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Using Transitions Between
Clips Movie
Maker 2 comes with a huge selection of transitions that
you can place between your video clips. There are 60
transitions to choose from, ranging from simple fades to
complex geometric shapes.
When first presented with
such a plethora of transition options, you may be
tempted to use them judiciously throughout your video.
For a home movie, that’s fine, as your audience will
probably enjoy them. However, if you are trying to
create a “professional looking” video, you may want to
go easy on the transitions … after all, you don’t see
any transitions in movies or TV shows.
Actually, there are a few
transitions that you will see in movies and film, but
they are subtle and you probably don’t notice them …
- The “Cut”
This isn’t really a transition, but a switch in
movie clips … when one clip ends, the next one
immediately begins. The timing of cuts is very
important and there are many funny and amazing
things you can do with careful timing. Fortunately,
Movie Maker makes it easy to cut your scenes by
allowing you to “trim” the ends of your video clips.
- The fade
The fade is the most useful (and most used)
transition. It is simply a cross-dissolve between
two scenes, and in movies typically occurs when the
story changes locations.
- The wipe
This effect is used less often than the fade, but
implies the same thing … a change in location. This
effect is more obvious than the fade, and the
audience is supposed to “notice” the effect. The
wipe denotes a major change in location … and even a
change in time. In a movie like “The Gladiator” or
“Conan the Barbarian” the wipe might be used to show
the main character changing over time … wiping
between clips of the character aging and getting
stronger.
The audience should be
focused and engrossed with the movie and not with your
transition effects. So, it’s important to keep your
transitions “transparent” or “invisible” by using them
sparingly.
An exception to
the rule
One place that you might want to use fancy transitions,
is in a photo slideshow. Movie maker lets you import
pictures from your digital camera and lay them on your
timeline as a “video slideshow.” You can even add music
or a descriptive voice track over these photos.
Because photos are static
and non-moving, transitions are great because they add
“motion” to your movie. A photo slide-show is one place
that you can get away with those crazy transitions and
still create a video that looks professional.
Other ways to
transition …
There are other ways to create “transitions” between
scenes that don’t rely on your computer but careful
planning. If you ever want to see a movie with clever
transitions, rent the 80’s action movie “Highlander.”
The main character in this movie (a 1,000 year old sword
master living in New York) has constant “flashbacks” to
his youth in medieval Scotland. To transition to these
flashbacks, the director uses only clever editing. In
one scene, the camera will zoom in on the character’s
eyes while he drives his car, cut, then zoom back from
his eyes while he is in the middle of a ancient sword
fight. In another scene, the camera pans over to his
office aquarium and moves up to the aquarium water’s
surface … then the scene cuts to the water surface of a
medieval lake. Clever stuff … but it takes a lot of
preplanning!
Rules are meant to be
broken, and the above transition recommendations are
only observations. If you want to use crazy transitions
in your video … go right ahead! After all, you are the
creative genius behind your film!
Transitions are stored in
the Video Transitions folder in the
Collections pane. You can control the playback
duration of a video transition, but it can't be any
longer than the shorter of the two adjacent clips.
Select the clip or picture to which you want to
transition. Drag it over the clip or picture from which
you want to transition on the timeline. A cross–fade is
the default transition that is automatically added
between the two clips.
Any transitions you add
appear on the Transition track of the timeline.
Expand the Video track to see the Transition
track. The video transition length, highlighted in the
square, is determined by the amount of overlap between
two clips.
Figure 1: A
timeline with an added video transition.
Figure 2: A
project on the storyboard with a video transition.
To add a transition:
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1. |
On the
storyboard/timeline, select the second of the
two video clips or pictures that you want to
transition between.
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2. |
On the Tools
menu, click Video Transitions.
–or-
In the Movie
Tasks pane, under Edit Movie, click
View video transitions.
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3. |
In the Contents
pane, double click on the video transitions to
preview them.
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4. |
Select the one
you want, click on it, and drag it to the
appropriate place on the storyboard or timeline.
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5. |
On the Clip
menu, click Add to Timeline or Add
to Storyboard. |
You can also add a
transition between two clips by going to the Clip
menu, clicking Add to Timeline or Add To
Storyboard. Or, on the storyboard, you can drag and
drop a transition to the video transition cell between
two clips.
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Using Effects Within
a Clip
MovieMaker 2 comes preinstalled
with a number of video effects that you can add to your movie
clips. These effects are numerous and easy to apply. Despite the
large assortment of effects, you’ll find yourself using certain
effects more often, and some of them not at all. Here are some
of the most useful effects and some uses you might not have
though of.
- Brightness Increase
and Decrease
These brightness effects are very useful for fixing your
video’s exposure levels. If you filmed an indoor scene that
looks too dark, you can simply brighten the video with the
brightness effect. If your video still isn’t bright enough,
you can repeat the effect several times until you get the
look you want.
-
 Grayscale
and Sepia Tone
Both of these effects remove the color from your film, and
the sepia effect gives your film a pleasant “yellowed old
photograph” look. You can use these desaturating effects to
make your movie look classy (like those black and white
DeBeer’s diamond commercials) or to create a “flashback” or
“dream sequence” scene within a larger home movie epic.
-
 Rotation
effects
There are several rotation effects, but they are not useful
for video. However, they work great for photographs, and
allow you to align your photos properly. If you hold your
digital camera sideways (to get those full-body pictures)
these rotation effects allow you to rotate your pictures in
the proper direction so you can create “video slideshows” of
your picture collections.
- Slow down and speed
up
These two effects can be useful for creating comedy
“movies.” For example, you could make a
fake kung-fu movie with your kids and use the speed-up
effect to create rapid-motion fighting scenes. Likewise, the
slow-down effect could be used to create the clichéd “slow
motion punch” that is common in American action movies. You
could also use the speed up effect to make funny slapstick
comedies … like the British “Benny Hill” skits.
There are many other effects
available within MovieMaker, though they aren’t as useful as the
ones mentioned here. Some of the effects, like the artistic
watercolor effects, seem to be included simply for the “wow”
factor. One effect that Movie Maker is sorely missing is the
“reverse video” effect, which is unfortunate as there are many
special effects you can perform by reversing film.
How to apply effects
To apply effects to your film you need to open up the Video
Effects collection. You can preview each effect in the preview
monitor by double clicking on the effect thumbnail. To apply the
effect to a video clip, simply grab the effect and drop it onto
the clip in the storyboard.
The following illustration shows
a project on the timeline with an added video effect. An icon
appears on the video clip or picture that you applied the effect
to.
Figure 1: Project on timeline with an added video effect.
The following illustration shows
a project on the storyboard with an added video effect. An icon,
highlighted in the red square, appears in the video effects cell
to indicate that a video effect is applied.
Figure 2: Project on storyboard with an added video effect.
To add video effects to your
video clips, pictures, or titles:
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1. |
On the
storyboard/timeline, select the video clip, picture, or
title that you want to add the video effect to.
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2. |
On the Tools
menu, click Video Effects.
–or
In the Movie Tasks pane,
under Edit Movie, click View video effects.
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3. |
Double-click the effects
to see how they look in the preview window.
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4. |
Drag the effect you want
to use onto the clip in the storyboard and place it on
top of the star in the lower left-hand corner of the
clip.
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You can also add an effect by
clicking on the effect, then going to the Clip menu and
clicking Add to Timeline or Add to Storyboard.
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Mac Users click here (Jeanette's Power Point)