Movie Effect Editor | How to Edit a Movie on Mac & Windows

People who are keen on taking videos perhaps have a common dream of making movies. Not everyone can become a film director, but we can make the videos that we share on various platforms have a sense of the film. How can we do that?

The simplest way is to add some cinematic effects like filters, transitions, background music, and other elements to improve your video. If you are curious abouthow to edit a movieand which software is the best movie effect editor, keep reading on. All the answers you need are in this post.

Top 10 Movie Effect Editor on Windows/Mac/iPhone/Android/Online:

• EaseUS Video Editor (Windows)
• VSDC Free Video Editor (Windows)
• Adobe Premiere Pro (Windows)
• iMovie (Mac)
• Shotcut (Mac)
• Final Cut Pro X (Mac)
• Google Photos (iPhone)
• Kizoa Movie Maker (iPhone)
• Movie Creator (Android)
• Video Toolbox (Online)

How to Edit a Movie on Windows

There are many great movie editor and movie effect editor on Windows. This part will introduce two of them and offer you the guides to use them.

EaseUS Video Editor

EaseUS Video Editor is comparatively different from those applications that only for professional and sophisticated editing. It's designed mainly for beginners who want to start their studies from the basics. Take the most fundamental editing functions as an example. You can learn to crop, split, cut, rotate, reverse, andmerge videoswith its help. After you master those editing skills, you can get to know more advanced movie-making abilities.

For a movie, the effects are indispensable. Therefore, EaseUS Video Editor enables you to add cool effects to videos. You have a lot of choices, including filters, overlays, transitions, and text. If you can flexibly utilize all the functions we mentioned above, congratulation, you can make a nice short movie on your own.

Key Features of EaseUS Video Editor:

• Support many formats of video, audio, and image
• Convert the format of a file to another one, such asconvert WMV to MP4
• Share the edited videos to social platforms and cloud storage directly
• Extract subtitles from mp4
• Record a voiceover and enhance the audio

It's indispensable for people who want to make a simple movie. Download it right now.

Steps to Make a Movie Using EaseUS Video Editor:

We prepared a tutorial for you, and those steps are easy to follow.

Step 1. Create a Project

Every time you launch it, it will prompt you to select an aspect ratio. When it comes to movie editing, you must know for which device or screen you are creating it.

If you are creating a video for social media, Portrait mode makes more sense. If you are doing it for the big screen, the Wide mode should be your choice. It also offers 1:1(Instagram) and 3:4 (Taobao) aspect ratios.

Step 2. Add Media Files

This software offers six sections in the movie editor— text, filters, overlays, transitions, elements, and music. You can call them your tools to cinematic effects to your videos. Each of them offers a wide variety of collections. You can download, preview, and then apply to the videos.

Step 3. Add Media Files to Timeline

The timeline offers a parallel stack or non-linear timeline where each of the elements, as mentioned above, can be placed. It is the place where you drop your videos, effects, music, and then use the playhead (the blue vertical line) to navigate through it. Do note that except for the video track, you can change the order of the rest of the tracks.

To see a preview of any file, select it, and click the play button of the video player.

Step 4. Editing and Adding Effects

The software offers all the necessary features like trim, split, and rotate. Along with these, you also get access to movie-centric features, including mixing audio, zooming, adding style with effects such as transitions, overlays, and more. There are over fifty visual and transition effects that enable you to add a professional touch to your movies.

• Visual and Transition Effect:You get access to over fifty visual and transition effects. You have Texts, Filters, Overlays, Transitions, Elements.
• Voice Over:如果视频需要解释的一部分,广域网t to jump in with your voice, use the voice over the section.
• Speech and Text Converter:When you are creating a movie-style video, this video editor provides an inbuilt speech and text converter which can convert the audio and generate caption out of it.
• Speed Up or Slow Down:When the shot video is getting too long, you can increase or decrease the speed of the video. You can also reverse a video.

Step 5. Export Videos

You can export the final video in three major formats —Video, Audio, and Social Platform.

