How to Combine Scenes in the Windows Live Movie Editor

Combine scenes in your home movie with Movie Maker's transition tool.

The Windows Live Movie Maker video editor lets you add multiple video clips and image files to each movie project. Once you’ve added video files and photos depicting different scenes to the Movie Maker project storyboard, you can combine and join the scenes by adding a transition effect. The transition effects allow you to smoothly cut from one scene to another to give the final movie a more professional look.

Instructions

1. Launch Windows Live Movie Maker. Click the “File” button tab in the main menu ribbon. Select “New Project” from the context menu to start a new movie project. Select “Open Project” to open and edit an existing Movie Maker project.

2. Find the “Add” group under the “Home” tab on the program’s menu ribbon at the top of the program window.

3. Click the “Add Videos and Photos” button to open the folder and file browser. Navigate to the folder that contains the video clip scenes or photo scenes that you want to combine in the movie project. Click and highlight each file and then click the “Open” button to add the file to the storyboard pane on the right of the program window.

4. Click and highlight a video clip or image in the storyboard to highlight the item. Drag and drop it to your preferred location in the story board to set the running order of the scenes in the movie. Repeat this process for each scene until you establish the correct running order. You can now apply the transition effect to join and combine the scenes.

5. Click and highlight the first item in the storyboard. Hold down the "Shift" key on your computer keyboard and drag your mouse pointer over each scene in the movie to which you want to apply the transition effect. Click the “Animations” tab in the top menu. Find the “Transitions” group pane in the menu ribbon. Scroll through the available transition effects. Double-click on your preferred transition effect to add it to the video clip or image file.

6. Click the “File” button tab in the main menu. Select “Save Project” from the context menu to save the edited movie project. Select “Save Movie” to save the project as a movie file on your computer.

Tips & Warnings

• In step 3, hold down the “Shift” key on your computer keyboard while you click each file to add multiple files to Movie Maker at the same time.

References

• Microsoft: Windows Live Movie Maker for Teachers and Faculty
• Windows Live: Movie Maker How-To Videos

Resources

• Windows Live Movie Maker Help Center: Frequently Asked Questions