Making Text in Windows Movie Maker

Windows Movie Maker is a limited video editing program, but it still can do almost everything you need to complete a digital video project. This includes everything from editing clips to adding effects, but there are certain things that fully designate a completed film project. All films need proper credits at the end and titles at the beginning. Windows Movie Maker makes this process simple and easy for even the most novice of users.

Go over to the Movie Tasks menu on the left hand display and go to the Edit Movie section. Select Make Titles or Credits from that list, which then opens a menu that opens with the question, "Where do you want to add a title?" From here you have a few clear options that designate where the text is you want to place. If you intend on setting up a title box then you will go with the first available option that would put it at the beginning of the editing project. If you want to add credits then you would select the last option, which is for end credits.

If you select beginning titles then you will be taken to a menu with two text boxes put on top of each other. This is where you would put things like the title and subtitle, or opening credits. The text on top will be significantly larger on the top than the bottom as set by default, and after you begin putting the text in you can see a representation of this in the video display. There are options to both change the available font and animations by which the text comes on the screen. There are a number of different animation effects, from fades to more advanced animations, and they take after regular video effects. The menu itself is similar to that of the standard effect menu when adding them to clips. Once you have finished constructing the title clip you hit the "done" option, and the clip is then generated and dropped into the beginning of the Timeline.

Making end credits is almost identical to this process except for the interface. Instead of giving you the two text bars it gives you to columns parallel to each other, each with a number of rows. These are meant to list names with associated cast or crew position. Again you enter the text, change font and animation, then hit done to generate the text clip.

These clips are just white text against black, but can then be placed over another video or photo clip. All of these choices are creative ones, but they are still fairly limited in Windows Movie Maker.