Windows Movie Maker

Microsoft abandoned the official Windows Movie Maker a long time ago. Some websites are, and even apps in Microsoft Store apps offer software which looks and title as Windows Movie Maker, but they are not the official ones. Those downloads may contain malware, viruses, or hidden costs. Movie Maker was a part of Windows Essentials 2012. Microsoft instead recommends the Photos App, but there are even better apps available in the market for free. Make sure to check out our recommended list.

Features:

• Cut, join, crop, and rotate your videos
• Extensive audio track selection
• Support title customization tool

Steps to Make a Movie with Windows Movie Maker:

Step 1.Launch Windows Movie Maker and click "Add videos and photos" to import your files.

Step 2.Arrange video clips. Then you can trim or split them by clicking the appropriate button in the Options tab.

Step 3.Add the necessary effects like transitions or titles.

Step 4.Click the "Save movie" button to save it to your computer.

How to Edit a Movie on Mac

It comes pre-installed on any Mac OSX devices and features cross-compatibility with others. it'siMovie, a robust video editing program like Premiere Pro. This built-in movie editor for all Mac users is more powerful than many people think a software installed by default could be. Its most useful and surprising feature is various themes and templates for people who have no idea about constructing a movie frame. Then, you can customize them to make your unique videos.

This application not only allows you to create a complete storytelling movie but also enables you to make videos commemorating special memories, moments, and sceneries and then share them with your family and friends.

Features:

• Easily crop, rotate, cut, join your videos with just a few simple clicks
• A large number of built-in filters and transitions are avaliable
• Compatible with all the popular formats of videos, audio files, and images
• Detect the persons or characters in a movie

How to Make a Movie on a Mac:

Step 1.Launch iMovie. Click the "Plus" button to add a new project, then select the "Movie" mode and import the media file.

Step 2.Trim and split your video. Select the clip you want to split and position the play head to split the clip. Choose Modify > Split Clip.

Step 3.Add transitions and other elements.

Step 4.Export your iMovie files in MP4 format.

How to Edit a Movie on iPhone

People who want to edit their movies on the iPhone may be more concerned about the ease of use of the video editing tool. Therefore, we prepared two convenient video editing tools on the iPhone in this part.

Google Photos

This is not merely an application that can display photos on your phone and offers some beneficial functions. For example, you can set up an auto backup program, and your videos and photos will be backed up automatically to save precious mobile storage space. It can also work as a GIF maker; this application allows you to snap a few photos in succession and create an animated GIF by yourself.

The revamped Panorama feature allows you to combine multiple images into amazing auto-stitched panoramic photos effortlessly. And you can add some special effects to your photos and videos. For instance, a "color pop" feature will leave the foreground in color and make the background black and white. However, this is not available on all images.

Features:

• Share photos, videos, albums, and movies with any of your contacts
• Add filters, crop photos, and more on your mobile device
• 创建、编辑和添加地图和文本your photo albums

Steps to Make a Movie with Google Photos:

Step 1.Open the Google Photos app, tap "Library" on the bottom, and select "Utilities."

Step 2.Under the "Create new" section, tap "Movie"> "New Movie." Select your photos or videos. At the top right, tap "Create."

Step 3.Edit your movie by using the options in "Edit."

Step 4.When you're done, tap "Save."

iMovie

In the last part, we discussed some features of iMovie on Mac and gave you the guide to editing a movie on Mac. And in this part, we will talk about the way to edit a movie on iPhone.

Steps to Make a Movie with iMovie:

Step 1.Open iMovie and create an iMovie project.

Step 2.Choose the clips you want to edit in your iMovie, and edit your clips. You can refer to the guide for Mac users above.

Step 3.Add the transitions, titles, filters, and music.

Step 4.Export your movie.

Optional Movie Effect Editor

We introduced some movie editors in the last parts, but most of them are system default programs, which means they may have fewer functions than some third-party software. So that there will be some versatile third-party applications in this part, you can choose freely.

