| My son likes to create stop motion animation with | | | | each play for about 5 seconds each. This is great |
| Lego and having used Windows Movie Maker on | | | | for a slideshow of travel snaps but not so good |
| previous incarnations of Windows, including XP and | | | | for moving still image frames so they seem to |
| Vista, we was surprised to find it lacking on a | | | | move for animation. |
| recent purchase of Windows 7. For unknown | | | | Using the same Click/Shift-Click method |
| reasons Microsoft has decided to cull this incredibly | | | | mentioned above, now select all your images as |
| practical program from the basic installation and | | | | they appear in the window beside the screen that |
| made it an optional download. Perhaps they want | | | | plays the video. Now select the Edit tab and goto |
| more hits on their website? | | | | the Duration box. The drop down menu will give |
| To download the latest version of Windows Movie | | | | you a selection of duration for each frame, |
| Maker, its recommended by Microsoft that you | | | | starting at one second. That's way too long for us |
| download Windows Live Suite. What you get is a | | | | but fortunately you can specify lower amounts. I |
| slimmed down version of the old Movie Maker but | | | | put in 0.10 as the duration. |
| for simple animations this is all you need (for | | | | Now you can add a title to the animation by |
| serious users try Movie Maker version 2.6). Install, | | | | selecting your first frame and using the Home |
| have a look around and then get ready to | | | | tab's Title and Caption options. Use the Visual |
| animate. | | | | Effects tab to fade into your first animation |
| As I mentioned previously, my son likes to create | | | | frame to get things moving smoothly and then do |
| stop motion Lego animation so that is the context | | | | the same to the end of the animation. |
| in which I will explain how to create animation with | | | | Adding music is a breeze. Simply return to the |
| this version of Movie Maker. After taking the | | | | Home tab, select Add Music and then select the |
| images with your camera import them into | | | | MP3 of choice. Save your project often, especially |
| Windows and save somewhere handy. | | | | if it's a big file. Then to create your movie file, |
| Then open Windows Movie Maker and select | | | | select the Publish options by clicking the icon in the |
| Home tab (should already be default selection) | | | | top right corner of the screen. You can also |
| then choose Add Videos and Photos. By clicking | | | | choose to publish instantly to Youtube or save in |
| on the first image for your animation and then | | | | various formats. |
| pressing Shift and clicking on the last image for | | | | Creating simple stop motion animations with |
| your animation you will be able to import all the | | | | Windows 7 is easy and fast. With the new |
| images at once. Not only that but they will be put | | | | streamlined Windows Movie Maker kids can start |
| in the order you took them. | | | | their movie career with a few clicks. |
| Then press play. Chances are your images will | | | | |