Creating movies from pictures and videos is a breeze with Windows Live Movie Maker 2011. Once you have your pictures and video clips imported into Windows Move Live Movie Maker 2011, you can get right down to applying AutoMovie Themes, creating title clips and credits, setting your project to music and adding animations and transitions. But before you can begin, you’ll have to import your multimedia. In this first part of our series on Windows Live Movie Maker 2011, we’ll show you just how to do that.

Before we begin, make sure you have Windows Live Essentials 2011 installed. For instructions on how to set up Windows Live Movie Maker 2011, check out this tutorial that Florina put together that details on How to Install Windows Live Essentials 2011 Tools.

Importing Photos and Videos

Windows Live Movie Maker 2011 lets you create movies using photos and videos imported from Windows Live Photo Gallery 2011, a DVD, a digital camcorder or a smartphone.

Start by connecting your camera or device to your computer. Launch Windows Live Movie Maker 2011. Click the Movie Maker button in the top-left corner and choose ’Import from device’.

A message notifying you that the “Photos and videos will be imported into Windows Live Photo Gallery” will appear. Click OK.

Select the device you’d like to import and click Import. In my case, I’m going to be importing from my iPhone, which I’ve named “Phoney Baloney” for whatever reason.

Next, you’ll see the ’Import Photos and Videos’ dialog. Here, you’ll have an opportunity to meticulously sort through and tag your photos before importing them, but for the purposes of this tutorial, let’s just choose ’Import all items now’. You can give this set of photos and videos a name to help keep us organized. Click Import.

NOTE: For more information on importing photos and videos, read Importing Pictures from a Camera or Mobile Device into Windows 7.

Sending Photos and Videos from Windows Live Photo Gallery to Windows Live Movie Maker

After importing your photos and videos, they’ll appear in Windows Live Photo Gallery 2011. You can find the photos and videos you just imported by selecting their folder in the Navigation Pane on the left.

Select which videos and photos you’d like to send to Windows Live Movie Maker. Next, click the Create tab and choose Movie.

Your videos and photos will now be opened in a new project in Windows Live Movie Maker 2011. Now you’re ready to begin creating and editing your movie.

Adding Other Photos and Videos to Windows Live Movie Maker

If you want to add additional photos and videos to Windows Live Movie Maker that are on your hard drive but aren’t in your Windows Live Photo Gallery, you can click the ’Add videos and photos’ button in the Home ribbon of Windows Live Movie Maker. From there, you can browse to the media files you’d like to add.

Supported file types in Windows Live Movie Maker 2011 include:

• Windows Media Video files: .wmv, .asf and .wm;
• AVCHD files (from digital camcorders): .m2ts, .m2t and .mts;
• Apple QuickTime files: .qt and .mov;
• MPEG (1, 2 and 4) files: .mp4, .mov, .m4v, .mpeg, .mpg, .mpe, .m1v, .mp2, .mpv2, .mod, vob and .m1v;
• .AVI files;
• Recorded TV shows (Microsoft): .wtv and .dvr-ms;
• Photos and images: .jpg, .jpeg, .tiff, .tif, .gif, .bmp, .png, and .wdp;
• Audio files: .wma, .asf, .wm, .aif, .aiff, .wav, .m4a and .mp3.

Conclusion

As you can see, it’s incredibly easy to import photos and videos into Windows Live Movie Maker 2011. It’s even easier if you have Windows Live Photo Gallery 2011 installed, which you should, since it comes bundled with Windows Live Essentials 2011 and is free. Stay tuned for the next part in our series, where we’ll show you how to create an AutoMovie in Windows Live Movie Maker.

Related articles:

Importing Pictures & Videos From a Camera into Windows Live Photo Gallery
Importing Pictures from a Camera or Mobile Device into Windows 7