Windows Movie Maker: Slow Zoom Effect
Fix It In Post
One of the great things about post-production with non-linear video editing software is that you can do many of the things that were missed during production. When you are filming you often miss some of the camera and set up techniques that you later wish you had. These can be things from camera focus to color adjustments, but are still relevant whether you are doing a narrative or non-fiction film. The use of camera motion is often extremely hard to coordinate during the active moments of production because so many variables occur. The slow zoom is a common technique that is used, especially for focused interviews in documentaries. This can be employed to accent the dramatics of the content of the interview subject’s monologue, yet it is often impossible to anticipate right when they are going to say something of such dramatic importance. In this case you may want to add that zoom in your video editor. Windows Movie Maker makes this process easy when you are cutting up your footage.
Separate Clips
Go ahead and begin by placing the clip you want to alter into the Windows Movie Maker Timeline from Collections. Once it is in the correct place you can work on cutting it right to the size that you want to zoom. Since the zoom technique is going to be uniform over the entire clip that you add it to you have to separate the area you want to zoom on from larger clips.
Zoom In Zoom Out
Once you have cut the special area you want to zoom on away from the larger clip you can add the effect in your Windows Movie Maker file. Right click on the clip and select Video Effects. Once the Video Effect menu opens go to the right hand effects list and find Ease In. Highlight it and click the Add button in the center to bring it into the right hand column where the clip’s effects are listed. If you want to zoom out on a clip you can just select Ease Out.
Make It Minor
Make sure that you are not zooming on too short of a segment because this will mean a very fast zoom. Also, make sure that you have not amplified the image too much ahead of time otherwise the resolution will be poor.
