Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Spokane Public Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Wednesday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind

In computer news this week 11/21/2007 With those family holidays coming up, you need to make some good movies ... Part 2 Most people today have digital cameras, and many digital cameras also take movies. And all people who take pictures or movies want to show their work to people. Inside your pc is a wonderful program for doing that. Windows Moviemaker is a standard feature of Windows XP and Windows Vista. In XP you can find it by clicking Start – All Programs – Accessories – and there you’ll see it as a Main Item on the Accessories Menu, and you can just click on it to open it. But before you do that, let’s talk about some basic techniques for making movies, and here’s some tips from a Pro – PapaJohn, whose book Microsoft Windows Movie Maker 2 – Do Amazing Things – is published by Microsoft press and is available on Amazon and other bookseller websites. 1. The common mistakes people make when shooting movies: Too much panning and zooming. For example, at your kid’s soccer game, follow a player or the ball... but don't try to catch all the action by flitting all over the place. You can pan and zoom in Movie Maker. Not steady enough.... a tripod is great but often a bit much in being awkward....  I use a monopod that kind of doubles as a walking stick... Shooting a subject with a brightly lit background.... the background light causes the foreground to be too dark. 2. How to shoot a good movie on your camera with using MM in mind as your movie software. Everyone has a different style. Mine tends toward the documentary... shoot what is happening and then put it together into a video. Other people write scripts and get actors to do Hollywood style movies... music videos can be entertaining and great practice videos while you develop your own style if you don't have one yet. (Frank personal note:) I usually always storyboard my movie ideas; I come up with a rough idea of the scenes I want, and the sequence, and I try to follow that. I find that live shooting is hectic enough without having to do a lot of thinking. Go into your camcorder menu and change the audio from two 12 bit tracks to a single higher quality 16 bit one.... camcorder manufacturers don't know you'll be editing on your computer so they give you features like an extra audio track to add narration.... but to do it, they lower the quality of the audio.... pump it up if you have the option. Start shooting too soon, at least a few seconds, and continue for a few seconds after the action is done... you can always trim the excess and it leaves some space for neat transitions without having to cut into the great content. Listen.. listen... if you hear something.... don't even take the cap off the lens. Video the sounds for your audio library. Passing fire engines, corner musicians, waterfalls, airplanes.... there's lots of audio out there and your camcorder makes a great recorder..... Shoot too much footage and edit out at least 95% of it. Lots of your best scenes will be purely accidental. Next week on Raw Bytes – more tips from PapaJohn, and we’ll start going though how to actually use Movie Maker. There will be online how-to pictures, movies and helpful links on my website for this series.

For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2007 MTA Micro Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html PO Box 31522 Spokane, Wa 99223-1522 (509)624-7230 mailto:frank@mtamicro.com