Provides information about using the Collections pane to view your collections, and about using the Movie Tasks pane to perform common tasks when editing a project and making a movie.
The main features of the Windows Movie Maker user interface appear in separate panes. Depending on which view you are working in, the Collections view or the Movie Tasks view, the main panes appear as follows.
The following illustration shows the Movie Tasks pane.
Movie Tasks pane
The Movie Tasks pane lists the common tasks that you may need to perform when making a movie. The Movie Tasks pane lets you perform the following common tasks, according to the point you are at in the process of making a movie.
- Capture Video. Provides options to begin making a movie, such as capturing video and importing existing video, pictures, or audio.
- Edit Movie. Provides options for making a movie, such as viewing existing video, pictures, audio, video effects, or adding movie titles and credits. You can also start AutoMovie to begin making a movie automatically.
- Finish Movie. Provides options for saving your final movie, such as to your computer, to a recordable CD, to send as an attachment in an e-mail message, to the Web, or to a tape in a DV camera.
- Movie Making Tips. Provides help for completing common tasks in Windows Movie Maker.
The Collections pane
The Collections pane displays your collections, which contain clips. The collections are listed by name in the Collections pane on the left, and the clips in the selected collection are displayed in the Contents pane on the right as shown in the following illustration. You can drag clips from the Contents pane or a collection from the Collections pane to the storyboard/timeline for your current project. You can also drag clips to the monitor to play them. A clip only represents the original source file so the file can be recognized and used in Windows Movie Maker. If you make changes to a clip, those changes are only reflected in the current project; they do not affect the source file.
The Contents pane
The Contents pane displays the clips that are contained in the collection that is selected in the Collections pane. The Contents pane displays all of the video, audio, pictures, video transitions, and video effects that can be added to the storyboard/timeline to include in your movie.
You can display clips in the Contents pane in two views: Details and Thumbnails.
Details. Displays information about the clips displayed in the Contents pane. The specific details depend on the type of clip that is displayed. In this view, you can sort items by clicking the column you want to sort by.
Thumbnails. Displays a small image of the selected clips based on the selected collection and the type of clips that are stored in it. For example, if the collection contains captured or imported video, the thumbnail displays an image from the selected video clip. If the collection contains imported or captured pictures, the thumbnail displays the picture. Small images representing the individual video transitions or video effects are displayed in the Contents pane when you select the Video Transitions or Video Effects folder in the Collections pane.
The monitor
Use the monitor to view individual clips or an entire project. By using the monitor, you can preview your project before saving it as a movie.
You can use the playback controls to navigate through an individual clip or an entire project. You can also use the buttons on the monitor to perform functions such as splitting a video or audio clip into two smaller clips or taking a picture of the current frame that is displayed in the monitor. The following illustration shows the monitor and its associated buttons.
