What is the Advantage of AutoMovie in Windows Movie Maker?

What is the Advantage of AutoMovie in Windows Movie Maker?
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Home Editing

Windows Movie Maker, like its Apple based sister program iMovie, is designed to be a simple program for quickly edited home movies. The model for its design was to have a common consumer program that anyone could use to do uncomplicated projects. Movie Maker even provides us with the AutoMovie feature, which can speed the process up far beyond what it normally could have been.

Auto Option

The AutoMovie feature does exactly what it sounds like, it helps you create a film automatically. What happens is you select an editing style, and a series of media, and the program automatically edits it for you. To do this you must have a full collection or series of video segments selected and both the video and audio segments you have selected must total at least thirty seconds,

Using the Feature

To use AutoMovie you first go to Tools in the task bar and select AutoMovie. You will then be given a pane labeled Select an AutoMovie Editing Style at the top. Here you have a box in the middle of the pane with names and descriptions of film editing styles. These include styles such as a Highlights Movie, an Old Movie, and a Music Video. Once you have selected the style you want you click “Done, edit movie” directly below the style options and the program begins to automatically arrange the selected media clips into the Timeline according to the style you have selected.

Getting Full Sequences

From here you can make further edits on the project, or go ahead and export the film as a final version. The program tries to logically arrange the clips with a certain format for effects and transitions, and even include title and credit sequences that fit with the proper names of the main media files. If you have a specific story running through your video then this will not maintain that story’s continuity.

Appropriate Use

If you are going to use this feature you have to make sure that you select the right number of clips and expect that the final product will be more of a montage than a cohesive film. Either way you will have to do certain edits on the auto-edited section, but much of the work will be done. It can effectively be used within a narrative based project to create a montage or musical sequence.

Limitations

AutoMovie, like any “auto” function in film making, is best used only during casual editing. If you want to be truly creative with your video project it is best to stay away from this option completely. If, on the other hand, you want to shuffle together clips and photos in an amusing way this can be a quick method of completing your project.

This post is part of the series: Windows Movie Maker

This series of articles cover the different tools in Window’s on-board editing program, Windows Movie Maker, teaching you all you need to customize your video production.

  1. Introduction to Windows Movie Maker
  2. An Overview of Windows Movie Maker
  3. Seven Functions of Windows Movie Maker
  4. How to Import Video Into Windows Movie Maker
  5. How To Alter Audio in Windows Movie Maker
  6. Using Keyboard Shortcuts in Windows Movie Maker
  7. Organizing Your Editing Projects in Windows Movie Maker
  8. How to Make Freeze Frames in Windows Movie Maker
  9. Editing Clips in Windows Movie Maker
  10. Video Effects and Transitions in Windows Movie Maker
  11. How to Back Up Collections in Windows Movie Maker
  12. How to Use AutoMovie in Windows Movie Maker
  13. File Types Supported by Windows Movie Maker
  14. Video Export Options in Windows Movie Maker