HOW TO GIVE YOUR VIDEO A HOLLYWOOD TREATMENT

Import your video: To move video from your camcorder to your hard drive, connect your PC and camcorder with a Fire Wire cable, turn the camcorder on, and open your video editing software. The program should recognize the camera automatically. In most video editing programs, the Capture command opens a window containing VCR-like controls for playing, stopping, fast-forwarding, and rewinding. Give your video clips names that will jog your memory about their content when you're ready to start editing.

Edit your footage: The simplest way to edit your movie is to put the clips into your software's timeline in the order you prefer. The timeline shows your movie in frame-by-frame sequence

Add filters and transitions: When you're satisfied with the order and duration of the clips, you're ready to fashion them into a movie. It's possible that all your clips look similar, but chances are you'll want to tweak at least a few of them to give the whole group a more consistent appearance. For example, you might find that some clips are brighter or more colorful than others

Add music and narration: Few free video editing programs let you import multiple audio tracks, so you'll need to pony up some cash if you want to give your video a more elaborate sound track. Adobe's Premiere Elements can handle up to 99 audio tracks in one movie. The application also gives you the ability to separate the audio that you import along with your video into individual, editable tracks.

If you decide to add a voice-over to your video, a simple trick is to use your camera to record the narration. Then you simply import the video and audio together into your program, throw away the unwanted video track, and then position the audio track in your project. To help with your sound track's continuity, stagger the audio so that the sound from one clip runs into the next. If you do this, the cut will seem less abrupt because the audio and the video won't end at the same time.