THINGS TO KNOW FOR ALBERT LEONARD TEACHERS:

 

FIRST:  SAVE EARLY AND OFTEN...

MovieMaker freezes and kids lose work.  Have them save every few minutes to protect themselves from losing 40 minutes of work at the end of a session.

 

BEFORE OPENING MOVIEMAKER

 

1) Ideally, you want students to collect all their written work in advance and be able to check it for errors.  You also want them to bring all their images and sound files with them to the lab.

 

2) Realistically, some of them will look for some creative content when they are in the lab.  If they need to look for all of it, you will need additional days.  So, if you can... make them find images beforehand.  Talk to them about saving images (always large images so that they don't pixelate when used in moviemaker) at home and bring in on flashdrives.

 

3) Sound files and musicwill most likely need to be done in the lab.  If you work at ALMS, there are numerous mp3s available for them to use on the SHARE folder in S:\AABOOK TRAILERS\Music Files.  If they bring in disks, these can be ripped to usable mp3 files using microsoft media player

 

4) Organizing information and transferring assets (images, sounds, etc)  is important. When they get to the lab, make them transfer all assets from their flashdrives into the booktrailer > image folder or booktrailer >sounds folder they created on their H drive.  Don't let them work from the assets on their flashdrives(you may wish to make them remove the flash drive after download so that they aren't tempted to use them anyway).  Moviemaker will look for the assets in the exact same place each time they work on the program and so if they lose the flashdrive, they have lost the images and lots of time is wasted this way.

 

WORKING IN MOVIEMAKER

 

Microsoft Movie Maker can be found at start>applications>digital arts > moviemaker

 

 

ORIENTING YOURSELF 

 

 

1)  On the left hand side are all the actions

        1) Importing Content

        2) Manipulating content on the timeline (this is where all the transitions for images and video can be found)

        3) Finishing the movie and making the movie file

        4) Help menus

 

2)  In the center is the place where all the downloaded content is available

 

3)  On the right hand side is a view screen for any content that has been loaded into the storyboard/timeline

 

4) On the bottom is the storyboard/timeline.  In the lefthand corner of the storyboard/timeline are some icons for changing between the storyboard/timeline, adding in narration, changing sound levels etc.

 

 a)  When in storyboard format, you see each slide or image holder for the visuals for your video.  If you import  video onto a slide, it will show as one slide even though it will use more time than one image.  This is a good place to see what you have planned in a large format for viewing.  It's also the place to put transitions between slides

 

b) In the timeline format, you can pull in sound/music and manipulate text that is going to go onto images. You can change the length of time that a slide will play.  In this format, students will play with the pacing of their images and sounds. 

 

 

MANIPULATING CONTENT

 

1)  I find it best to have students do a raw cut.  I begin with text since some students want to spend a lot of time on images, having them put the text in first makes sure that the part that demonstrates understanding of literary analysis, ability to research a text, etc. goes in first.  

 

2)  Text can be copied and pasted onto a title/credit slide.  It's probably best to have them copy and paste once they have edited and revised their work.  Misspellings slip into their work and retyping just gives them more opportunity to make errors.

 

a)   oneline title allows students to put all the text in one box). 

 

b)   twoline titles have two boxes and allow only a small amount to put in each box, with one text acting as a subtitle or aside.  (Some students may want to use it for their title page)

 

c)  Plan on using the credits slide for creating credits.  This allows them to roll credits and other special effects most useful for a credits page. 

 

2)  Once you have the text in, have students lay in the images they have in the order they plan to use them on the storyboard and save the file in their booktrailer folder as the book title and name.  Ex:  Hatchet HALLIE SMITH. 

 

3)   Sound/Music files have their own line in the timeline. Pull your music into the timeline.

a) It's a good idea to immediately rightclick the sound/music line, to fade in and fade out music so that it transitions well. 

 

b)  Make sure that your music does not go past the last piece of visual content, because blank slides will be created for the length of the additional sound. 

 

4)  Time the length that text or image plays to work with the music and sound effects on the movie.  They will want to play with transitions for both images and video.  Have them wait to play with these until they have their music and sound effects in, since they will undoubtably want to manipulate it again to go with the beat or to emphasize the sound effect.

 

5) When you're ready to save the final movie.. read this page and watch this powerpoint.

 

 

http://www.windowsmoviemakers.net/Tutorials/