Although digital cameras have many great advantages over the old film versions, one of the few drawbacks is that many people download their photos onto their computer but never actually get them printed. Then the only way to view them, or have anyone else see them, is to fire up the PC. And unless you’ve been quite thorough when downloading and created new precisely named folders each time you may need to plough through several thousand pictures before you get to the ones you want. Mind you, flicking through an album of prints can be rather dull for the viewer as well, almost as tiresome as the old slide show.

For photos you wish to show other people or enjoy yourself one of the more imaginative ideas is to make a small movie from them & burn it onto a DVD so it can then be watched on your TV. And this is a lot easier than it sounds. Most PCs sold in the last five years or so will have Microsoft Movie Maker software in the program list. For Mac users, i-movies will do the same thing. Movie maker is very simple software to use although the HELP facility could be improved greatly.

The first job is to select the photos you are going to use from the files on your PC and in Movie Maker click on “Import Pictures”. This will open up a windows browser box and you navigate to the required files, select them and click on “Import”. Even large numbers of high definition photos will import in a very short amount of time. If you shot some video that you want to put into your movie, just select Import Video and import as before.

To add music you will first need to save the songs required to your PC, whether downloading them from the net or copying them from a CD. Movie Maker will not import directly from a CD as the file type (cda – Compact Disk Audio) is incompatible. When you save them to the PC the file types are automatically converted to wma (Windows Media Audio) files. Once saved just select “Import Audio or Music” in Movie Maker and import as before. Now all your files are in Movie Maker and you are ready to roll.

It is best to start with your audio track. Simply drag the file down to the Audio/Music line on the Storyboard at the bottom of the screen. You can then select and drag as many photos or video clips onto the Video line of the storyboard as are required to fill the same amount of time as your music clip.

One thing that should be mentioned here is that this software has limited memory so that if your music/audio clip is too long, the file will not save to your PC. I recommend you do not try to make a movie file longer than five to six minutes. This is a problem that can be overcome though as you can make several movie files and merge them at a later point.

If you are using a music clip that is too long you can cut the music file down to size by the simple means of clicking and dragging the right hand end of the music clip on the Audio/Music line on the Storyboard. This can later be expanded to the end of the music clip via the same method on your next movie file. So that your second movie file starts at the exact piece of music that your first movie finished you simply drag the left hand end of the music clip until it reaches the point where you cut the first one off. Easiest way to do this is, when you are starting your second movie file, to leave your first group of photos on the storyboard and drag the music clip to the very end of the last photo. Then you delete your photos from the storyboard and select and drag the second group of photos/videos down onto the storyboard. On a lengthy piece of music, say classical for example, this can be done numerous times to make multiple movie files which can be later merged into a single movie.

So that your pictures blend into one-another and not just suddenly change you can select many “Video Transitions” from the Edit Movie menu on the left hand side of the screen. Usually I use the “Fade” between each photo and one of the other transitions between subjects. When using the same transition between multiple photos, right click on the required transition icon, copy and paste over the required photos.

Add in any required Titles and credits from the Edit Movie menu and you are ready to save the movie file. I would suggest you preview your movie by clicking the play button on the screen on the right hand side before saving. You can edit your work by moving photos etc at any time before saving.

Once you have all your movie files saved to your PC it is time to burn them onto a DVD. I use the NERO software for this as again it is very user friendly. From the NERO Startsmart menu you chose DVD and under favorites select “Make your own DVD-Video”. Then click on “Add Video Files” and select the movie files you have just saved to the PC. Once they have been imported you can then select any that you wish to merge into one file and amend the file names. Unless you want to go into great detail with the menu screen of your DVD all you need to do from there is enter through each screen until you click on the “Burn” icon.

This is the bit that takes some time. A half an hour of movie file can easily take two hours to burn depending on your DVD burner. A full 4.7 gig disk can take eight to nine hours to burn so it is best to leave that until you have finished any other tasks on your PC.

Once completed, your movie can be enjoyed on just about any DVD player.

Sam Snape
Photographer/Writer
Multi Media Motor Sports
www.mmmsport.com.au