If, like me, the only video source you have available is from a small digital stills camera (taking only a few minutes of video), then don't be put off about trying to create your own home movies. At the end of the day, we can't all afford that £400-£600 DV camcorder and sometimes we have to make do with what we've got. Let's not forget, the market for small digital stills camera's is huge and growing very fast; it stands to reason that there's many a person out there who want to manipulate their footage into a movie - eventually being able to view the finished product on a stand-alone DVD player for all to see.
Once you've mastered the controls of your Digital Still (DS) camera (which shouldn't be too difficult!), there's no reason why you can't start making movies instantly. The first task is to plan some footage that when sequenced together will produce a movie. Don't forget to video all the different aspects of your project that you want to include, and choose some different angles from the same scene so you can create some fancy editing. Some examples of potential films could be a child's first day at school, a special birthday, holiday or outing, or your child's sports day. Whatever the footage you collect , it can successfully be turned into something worth watching using the simplest of tools.
Generally speaking, a 128mb memory card should give you somewhere in the region of 15-20mins of footage, which can then be transferred to your computer via the USB cable supplied. Depending on how much footage you use, and how much you insert, you have the potential to create a 25-30mins movie in one shoot. Once registered into your "My videos" folder they can then be imported to one of many video editing programmes available. There's a whole range of different programmes to suit everyone's needs ranging from the advanced (adobe premier), to the intermediate(pinnacle7), or the beginner (windows movie maker 2 & video edit magic).
All are available at some cost (some being a lot cheaper than others), except for WMM2 which is available as a free upgrade to Windows XP users. You may find however that some of the more advanced editing programmes won't accept stills camera footage (this usually runs at a moderate 15 f.p.s). This slower frame rate does mean your footage can be a bit "pixelly", especially if enlarged too much, but as long as you keep it close to it's original size, it's more than adequate.
As a beginner, the two programmes i can recommend are Video Editing Magic and Windows Movie Maker 2, to be honest, as basic as the footage is, these two programmes suit well and can produce very good results. I actually enjoyed both programmes very much but the most fun to use has to be Windows Movie Maker. Video Editing Magic was slightly more complex. All of my first tentative movie-making steps were taken using WMM2 so i can definitely vouch for it. Movie Maker offers all the usual tricks & traps, and all in all is well worth the time to get to know.
Once you have imported your footage to your editing programme, it's time to sequence your footage into a working title, which at first seems quite daunting, but i can assure you that with a little bit of perseverance it will become straight forward and can become quite addictive (just ask spielberg). With the simple addition of an opening title, a few neatly timed transitions, special effects, narration, end credits and a bit of imagination you can turn what appears to be basic footage into something semi-professional in no time at all.
Some small DS camera's offer an audio recording mode which you can use to record any sound effect you care to think of, then simply download as audio files and import into your programme. After a while you'll be wondering what all the fuss was about.
When you finally have the sequence exactly as you want it, simply use your "create a movie" option on your editing programme and finally save it as a complete movie. Until you do this your editing programme is just "borrowing" the original file source from your video/audio folders and if you accidentally move any of these files before you've created your movie, the editing programme won't be able to locate them and this can result in your movie being "unobtainable from file source. So the sooner you create your movie the sooner it will be "in the can" so to speak.
Once you have created your movie in an AVI format, you can then play it on your PC to your heart's content, but if like me you want to go onto the next stage and view it on a stand alone DVD player, you may want to consider encoding your creation from an AVI file into an MPEG file. This will then allow you to play your movie on any compatible DVD player. MPEG files can be burnt onto CD-R/RWs to create a VCD (video tape quality) or SVCD (near DVD quality). But of course, if you're lucky enough to have a DVD burner, then you can create your own DVD's instantly. The big advantage of burning to DVD is the bigger memory capacity - CD-R's are restricted to around 800MB, whereas DVD's can hold a massive 4.7gb of data. Depending on playback quality, the latter can translate to 480 mins (8 hrs) of video. For a more detailed over view of DVD and VCD creation see the guide on VCD creation and DVD authoring
A highly recommended programme I have come across for encoding your movie file is TMPGenc. As hard as this process might sound, the wizard like programme practically takes you by the hand and walks you through all the basic settings. Any further information required can be easily found using the self contained help option. Like a well oiled machine TMPGenc turns your file into either an MPEG1 (VCD compliant) or MPEG2 (SVCD compliant) file. Finally, the created MPEG video needs to burned onto a CDR or DVD using your CD burning or DVD authoring programme. A excellent programme for making VCDs and SVCDs is Nero, a guide to which can be found here: www.marcpeters.co.uk/nero.html
Just like the encoder, it walks you through all the stages automatically, creating the necessary file structure of a VCD. Once you have it on your preferred disc, you should be able to play it on any compatible DVD player. A lot of the older model dvd's might not play your movie, so if you're due to upgrade your player consider one that plays vcd/s-vcd's. I have come across them on the net for as little as £50, but you can get a good quality player at the moment for £100 (which were £400 not many moons ago).
This review is just a rough out-line to the processes and software that is required to get the beginner off the ground, using relatively inexpensive hardware & software to turn rough footage into a polished & professional finish. There are, of course, plenty of higher or lower quality programmes other than the ones I have recommended, you just have to look around and experiment.
Movie-making using inexpensive, average quality stills camera's is accessible to everyone with a pc, of course if you're lucky enough to have a state of the art DV camera then the sky's the limit. Where as a lot of reviews and info found on the web can be a bit complicated and geared to the more advanced IT user, hopefully this review will help the lemons amongst us that are new to this game, and need a little guidance to the problems and work arounds to video editing. It is a fantastic hobby and past-time to get involved in and also happens to be addictively rewarding. Why not visit my more intense review of Windows Movie Maker 2?
Remember to use this site for all your video making needs! Good luck & Happy editing Steve Denton
