Edit your holiday home movies in Windows Vista

1. Importing Clips

You’ll need your footage in digital format – either direct from your camera, or as a file on your hard drive. Movie Maker supports most formats, including .WMV and MPEG, although not QuickTime, which you’ll need third-party tools to convert.

2. Splitting Them

Longer clips need to be cut into pieces so that you can use them across your project. Click the video in the main Edit pane and play it in the viewer on the right until you get to the break point.

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Click Split to carve it into two pieces, ready to place.

3. Storyboarding

This is probably the simplest way to make your movie. Just drag and drop clips from the library into the right places at the bottom of the screen. This is to get them into the correct order, ready to be trimmed down to size and have effects applied.

4. Trimming

Select a clip on the Storyboard and it will jump to that point in the Preview window. Drag the scroller to the point that you want it to start on, and select Trim Beginning from the Clip menu. Repeat with Trim End on the other side. If you make a mistake, click Clear Trim Points and start over.

5. Advanced Editing

The Storyboard is a simple, quick and dirty way to lay out your movie, but you can get more control by switching to Timeline view. Click where it says Storyboard to bring up the option. The Timeline view shows all audio, video and overlays, with split-second timing options.

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