft.
Like most sites today, there's a sprinking of commercial ads... appropriate and without pop-ups. When you're shopping online, please use these links... any proceeds I get from clicks or purchases helps keep the site running.
I don't cover the basics of shooting great video with a camcorder or editing with Movie Maker. The info about making amazing movies is more about editing techniques than storyboarding. Bring your own ideas and inspiration, and the site will help you implement them using Movie Maker and Photo Story 3.
For topics not covered, use the built-in Movie Maker help file, online tutorials, books, training sessions, my Training and Support Services page, and other resources.
The 'Setup Movie Maker', 'Online', and 'Offline' branches of the menu tree have many other links to available resources.
Thumbnails and Comments
The website has grown considerably and continues to expand. Look for boxes like this on many pages. I use them to...
• Summarize a page that is too big for an easy read. Scan the thumbnail and move on unless you really want to dig into the page's content.
• Provide personal comments about the topic.
The link above-right to my name... PapaJohn... is to a 33 second intro story made with Photo Story 3 for the 2005 Microsoft MVP Summit. The narrator is Brian at theDVShow.
By design, Movie Maker is an easy to use, yet extremely powerful, digital video editing program, with real time previewing. It's free to all users of Microsoft Windows XP® and Vista, and its comfortable user interface helps you focus your creative energies on your movies rather than the software.
There are many things involved in making a movie: obtaining graphics, video, sound,
music, text and narration... moving them into your computer... editing a project...
and then saving and distributing the finished movie.
Your learning curve may be
easy or steep, and there may be issues to resolve. But the rewards are great, and many people are willing to assist as you go. It's never too early or late to get started.
A utility that lets you create your personal sets of special transitions.
Use the above link or click on the TM2 icon to go directly to the download site for a free trial version...
...and information about what it is, including a full online tutorial... the main site menu at the left includes a branch about TM2 in the Edit Movies section.
Much of the information on this website comes from postings on these newsgroups:
... the broad-based places for peer support. Thanks to Microsoft for
providing the newsgroups, and mostly to all who ask questions and share their
experience and comments.
Included links are to websites, forums, software downloads, books, activities, events, and training... anything of direct interest to users of Movie Maker and Photo Story 3. The information may be summarized or commented on here, but it is not duplicated. Suggestions for additional links or references are always welcomed.
This website is, and will remain, tightly focused on you, the users of Movie Maker and Photo Story 3. It covers all software features, and related topics from camcorders to burning DVDs and uploading videos to website hosts.
I use newsgroup posts and your personal emails for guidance about what to include in the website.
The information on each page usually flows from general to specific, with many pages drilling down to individual posts. When they go down that far, the date of the post is shown, but not usually the name of the person who posted it. The word 'Microsoft' means it was made by someone working for Microsoft. In most such cases, Microsoft employees are responding to posts on their own time, participating in peer support activities.
Zero to Hero was published in early 2003, and Do Amazing Things on December 10, 2003. Use the links on the right to order them from Amazon U.S. Zero to Hero is also available in Polish 'od zera do bohatera'.
There are other book-related links on the Offline... Books and Training page.
One of the branches of the menu is your entry to the online companion for the Do Amazing Things book. It's open to all.
The Zero to Hero book is supported by an online forum hosted by APress/Friends of ED.
When your favorite editing software doesn't have enough features, use those in other apps such as VirtualDub, an open source utility used by millions.
I was more than pleased to write the introductory chapter for the first book about Learning VirtualDub, released by Packt Publishing in May 2005.
I'm not a Microsoft employee, but received 7 annual Most Valuable Professional (MVP) awards (2003-2009) for working with the community of Movie Maker users.
'Papa' is what my grandchildren call me, 'John' is my real name, and PapaJohn is my online handle.
This website started March 8, 2003 as a better way to share my personal notes about Movie Maker. It has helped many and I hope it helps you. I roll up information from newsgroup and forum postings, add what I learn from Microsoft, and annotate it with my personal experiences. It is constantly evolving, driven by our collective needs.
A set of HowTo's is the latest website feature... short video tutorials made possible by great screen capture tools such as Camtasia, and better internet capabilities. Linger over a How To button and the tool tip will tell you the topic. Click it and you'll see a short video about the item.
Here's a How To about setting a How To Background Stage. Look for 'How To' logos throughout the site.
Some people wonder if I respond to emails. Yes, but my typical day gives first priority to newsgroup posts, second to forum posts, then to my personal activities, and finally to emails. Emails may get you personal help but not help others. I prefer letting all see the correspondence... and others often respond sooner than I do, with better answers. Having said that, feel free to email me at:
PapaJohn@CharterMi.net
Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.
HighMAT and the HighMAT logo are either trademarks or registered trademarks of
Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.
. Look for 'How To' logos throughout the site.