Creating a CineMagic Movie

Posted: Thursday, August 30, 2007

Do most of your vacations videos go directly into the closet, never to be seen again? Do you always plan to do something with them, but never get around to it? CineMagic is the answer! With Creator 10's CineMagic, you can create an amazing movie showing your vacation highlights in just a few easy steps. All you have to do is import clips from your video camera, make a few quick clicks, and CineMagic does the rest. In literally 30 minutes, you can have a Hollywood-style production all ready to share via email, Web, portable media player or DVD. Next time you have a family movie night, play it as a preview, and they will beg for more!

Getting Started: Adding Content

The first task is to bring your video clips into the computer, if you haven't already. Use your video camera's transfer software, or use Creator's Plug & Burn feature to capture clips automatically. CineMagic can handle all major Windows video file formats, so don't worry about that for now. Once you have your clips ready, as well as any still photos you might want to mix in with the video, it's time to start. Choose CineMagic from the Video task list on the Creator Home page, and you'll see the following screen:

Roxio's CineMagic Assistant lets you create polished videos in three quick steps.

Step one is to Add Content by bringing in the video clips and photos you want to use in your movie. Just click the Add Video/Photos button, and select your media files. They will appear in the viewer at right, where you can also play any clip to preview it by clicking the little arrow in the corner. Tip: Number your clips if you want CineMagic to keep them in a particular order. Here, we are creating a wedding video, and want our scenes in sequential order.

Next, click on the Select Scenes button, and after a little processing, you'll see a list of all the distinct scenes that appear in your clips. If there are any that you definitely want to appear in the movie, select them and click the "Use Selected" button. Also select any you DON'T want to appear and click "Remove Selected." Any remaining scenes may or may not be used, depending on the length and style of movie you choose later on. Click the Preview button to play a selected scene.

Selecting scenes to use in your video.

Clicking OK brings you back to the CineMagic window, where it's time to add background audio to your project. You can choose to add an audio track, such as a CD track or MP3 file, or use SmartSound audio to create custom "mood" music that fits your video length precisely.

Selecting background audio for a CineMagic project.

We chose to use SmartSound audio, so were presented with additional options. With SmartSound, you first select a style of music, such as Blues, Jazz, Latin or Classical, then a title, and then variations on that theme, depending on the mood you want to project in your video. For our wedding video, set mostly in a church, we selected Classical>Bach Guitar>Adoration.

Creating custom SmartSound background audio.

Customizing Your Movie

Just a few more decisions now, you're almost there! In Step 2, CineMagic lets you customize your movie by choosing a style, such as Party, Sports, Theater, Travel or Wedding. You'll also choose a duration for your movie, or whether you want it to fit precisely to the background audio you've already selected. For our wedding video, we chose to have CineMagic keep the clips in sequential order, and entered a title for the video: "Meredith & George, June 12, 2007." At this point, you can preview the movie, and then go back and change things if you like.

Customizing your CineMagic movie.

That's all there is to making the movie. Now it's time to save and share it! There are several options for saving, including making a video CD or DVD and saving a video file for the Web or your portable player. But don't worry, you don't have to choose just one! You can save your creation in multiple ways for different purposes, and even send it to VideoWave for further editing and customization.

Saving and sharing your CineMagic movie.

Rendering the movie will take some time, but it goes surprisingly fast. For a typical short video, take a coffee break, and it will probably be done when you come back! Then be sure to send it to all your friends!