A friend of mine has a 10 year old son who is very interested in making films. I believe he already has a video camera and also has been experimenting with stop action films as well. I wanted to see if anyone here had any suggestions or recommendations regarding free software he could use.
Windows Movie Maker is awful and frustrating and limited and awful, but it is free and it's probably good enough for a 10 year old to play around with.
From what I know there are very few free video editing programs for windows. They all seem to be for Linux. You could also try downloading 30 day trials of Adobe Premiere or similar programs.
Note: if you end up going with WMM, remind the kid to save, save, save. That thing will crash whenever it feels like it.
If I were putting down money, I would say that Adobe Premiere is probably a little more than a 10 year old could figure out. Look and see if there isn't already some kind of video editor thing that came pre-installed on the computer. A lot come with dumpy software for that to edit all the home movie dvds you're supposed to be burning.
Most even cheap video cameras will have a stop-motion setting, capturing a frame every time you hit the button, or even basic timelapse. All he needs then is a tripod and patience.
As for more in-depth filmmaking and editing, for entry-level stuff, it's easy. All Macs come with iMovie installed, which is basic but can make some very professional films if you are willing to spend time with it. Windows XP and Vista both come with Windows Movie Maker, and it's available for Windows 7 as a free download from Microsoft. Both are fantastically easy to use, and on 7 at least WMM seems stable enough.
Willeth on
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I think...thinkVirtualDub can compile a stack of digital pictures into a movie and output it as a movie file. I know you can do the opposite, take frames and turn them into images, or a sequence and turn it into a .gif. It's been a while since I used it though. It is free however, and pretty simple to use.
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I wouldn't know, I haven't tried it myself
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From what I know there are very few free video editing programs for windows. They all seem to be for Linux. You could also try downloading 30 day trials of Adobe Premiere or similar programs.
Note: if you end up going with WMM, remind the kid to save, save, save. That thing will crash whenever it feels like it.
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
As for more in-depth filmmaking and editing, for entry-level stuff, it's easy. All Macs come with iMovie installed, which is basic but can make some very professional films if you are willing to spend time with it. Windows XP and Vista both come with Windows Movie Maker, and it's available for Windows 7 as a free download from Microsoft. Both are fantastically easy to use, and on 7 at least WMM seems stable enough.
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!