The Burial Mound

You can tell it must be Summer - my bloody films are back with a vengeance! This one is interesting simply because I created it using the 'Automovie' function on Windows Movie Maker. After choosing a 'style', the application took my chosen clip, (three and a half minutes of me wandering around an Iron Age burial mound), and edited it down to just over a minute, adding in various wipes, dissolves and fades to cover the edits. Interestingly, it didn't just cut the clip down, it also rearranged some of the sequences. I'm not sure that it actually makes much sense anymore, but I was pleased enough with it to further restyle the opening and closing credits, (which it also automatically adds), and add a soundtrack, (a 'sample' of 'Black Sabbath' by Black Sabbath - notice I use the term 'sample' to try and weasel my way around copyright issues) .

I think it important to note that this film was created with proper Windows Movie Maker, as included with XP and Vista, rather than the abomination known as Windows Live Movie Maker, which is included with Windows 7. The latter is an incredibly oversimplified version of the product, which includes no timeline for editing, ("too confusing" according to Microsoft), and doesn't include anywhere near as many effects and transitions. It also doesn't have the 'Automovie' feature. Having just started using a Windows 7 laptop, I found myself having to download the original Movie Maker in order to properly edit any of my videos. A word of warning, this version of Movie Maker apparently won't always run properly on Windows 7. Luckily, you can download it, along with a neat installer, from here. It's worth doing if you want to edit movies properly on Windows 7.