How to Add Voice to a Movie

Though not every film requires oral narrative to tell the its story, voiceover narratives are sometimes essential. Voiceovers can help string together the pieces of a documentary, for instance, or help viewers make sense of films that are packed with a lot of action. If you'd like to add voiceover to your movies, you can do so with the help of some Windows native utilities.

Things You'll Need

• Computer microphone

Instructions

Recording a Voiceover

1. Insert your computer microphone into your computer's "Mic" port.

2. Click on the "Start" button. Type "sound recorder" into the "Start" menu's search box. Click on the "Sound Recorder" icon when it appears in the "Start" menu.

3. Click on Sound Recorder's "Record" button to begin recording your voice. Click "Stop" when you're ready to end the recording. Save your voice file to a folder on your computer, using the "File Explorer" that appears at the end of recording.

Combining the Voiceover and Movie

1. Click on the "Start" button. Click on the "All Programs" option in the Start menu. Click on the "Windows Live" folder in the "All Programs" menu, and then select the "Windows Live Movie Maker" option from the "Start" menu. Download Windows Live Movie Maker from the Windows Essentials pack, if you don't already have the program.

2. Drag-and-drop your movie into the window on Movie Maker's right side. The movie file will be laid out in Movie Maker's video track.

3. Click on Movie Maker's "Add Music" button. Locate your voiceover file, using the "File Explorer" window that appears. The voiceover file will appear in the audio track, above the video track.

4. Drag the audio track to the part of the video track where you'd like the voiceover to start. Double-click on the audio track. The "Music Tool" tab will appear.

5. Click on the "Music Volume" button to adjust the audio track's volume. Drag the "Music Volume" slider to the left to decrease the track's volume and to the right to increase its volume.

6. Click on the "Movie Maker" button. Navigate down to the "Save Movie" option in the "Movie Maker" menu and then select a video output format, such as "Widescreen (480p)" or "High-Definition (720p)," to package your movie file and voiceover.

7. Save your file, using the "File Explorer" window that appears.