Video Vertigo Haven's Guide to WMM

This guide is for video makers who specifically use Window Movie Maker. You might be surprised what you can do with this quite underrated piece of software. Some of the following you might already know, but I will tell you a few tricks as well.

Choosing a Song
The best AMVs are made with songs that actually match the song. Don’t just choose your favourite song “just ‘cause”. For example, Soulja Boy does not go with Kingdom Hearts. Listen to the lyrics, or even read the lyrics of a song before you choose it.

Personal Intros
Intros are, of course, optional. But if you do want to have in intro to your videos, here’s some tips.
First of all, do not make it 30 seconds long. That’s annoying to the audience and it will just be skipped, and sometimes people will just stop watching all together. Try to keep it around 10 seconds AT THE MOST. You can also put your username or something that is uniquely yours in it.

Logo
I’ve been asked how I put my username in the corner of videos. It’s not hard to do, but it could screw up any other title overlays you have in your video because you have to stretch it across the timeline.
Go into the Tasks menu, click on “Make titles or credits” and select “title on the selected clip”. Type in your username or whatever you want, and click on “change title animation”. Scroll up to Title, One Line, and pick Subtitle format. Click “Change the text font and color”. Right align it or left align it (whichever side you want it on) and make it as small as you want (it’s best to be pretty small, but not the smallest). Adjust the transparency. Make sure it’s legible, but transparent enough so it doesn’t stick out (30-40% usually). Change the font to whatever you want, and the color is best left at white or grey. Click “Done, add title to movie” and extend it over the timeline.
Logos are not essential, but they can prevent people from stealing your videos.

Splitting clips
Certainly an easy thing to do. It’s very convenient.
Zoom in on the timeline as close as it can get and move the blue bar to wherever you want the clip to be split. Pressing Ctrl+L will split the clip. This is commonly used for adding flashes.

Syncing
You should always keep in mind that if you’re going to upload your video to Youtube, the syncing is usually off be a fraction of a second. You will notice this best on your videos, just because you’ll be looking for that kind of stuff. No one else will notice this. There’s, unfortunately, little that can be done about this. It’s just good to keep this in mind.

Credits
Ending credits are sometimes very sloppily done. As with the intro, try your best to not make it 30 seconds long. The font should be legible. A black background and white text usually looks best.

WMM Transtitions
Windows Movie Maker does not have many good transition choices. Most of them do not look good in videos. Try to mostly use fades for transitions (fade in/out to black/white, or just normal fade). They are subtle and more professional looking.

WMM Effects
The effects in WMM are nothing fancy, but can look good if you use them right.
Blur, Brightness Increase/Decrease, Ease In/Out, Film Age (Old), Film Grain, Grayscale, Mirror Horizontal, Posterize, Sepia Tone, Slow Down, and Smudge Stick are subtle and do not stick out like a soar thumb. These look good, even when used frequently.
Film Age Older and Oldest make the video tougher to see. Try to avoid using Oldest at all.
Color Spectrum, Pixelate, Speed Up, Threshold, and Watercolor usually don’t look good, unless it relates to the song.
Don’t overload your video with effects, or they’ll look too random.




If you need any help with WMM, ask here, and I, or someone else, will try to help you.

 

Oooooo... thanks for posting this! It really helped me out. :D