Windows Movie Maker makes you look professional

Posted on February 7, 2010 by moonbridgebooks

I’ve had too many projects on my plate lately so this blog has sat by the wayside. One of my projects this weekend is beginning the edit process on four tapes of a life story interview. My subject is a 90-year-old Japanese-American woman who was interned in Arkansas during WWII and returned to Japan as a “foreigner” immediately after the War. Editing something this long is a very tedious chore, and I’ve procrastinated on the project for quite awhile. Fortunately, this woman is a born storyteller so hearing pieces of her story over and over again hasn’t been too mind-numbing for me, and, fortunately, I know how to wield the magic of Windows Movie Maker.

You, too, probably have Windows Movie Maker on your computer. Macs have their own version called iMovie. These programs allow you to easily clip pieces out of a video, paste them in any order, add interesting transitions between clips, and add music. My video camera (the old-fashioned kind using mini tapes) comes with editing software which I use to roughly cut clips out of longer recordings and move into a folder in the My Videos file. Short clips can be moved whole. I also move into that folder any still photos I want to use along with mp3 music clips. The .avi video clips, digital photos (or jpg scans), and music can then be imported into a new Windows Movie Maker file. In Show Storyboard mode, drag the pieces into order, choose transitions and special effects, and add a title page. In Show Timeline mode, video can be trimmed from front or back, the length of viewing of each photo can be set. Finally, drag music to wherever you wish, change volume if needed, trim the clip from front or back to fit with the video as desired. Don’t forget to Save Project periodically while you are working on it. When all is set, Save as a Movie. You can upload this to YouTube or your website (or blog) or make a DVD.

I’ve become addicted to making movies and have a number of them on YouTube. St. Louis should pay me for making commercials of area attractions. I made the Cherry Blossoms in Twilightbook trailer on my website. But, the best use of Movie Maker is capturing fun times and life stories and sharing them with others in a very attractive format.

Linda Austin
“Cherry Blossoms in Twilight”
http://www.moonbridgebooks.com
Posted in capturing memories | Tagged | 3 Comments

My Sister’s Keeper and the scrapbook filled with memories

Posted on January 24, 2010 by moonbridgebooks
For those who saw the movie My Sister’s Keeper, didn’t you love the scrapbook young Kate made for her family? The dying girl pasted up a scrapbook so filled with photo cutouts you could hardly see the background paper and added comments so bare that yet pulled strings of memories and feelings out. This is a movie and obviously the scrapbook was professionally done, but we can sure take away some ideas from it.

Everyone has their own style of scrapbooking, but those with tidy or sparser styles may like to experiment with that collage look. After all, a scrapbook only has so many pages, why not fill them to the max? Kate’s pages carried many photos of one theme on one page. She had a set of pages devoted to each member of her family. Many of the photos were close-ups with the backgrounds cut out to focus on faces. The result was a fun circus of eye candy and a sweet remembrance of laughter and tears.

Kate’s scrapbook was meant for her immediate family with whom she experienced all of her short life’s events with, so she did not have to add the where and when details. The comments she added were sparse and poignant, but they were all that was needed. Most scrapbooks are done to capture memories of children who might forget, of family events to permanently preserve them, perhaps for generations, so the details need to be added. But, that shouldn’t stop us from filling around the facts, the stories, the written down feelings.

The movie My Sister’s Keeper may be controversial because the ending is different from the book, and because it just doesn’t seem very realistic, but if you rent or buy it, do a freeze-frame and take a long look at how the scrapbook was done. Maybe you’d like to take notes for the next time you scrapbook, or perhaps use some of those techniques in photo albums – think of each slot for a photo as a tiny scrapbook page. Don’t over do it, just do what you want for your taste.

Linda Austin
“Cherry Blossoms in Twilight”
http://www.moonbridgebooks.com
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on My Sister’s Keeper and the scrapbook filled with memories

How does your family say Happy New Year?

Posted on January 16, 2010 by moonbridgebooks
Akemashite omedeto gozaimasu! The other day I was able to learn more about the Japanese way of celebrating the new year at an event organized by a group of young Japanese mothers;’ many of their husbands are here temporarily with a local university. I met a young Japanese man, permanently living in the States, who brought his daughter, Sophie, along with Sophie’s American grandmother (the mother was a teacher who could not take a leave from her students). The young man wanted his daughter to learn about the Japanese half of her heritage. As I was a grown up daughter wanting to learn more about the Japanese half of my heritage, I was very happy that Sophie could experience such an event. Those living here in St. Louis are lucky to have many heritages embracing their cultures with special events open to the public. I plan to attend an upcoming Japanese storytelling theater presentation and even went to a Swedish Santa Lucia celebration in December even though I’m not the least bit Swedish.
The most fun way of learning about our heritage is to hear the stories of our parents or grandparents, especially if they are immigrants who can tell first-person stories of their home country and its traditions. Attending local events of one’s culture is a treat, even if it is necessary to travel a little to a nearby city or plan a vacation around a cultural celebration. Online searches can help find events or associations for specific heritages (search for the culture followed by “American association,” ex. Irish American association OR the state name followed by the culture, ex. Indiana Scottish). Here are a few general sites I found:
Swedish Council of America, with affiliates in many cities
Garam Chai website for all things Indian (India) in the U.S.
And while we are talking about heritage and culture, please donate to help Haiti recover from the earthquake devastation.
Linda Austin
“Cherry Blossoms in Twilight”
http://www.moonbridgebooks.com
Posted in heritage, storytelling | Comments Off on How does your family say Happy New Year?