Rough Patch, the Movie

Tuesday, 28th December 2005

Previous Day | This Month | Previous Years | Home Page | Next Page

The nice thing about holidays is the feeling that you can indulge in pastimes just for the fun of it. As I was saying the other day, I've never got far with exploring the possiblilities of my Canon Power Shot G5 digital camera; now's my chance.

My nephew Arden was telling me how easy it is to use Windows Movie Maker, which comes as an accessory with Windows XP. Within an hour I'd shot, edited, titled and added fade effects and a music track to my first movie.

Movie Mode

Previously I've taken movies only by accident with my camera; looking in the manual all you need to do is set the dial to Movie Mode, press the shutter button to start shooting and press again to stop. And be careful not to cover up the built-in microphone.

I film a slow pan of the wood from the studio window, another panning up from the patio to the bird feeder and finally zoom in for a few seconds of goldfinches and great tits flying to the feeder.

The Storyboard, Windows Movie Maker

Movie Maker

Windows Movie Maker Download your movie clips, import them into Movie Maker (screenshot, left) and drop them into the Storyboard (above) and add any video effects and transitions (indicated in the smaller rectangles).

You then switch to a Timeline view to fine tune the editing and to add music and, if you wish, a narration. There's always a preview window available (to the right of the screenshot) for you to play your movie through.

I haven't worked out how to embed the finished movie in a web page, or I'd treat you to a premier right now.

Link

Windows Movie Maker at www.microsoft.com

Canon U.K.

Richard Bell, richard@willowisland.co.uk