 |
 |
Audio
Unless you are using Movie Maker to illustrate a song, you should complete the rest of the movie before inserting the audio. Adding titles and transitions changes the timing of the project. If you add audio before graphics, you won't know how long the sound should last. If you add audio before you add titles or transitions - as I did when making the Chicago project - when you do make those additions, the timing of the audio will be off. This can cause a great deal of frustration and wasted time!
To add audio to your movie, you have several options. You can import music or other sounds, you can record your voice in another program and import it, or you can use Movie Maker's 'Narrate Timeline' option. The bad news is that you can have only one sound at any point in your project; you can't narrate and import music. The way around this is to have music playing in the background as you record, or to play music as you play the project for your class. Neither option is great, but this is a limitation of this program. The slightly higher tech solution is to download the free program Audacity. It will allow you to open your music, then add a new audio track (tools menu) and record your voice over the movie.
To import audio:
You must have audio on your hard drive to import it, just like you did for the images. If you already have music on your computer that you want to use, that's fine, as long as it is in a form Movie Maker can recognize, like .wav or .wma.
Also, you have sample music in the 'Sample Music' folder inside your 'My Music' folder inside your 'My Documents' folder. You can download free music from the internet (see 'Glossary/Resource' for suggested links.) Or, to save time, or because you like my choice of music, you can download this link:
To record your voice, you can use the Windows Sound Recorder by clicking Start, Programs, Accessories, Entertainment, Sound Recorder. When you have finished recording, save it to the same folder you have been using.
To use the 'Narrate Timeline' option, go into Movie Maker and click 'Tools' on the menu bar and then click 'Narrate Timeline.' Make sure you have a microphone ready, and click 'Start Narration.' Your movie will play, and you can watch it as you narrate. When you finish, click 'Stop Narration.' The program will ask you to save your narration. Again, I would put it in the folder you've been using for this project. When you are finished, click 'done.'
Once you have your audio in available on your computer, go back to Movie Maker and click on 'Import audio or music.' Find the the music or narration your saved, and click on it. Then click on the clip in the 'Collection' window, and drag it down to the timeline.
To edit audio:
There are a few things you can do in Movie Maker to edit your audio. Just like a video clip, you can shorten it by dragging it from the left to trim off the beginning, or from the right to trim off the end. You can drag the whole clip to the right or left to effect where in your movie it begins. If you right-click on it, you will see that you can make if fade in when it begins, or fade out when it ends. You can also adjust the volume, which is useful if one of your audio clips is louder than the others. They should all play at the same level.
Remember to save!
Rubric |
|||
5 |
3 |
1 |
|
| Audio: | |||
| Relevance | Audio is relevant to Movie. Adds interest and encourages comprehension | Some audio is relevant, but some is just for fun | Audio distracts viewer from intent of Movie |
| Volume | All audio clips are the same volume | 1 or 2 clips are louder or softer than others | Clips vary in volume, distracting listener's attention |
To see my final 'Cats' project, click HERE
Saving the Final Project:
When you are satisfied, save it one last time. You are saving it simply as a Movie Maker file. That means you can still edit it in Movie Maker, but you can't use it in any other program. To save it for use, look in the 'Finish Movie' category of the Movie Tasks task pane. You see you have several choices of where to save the movie. Most are self-explanatory. We will go over only the 'Save to my computer' option.
When you click 'Save to my computer', you will begin by entering the movie's name and the save location. Click 'Next.' The next screen is the one on which you will make some decisions.
The default choice is 'Best quality for playback on my computer.' If All you will do with it is play it back on your computer, this is fine. It will make a high-quality, large movie. Click 'Next,' wait for it to finish saving, and you are done!!
If you have other plans, you will need to click on the blue 'Show more choices....' The next pane will give you many choices.
As you can see by the notation, the choices in the bracketed group are options for putting your movie on the internet. To choose your setting, start by considering your audience. If you only expect it to be used at school, you can choose one of the 'Video for broadband' choices. The larger the Kbps (kilobits per second), the better the quality, but also the bigger the file, and the longer it will take for before the movie plays when your students click on it. I chose the lowest kbps because I know teachers have no patience, and if it took too long to load, you'd skip it. 
If you expect your students to access it from home, you should use the 'Video for dial-up access' option, because many of your students probably have dial-up, and the broadband settings would take them forever to load.
If you want your movie to play in anything other than Windows Media Player, you will need to save it as a DV-AVI(NTSC). This form can be opened in most players, and by most programs, like Quick Time, Ezedia, PowerPoint, and others. It will make a very large file size, but depending on your use, that may not matter. If you have Quick Time Pro, you will be able to open the .avi file and save it into another form.
CONGRATULATIONS!
YOU HAVE FINISHED YOUR MOVIE!
If you have any suggestions, advice, corrections, questions, or comments for me, please do not hesitate to click on the 'Feedback/Questions' link at the bottom of the page.
 |
||
|
||