Make a movie on the run with AutoMovie.

There are lots of reasons you’d need to create a movie quickly. Perhaps you forgot about an assignment at work or school, need to give immediate feedback on a game or production you are in charge of or have filmed, or need to distribute footage from some kind of outing to all members right away. You may want to get footage of your newborn to all of your relatives before the baby starts walking. Whatever the case, with AutoMovie, you can create a movie quickly.

As with any movie in Movie Maker 2, you need to connect the DV camera and import the footage.  Notice that the Movie Tasks pane is selected; if yours isn’t showing, click the Tasks button on the Standard toolbar.

Once you have your video footage ready, it’s time to make an AutoMovie:

1. Open Movie Maker from Start | All Programs | Accessories |

Entertainment | Windows Movie Maker.

2. In the Movie Tasks pane, under Edit Movie,

click Make An AutoMovie.

3. Select from the five AutoMovie styles: Flip and Slide, Highlights

Movie, Music Video, Old Movie, or Sports Highlights. Beside each

is a description. In this example, we’ll create a clean, simple movie,

with cuts, fades, a title, and credits. Therefore, select Highlights

Movie.

4. In the Select An AutoMovie Editing Style dialog box,

scroll down and locate More Options. Here, you’ll

enter a title and select background music. Click Enter A Title For

The Movie.

5. In the Enter Text For Title area, type the text to add.

6. Under More Options, choose Select Audio Or Background Music.

7. In the Add Audio Or Background Music area, either browse to the

location of the music file or choose None for no music. For now,

leave the Audio Levels at their default settings.

8. Click the Done, Edit Movie option. Movie Maker 2 analyzes the

video footage and creates the movie automatically.

9. When AutoMovie is finished, click File | Save Project As, name the

project, and click Save. I prefer to save the projects in a subfolder of

My Videos called Project Files.

If you wanted to, you could select Save Movie File from the File menu instead of Save Project As. The difference between the two is not subtle. A project can be further edited; a movie cannot. The movie is the final product; the project is a work in progress. Because we’ll be doing more editing in the next section, it’s best to leave this project saved as a project. In the last section, you’ll learn several ways to save the final product in the form of a movie.