36 Place a Clip on the Timeline

Before You Begin

30 Delete Clips from the Storyboard

32 Rearrange the Storyboard

35 About the Timeline and Storyboard

See Also

38 Clear the Timeline

39 Set a Picture Clip's Duration

45 Nudge a Clip to Adjust Its Start Time

Putting clips on the timeline is about as simple as putting them on the storyboard. Actually, Movie Maker overlays the storyboard over the timeline, so if you send clips to the storyboard, the clips will also appear on the timeline. (Alternatively, if you send clips to the timeline, the clips also appear on your storyboard.) Press Ctrl+T to switch between the timeline and storyboard views.

You can drag a single clip to the timeline or select multiple clips and drag them to the timeline as a group . Rarely will you know exactly which clips you'll want on the timeline in your final video. Movie Maker makes it easy to rearrange your timeline clips just as you can rearrange clips on the storyboard ( see 32 Rearrange the Storyboard ). You can also remove unwanted clips from the timeline just as you can remove them from the storyboard ( see 30 Delete Clips from the Storyboard ).

You do not have to add all the clips you want to use in the project at once. Feel free to send some clips to the timeline, work with those clips, then send one or more clips to the timeline when you are ready to work with them. If a clip is a picture, the picture will display for the length of its duration setting ( see 39 Set a Picture Clip's Duration ).

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If you send only picture clips to the storyboard/timeline, your project will become a slideshow, with each picture displaying a fixed amount of time that you can set.

When the timeline holds one or more clips, you can drag additional clips to the timeline and place the new clips at any position within the clips already on the timeline. Movie Maker shifts the existing clips to the right on the timeline to make room for new clips you place there.

1. Click to Display Timeline
   
   Click the Show Timeline button atop the timeline to display the timeline. If the timeline, and not the storyboard, is already showing, you do not have to click the Show Timeline button.
   
   
2. Click to Select a Clip
   
   Select the first clip you want to add to the timeline. The selected clip's border displays a darker outline than the surrounding clips to indicate that you've selected it.
   
   
3. Hold Ctrl and Click to Select Other Clips
   
   To select additional clips, press and hold the Ctrl key and click the other clips you want to select. You can select as many clips as you want to send to the timeline. Click the Contents pane's scrollbars to see clips not currently displayed on the screen.
   
   

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   If you want to drag all the Contents pane's clips to the timeline, click to select one clip and then press Ctrl+A to select the rest of the clips. You can then drag every clip in your Contents pane to the timeline, even the clips currently out of the Contents pane's borders' view.

4. Drag Selected Clips to Timeline
   
   Click on any of the selected clips and drag them to the timeline. Make sure that you drag the clips to the Video track and not another timeline track. After you drop the clips on the timeline, the clips' widths on the timeline indicate their relative length. You can also read the timeline's time track to see how much time a clip will take in the video.