Recommend me some movie-making software?

Cafe Society
1

I have a large collection of still pics and HD video clips from a vacation. I would like to put some of them together into a movie that’s maybe 10 minutes long, and I’m looking for some software that will do the job. I used Windows Movie Maker a few months ago for a simple movie that involved a single clip set to music, with a title screen. WMM is free, and you get what you pay for; it’s pretty basic. I’m looking for something PC-based with all the bells and whistles, something that will give me lots of options for assembling a more complicated video/still montage. Transitions, title screens, captions in any font, and so on.

Maybe also recommend a book or a few websites that give suggestions on how to create a movie that is likely to be interesting/entertaining for viewers? I have some ideas on how I want to put things together, but I’m an admitted novice, so advice is welcome.

Thanks…

(Mods, I figured this was about art/creativity, so I put it here in Cafe society. Feel free to move to IMHO if you think it’s a better fit there…)

2

My standing answer for just about any video editing is Sony Vegas. A good program with a lot of powerful features, but not so complex that someone with general familiarity with editing software can’t figure it out.

3

Yep. Sony Vegas.

4

You can download a free trial to see if you like it. I don’t see the regular Sony Vegas on there. I have 8.0, and it’s worked fine for me, so I never upgraded. Maybe someone with a newer version can say if they’ve just discontinued the base “vegas” version, or if I’m just mis-remembering.