This is a simplified step-by-step process for you to create a video from your powerful message.

Here are the items you’ll need to get started: an essay/story/message, computer, Microsoft Office PowerPoint, Windows Live Movie Maker, and a YouTube account.

1. Create your essay/story/message: This is important. It is essential to write your message first or at least have an outline of the message.

2. Choosing music can be a bit more difficult. You don’t have to have music, but it makes the video so much more powerful. The most important thing to remember; Music is usually copyrighted, and unless you have permission, you can’t use it for your video. It doesn’t matter that you’re not making money from it. There are some websites that sell copyright free music and some websites that have copyright free music. When you have the music you want to use, download it to your computer making a note of where it is saved

3. Open the PowerPoint presentation: You can be as creative as you want, but know that what you really want is to set each slide to be transferred to Windows Live Movie Maker. None of the animations or music can be transferred. You’ll add them later in Windows Live Movie Maker. On the other hand, in WLMM you will work with images of the slides, you will not be able to adjust words, images or backgrounds.

To create more slides: Highlight a slide by selecting it, then press enter.

The important tabs you’ll use: Home, Layout, and Slideshow.

Decide on color, art, clip art, photos, and word placement. Of course, do not use any copyrighted material. Don’t worry about time at this stage, but it’s wise not to put too many words per page. You can use the slideshow feature to get an idea of ​​how things flow, but don’t really worry about timing.

4. When you’ve finished creating all the slides you want: Go to Save As, click Other Formats, click the Save As Type arrow, select – PNG Portable Network Graphics Format, name it whatever you want, and select Save. You will create a folder with each slide saved separately. Pay attention to where that folder is so you can find it. A pop-up box will also appear asking if you want to save just the current slide or all slides. You want to save all the slides.

5. Now open Windows Live Movie Maker. On the Home tab, you will see “Add videos and photos”, select and go to the folder with your slides. I suggest viewing them at medium size and controlling that by selecting the small icon in the top right. You will be able to see a page of slides in image format. Now select, starting with the first slide, to start inserting them. They must be in order. A bit tedious but not much left to do.

Once you’ve added all the slides, click the first slide, click the Home tab, click Add Music. Then, on the Home tab, click AutoMovie. It will set up your movie with the music, add animation, etc. Have you not finished. Watch the movie with automatic timings and make sure you can read everything and watch everything comfortably. If you can’t, click on each slide individually that you’d like to adjust. From the animations tab, you can change the way the slide fades and moves while it’s viewed. In the Edit tab you can adjust the time.

If you think your movie needs more time than your song (no more than 15 minutes for YouTube), after you’ve changed the time on all the slides you want to change:

Select the slide where you need the music to continue.

Add the song again by creating a loop, from the Home tab by selecting Add Music or add a second song.

Listen as you watch one or two slides before the insertion point’.

If there is a long fade from the end, you can click and zoom in on the second insert, crossing over to create a smoother transition.

When you have it just the way you want it, continue to the final step.
6. Having gone to YouTube and created an account, select the YouTube icon on the Home tab, sign in and upload your movie.

Have fun creating your videos.