MAKING A BOOK TRAILER: Part Three

ADDING VIDEO CLIPS TO YOUR TRAILER
Okay, so by now you've looked at more video clips than the man in the Processing Department at Kodak. Now let's do some more fun stuff!

To get your video into Movie Maker, open the application and then click on the big, red plus sign Ì in the top corner of the screen.

Click ADD VIDEO and then hunt down the clip you have chosen. Movie Maker then adds it to the MATERIALS box ready to use. To add a clip to the STREAM, drag it from the MATERIALS window into the STREAM window and drop it onto the VIDEO line.

 Thus...

You'll note that you get a static preview pops up in the PREVIEW window in the top right hand pane and, on the far right of the STREAM area, you will see a PREVIEW THE MOVIE button...

Click it and the clip will play.

Drag the same video clip from the STREAM onto the VIDEO line again and you will have your first loop. When you press the PREVIEW BUTTON now, it will play it twice and you can repeat this process as many times as you need in order to get the length of playback you want. You can also drag the end of the last clip back to make it play for a shorter length of time if needs be (it doesn't change the speed at which it plays though).

You could add different video clips to change the background as the trailer plays through, but let's keep it simple for now and just have the same video playing a number of times and move on.

ADDING TEXT TO YOUR TRAILER
If you remember, some time ago, I introduced you to the STREAM window...

.... and I pointed out the scroll bar on the right hand side. You may need to use this now to find the TEXT lines near the bottom. You have a number of these so that you can apply different text boxes in different styles etc.

As indicated on the TEXT LINE, double click on it and a new box pops up so you can enter some text. When you have finished and close the window. The text displays in the static PREVIEW window where you can click on it and drag it into the middle of the screen.

Now, an important word about timings. Do you also recall when I mentioned the 'ruler bar' at the top of the STREAM window related to time. Well, where you place the text box will tell you when the text will display and for how long.

In the example above, the video clip will play from 00 seconds in the trailer to 15 seconds while the text will display from 00 seconds to 8 seconds. By moving the text block around on the line will dictate when it will appear and disappear.

It gets better too. Right click on the text block and a large menu pops up with lots of goodies. Select ADD ACTION. Now you can change the way the text appears and disappears in the two boxes provided and if you click AUTOFILL ITEM DURATION, it sorts out the timings for you too, or you can set the timings in the timings boxes for start and finish. Play with it. It's great fun and whenever you want to go back to the settings, right-click on the text block and select ACTION.

There are lots of other options on that menu too, all well worth exploring.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!
You now have the basic tools to do all the graphics for your trailer because the same techniques apply for static backgrounds, images, text, video etc. The only thing I haven't shared with you is...

THE SOUNDTRACK
This, you add in exactly the same way as everything else. You just need to know where to source those soundtracks from and just like the video clips, there are lots of sources out there, paid and free. Here are a couple of starters for you that I have found (these are not recommendations, just places I have just found and thus I accept no liability for their content).

• http://freemusicforvideos.com/
  http://www.videoblocks.com/videos/production-music/
  http://www.freestockmusic.com/

Well, that's about it really. Good luck with all of that and let me know how you get on. It's lots of fun  but it does gobble time!

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