A Beginners Guide to Windows Movie Maker - The Free Video Editor.

Ever fancied editing your own movie or video but thought that it might be too complicated or expensive? Well worry no more, because the video editor known as Windows Movie Maker (WMM) is not only simple to use - It is also FREE!

Yes, If you are running Windows on your computer, then hidden inside there somewhere is your free copy of Windows Movie Maker. To find it, just click on the "Start" button, then click on "All Programs" and search through the list that comes up for "Windows Movie Maker" (It will have a little icon next to it that looks like a reel of film), click on it - and you're in!

So, now that you have found it - What can you do with it? Well although WMM is a very simple editor, you can nevertheless do some pretty impressive things with it. It will allow you to take a collection of video clips (or still photo images) and compile them into a video or an all-singing all-dancing slide-show presentation.

You can:

• Compile your video clips or photo images into a movie.
• Trim the movie clips to remove unwanted footage.
• Alter the length of time that you want your photo images displayed.
• Fade the clips/images in or out or blend one into another.
• Choose from many imaginative transitions (the bit where one clip changes to another)
• Add special effects ( such as slowing down or speeding up the video, artificially ageing your video or applying psychedelic colourings etc.)
• Add a commentary track
• Add background music.
• Add Titles, subtitles, and credits.
• Save your finished Movie to your computer, upload it to youtube, or burn it onto a DVD.
• All this and much much more

Although Windows Movie Maker (WMM) is by no means the most sophisticated Video Editor out there, considering it's price tag (free), it is nevertheless an impressive bit of kit, and will enable you to take your raw video footage and convert it into a polished movie ready for distribution as a file, or ready for publication on YouTube. It's also worth mentioning that editing videos is FUN! It really is, and can become a quite addictive pastime.

Still images can be edited as easily as movie clips, and you can produce some pretty impressive slide shows of your family photos, complete with fancy transitions, background music and narration.

Business owners too, are discovering the value of creating a video about their product or opportunity and placing it on YouTube. Many business owners are using this medium as their main form of advertising.

To get the best out of Windows Movie maker, you could subscribe to a Youtube channel such as TheMeejahChannel where you many videos, specially aimed at beginners, that can show you the basics of editing on Windows Movie Maker, and Video Making in general.

A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words, so to get a better idea of how easy Windows Movie Maker is to use, and some of the things it can do, take a look at the video below.