60 Select AutoMovie s Clips

60 Select AutoMovie's Clips

Before You Begin

36 Place a Clip on the Timeline

See Also

59 About AutoMovie

Your Collection pane contains lots of video and audio clips, and depending on how much raw footage you might have imported into your project, it probably contains far more clips than you want to appear in your final movie.

AutoMovie cannot read your mind and know exactly which set of clips you want in your final movie, so you must select the clips you want AutoMovie to use when generating your movie. After selecting all the clips you want to add, you drag those clips to the timeline before requesting AutoMovie's help. AutoMovie then looks at the clips and creates your movie based on AutoMovie options you've selected, such as the AutoMovie style ( see 61 Select an AutoMovie Style ).

NOTE

AutoMovie requires that you select more than 30 seconds of clips. If you select one or more clips that consume fewer than 30 seconds of total playback time, AutoMovie will stop and issue an error message stating that an AutoMovie-generated movie must exceed 30 seconds.

1. Scroll to Top
   
   Scroll to the top of your Contents pane to see the start of your clips.
   
   
2. Select a Clip
   
   

   TIP

   

   You can lasso multiple clips by clicking and holding the left mouse button on the first clip and dragging your mouse down through the remaining clips you want to go in your movie. As you drag your mouse, Movie Maker highlights all the clips in the selection that your "lasso" surrounds .

   Click to select a clip from your Contents pane. This is the first clip that you want to appear in your movie.
   
   
3. Select Additional Clips
   
   Hold your Ctrl key and click on additional clips to select multiple clips.
   
   
4. Drag to Storyboard/Timeline
   
   Drag your selected clips to your storyboard or timeline. Drag additional clips if you need to.
   
   

   NOTE

   

   Make sure no clips appear on your timeline before you drag any AutoMovie clips there. If any clips appear there, Movie Maker places its generated AutoMovie at the end of your timeline, and if you save your project as a video, the opening clips will appear before your AutoMovie starts playing.

5. Select Tools, AutoMovie
   
   Select AutoMovie from the Tools menu to start the AutoMovie wizard. You can now begin the task of generating a movie automatically using the AutoMovie tools.
   
   If the Task pane appears on your screen (from the View, Task Pane menu option), you can start AutoMovie by clicking the Task pane's Make an AutoMovie option.