Monday, July 25, 2011

Alias (or Simpsons) Title for Windows Movie Maker

Preview Alias TitleIf you have ever watched the TV show Alias or The Simpsons, you've seen this title. It starts with a solid background and a title (such as the name of the location, or the words "The Simpsons"). Through that you can see the video, after a few seconds the words expand toward the screen and you can see the full video behind. Here's a sample video to help you visualize it.

Note: This title will work in WMM 2.1 (XP) and WMM 6.0 (Vista/Win7). I've provided XML for both versions in the installers.

There are two installers depending on whether you are running on a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows. The installer will put the necessary files into, C:\Program Files\Movie Maker\Shared.
Blaine's Alias Title (32-bit)
Blaine's Alias Title (64-bit)
To use the new title:
Go to 'Tools' > 'Titles and Credits' > 'Title on the selected clip'.
Type your text in the first box.
Click on 'change the title animation'.
Under your list of one line titles, find the new animation:
  • Alias Title

  • As with other titles, you can change the font and other styling attributes. For the best results, pick a big, bold font like Arial Black. Note: the color you choose for the font will actually be the color of the background, since the video and text are reversed.
    Finally, click 'Done'.

    A couple additional things you might want to do. If you want the title to take longer, stretch it to the right. I added the 'Fade In from White' effect to the video so that the text would start white.

    Note: The latest versions of Movie Maker do not allow customization, so this does require a classic version of Windows Movie Maker. If you are on Windows 7, you can install WMM 6.0.