NOVEMBER 2005 MA XIMUMPC 49
of actual content and b-roll. &or our wedding
video we used footage of the band interspersed
with video of the dancers.
Editing a home movie is like assembling
a Jigsaw puzzle that you lost the box lid for.
9ou’ve got no idea what the final proJect looks
like, but you’ll know it when you see it. The
best way to learn is to Jump right in and start
experimenting.
When you add new clips, make sure you
get the audio and video synched. Even the
slightest disconnect between the movement of
people’s lips and the audio of their voices will
Jar viewers and make your movie look bad. We
move from left to right along the timeline, over-
lapping footage where necessary and trimming
as we go. Make sure you re-establish the sync
after you put each new clip in place. In Movie
Maker 2, overlapping two clips in the timeline
creates a basic fade transition that you can
keep or replace later with a different one.
STAGE 8: ADD SPECIAL EFFECTS
AND FANCY TRANSITIONS
Before you get carried away with all the crazy
transitions that Movie Maker 2 offers, remem-
ber, star wipes haven’t been cool since 19.
Usually a simple (and quick) fade to black is
preferable to the fancy sweeps and fades that
many amateurs use. Adding special effects
Judiciously, however, can add drama and
excitement to a dull moment in your film.
After previewing the complete proJect
a number of times, you should experi-
ment with a few special effects. To apply
an effect, Just drag it from the collection of
Video Effects and drop it onto the selected
clip. Up to six of the same or different
effects can be added to a clip, but we
wouldn’t recommend using more than four
or five in your entire movie.
&or transitions, we leave most of them
at the default cross-fade. We did, however,
replace the transitions at some of our video’s
key scenes with transitions that had more
flair. To replace a transition, drag the new one
onto the existing transition between clips. It’s
that easy
We then added nine text overlays, from
opening title to closing credits. Put some
thought into the first text clip, and choose
the font, font color, and level of transparency.
Then copy/paste it to preserve the formatting
between your clips. Slide the credits into posi-
tion and double-click each to automatically
open the wizard so you can change the word-
ing and animation.STAGE 9: SAVE
(RENDER) THE MOVIE
With the editing completed, the hard work
is done. Movie Maker 2’s wizard will guide
you through the steps to save all the com-
ponents of your video in a single file—this
is called a render. Choose the best video
quality your media and playback device
can take advantage of. &or maximum qual-
ity DVD video, we recommend you use the
DV-AVI format. 9our disc-burning app will
be able to transcode the DV-AVI format to
MPE'-2 for use on DVDs.
Saving or rendering the movie can take
considerably longer than the actual duration
of the video. At the highest quality settings,
for instance, our 5 1/2 minute video took
almost 40 minutes to render. The good news
is that you can use your computer to do other
things during the rendering process (Just don’t
expect high frame rates in Battlefield 2—your
CPU is working its butt off).STAGE 10: ENJOY THE SHOW
O+, so we lied Video editing isn’t quite as
simple as burning an audio CD. But we fig-
ured the ends—understanding the concepts
of the timeline, synching, splitting, and ren-
dering—would Justify the means. It wasn’t as
bad as you thought it would be, was it
&rom here, you can create a DVD with
your disc mastering application (such as
Nero or Easy Media Creator), burn it to
CD or DVD as a data file, or use Windows
Media Encoder to format it for a portable
media player, PDA, or even a video-capa-
ble phoneCHoose THe DesTINaTIoN for YoUr VIDeo
YoU caN pUT IT oN YoUr DesKTop or a
BacKUp DrIVeEVeN a moDesT appLIcaTIoN LIKe MM2 offers
pLeNTY of eNcoDING opTIoNs To HeLp YoU
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oNce THaTs DoNe YoU caN eNJoY THe fINIsHeD
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aDDeD a feW TraNsITIoNs aND creDITs BUT
sTaYeD aWaY from aNYTHING THaT WoULD
caLL Too mUcH aTTeNTIoN from oUr sUBJecTs