Movie editing software advice??

[Mom-to-2-Princesses]

ok, my DD15 (Freshman) has been given a group assignment at school for her Spanish Class. She is to make a 7 to 10 minute movie in Spanish for their exam final grade. There are 3 girls in the group and none of them have made a movie before. She got to watch a few from last year and all had titles and music added.

Can anyone suggest a low cost (under $30 or freeware program) and easy to use program that we could use. They need to be able to add titles and credits, music, and cut and paste scenes together. We have a windows driven computer, not mac.

Thanks for any advice and help.

 

[Witch Mountain]

Do any of the girls have access to a Flip camera? If so, it comes with its own editing software that's really easy to use. (I used mine to do a five minute film for Spanish last summer-a tour of mi casa.)

Macs come with iMovie installed, and it is also very easy to use.

I guess I would check to see if anyone in the group has either of those before spending money on software that might not be easy to use.

 

[Mom-to-2-Princesses]

Do any of the girls have access to a Flip camera? If so, it comes with its own editing software that's really easy to use. (I used mine to do a five minute film for Spanish last summer-a tour of mi casa.)

Macs come with iMovie installed, and it is also very easy to use.

I guess I would check to see if anyone in the group has either of those before spending money on software that might not be easy to use.

They don't, unfortunately we are the ones with the most computer experience Which includes a video camera that only takes tapes. But I do have a cannon camera that allows for video, so we can get that off an SD card. I do a lot with a publishing program and have taught my girls how to use that and it really gives them an edge on their assignments.

I like your movie theme! They are going to figure theirs out today. They are thinking of taking a tour of our downtown (the library, the bank, etc)

 

[The Mystery Machine]

I will ask my 14yodd. She has made many movies for school.

She has to do one today (has to do a "interview" as a civil war person and then the interviewer and then splice it together).

We do not have a video camera so she is going to use our camera which has a "video taping" feature.

I think she uses Windows Movie Maker. You probably already have it on your computer.

Here is how you add music....
http://video.about.com/desktopvideo/Music-in-Movie-Maker.htm

Right now she is making a commercial at school and they are using "their" program which she hates.

Also I know she has used "GIMP" but I do not know a thing about that. It is a free software movie maker but I think it is about editing her "art animation" she creates.

What is this GIMP?

The "GNU Image Manipulation Program" (originally the General Image Manipulation Program) sired by Spencer Kimball & Peter Mattis.

In their own words, "GIMP is our answer to the current lack of free (or at least reasonably priced) image manipulation software for GNU/Linux and UNIX in general."

It is a raster editor, which means that it performs operations directly on the pixels that make up the image, and not a vector editor. Other (proprietary) raster editors include Adobe Photoshop, Jasc Paintshop Pro and the humble Microsoft Paint. An alternative free editor is the KOffice project, Krita. Users wanting to edit photographs will certainly want a raster editor like GIMP. Graphic designers and illustrators may prefer a vector editor depending on their tastes.

http://www.gimp.org/docs/userfaq.html#What

 

[Mom-to-2-Princesses]

I will ask my 14yodd. She has made many movies for school.

I think she uses Windows Movie Maker. You probably already have it on your computer.

Here is how you add music....
http://video.about.com/desktopvideo/Music-in-Movie-Maker.htm

Right now she is making a commercial at school and they are using "their" program which she hates.

THANK YOU! I have downloaded the current version of Movie Maker (I did have an older version, but didn't see it the first time ) It is exactly what she needs.

My husband told her to shoot it all the way through and use place cards at the beginning and end - -that it is a Spanish class not a Communications class. I don't think that would have gone over well...

 

[The Mystery Machine]

THANK YOU! I have downloaded the current version of Movie Maker (I did have an older version, but didn't see it the first time ) It is exactly what she needs.

My husband told her to shoot it all the way through and use place cards at the beginning and end - -that it is a Spanish class not a Communications class. I don't think that would have gone over well...

Good Luck!