VSDC Free Video Editor (Windows)

When using this movie editor, you can stack the media elements on top of each other. Then you can use tools like blending, masking filters, and motion tracking to get the expected output.

It offers a non-linear editing experience where you mix and match effects audios. However, it is still complicated for a general consumer, especially those who want to edit the video, add some effects, and get it done. One of the most annoying parts of the software is that there are too many icons to look at. A general user will be more confused and have to spend a lot of time learning.

Pros:

• Offer multiple templates to get started with your project quickly
• High-speed conversion using an algorithm optimized for single and multi-core CPUs
• Non-linear video editor, masking, motion tracking, visual effects, audio effects, and Video stabilization tool

Cons:

• Settings are not natural to change as they offer popular code editor-style like Visual Studio
• Provide a sophisticated user interface that is not suitable for beginners

Adobe Premiere Pro

It offers more flexibility than Final Cur Pro, but it is also viral among the film industry. One of the recent updates last year made it even more useful. It's called a Freeform view, which allows the editor to organize videos into custom layouts, storyboards, and more. It is more of a production-oriented video editor, and that's what makes it popular.

Pros:

• Multiplatform support makes sure you can switch between them if that's your need
• Brilliant workflow automation and media asset management
• The freeform view is useful for final production
• Auto ducking to add ambient sounds

Cons:

• Compared to FCP, it is even tougher to learn. You may have to spend a lot of time to learn it
• Trial available, then it will cost $29.99/month or $239.88/year

Shotcut

Looking for a free video editor that can help you edit 4K videos? Shotcut is just the movie editor that you need. The best part of using this video editor is that it doesn't bombard the end-user with tons of menus right up. Instead, it hides all its sophisticated menus, which show up only when you access them.

That said, Shotcut offers a vast library of audio and video filters, which is easy to implement. The timeline provides module workflow making it easy to align images and videos. It also maintains a visual history, i.e., you can read the exact changes you made, e.g., split clip, append to track, and so on.

Pros:

• Webcam and audio capture
• If you have a Blackmagic Decklink card, you can do external monitoring on the NTSC monitor
• FFmpeg support makes sure for broader support of video and audio file formats
• Color, text, noise, and counter generators
• Export frame as an image
• 4K resolution support

Cons:

• No proper documentation and video tutorials
• It lacks flashy transitions and effects compared to other software

Final Cut Pro X

If you create videos for YouTube, I am sure you have heard about this tool, and chances are you are using it as well. It is the tool that everyone looks up to. There are two reasons. First, it is very intuitive to use, and second, it takes a shorter time to render than other video editors available for macOS. It has its advantage over others as both hard and software are from Apple. It is built on 64-bit architecture for handling large projects and video size.

Pros:

• Optimized for macOS for best performance
• It can handle 4K, VR, and 360 degrees videos
• Comprehensive support for third-party plug-ins

Cons:

• It takes time to get used to it
• Trial available, and then it will cost $299, which is expensive

Movie Creator

Movie Creator automatically creates short movies using your photos and videos. You will be notified when a Highlight Movie is created. You may adjust the settings of your movie made, including size, speed, background music, and much more. You can enjoy your story and simply export it as a video file to share it further.

Pros:

• Highlight Movie will be automatically created after taking photos and videos
• You will be notified when it is automatically created
• You can create Highlight Movies by selecting the contents manually

Con:

• Can't remove individual photos once they've been added to a movie
• Can't add time to individual photos or short videos

Kizoa Movie Maker

This movie creator allows you to apply multiple 3D effects to various videos to be played at the same time. You can choose from transitions with 3D simulations, slides, fades, video special effects, sound effects, text effects, fonts...

When creating a movie, we suggest you create a movie or slideshow using a format that's best adapted for its final use. For example, use a square format if you plan on posting on social media, portrait for Insta Stories or Snapchat, and landscape to fill your phone screen.

Pros:

• Create using a template or from scratch
• Dozens of templates
• Customizable templates

Cons:

• The cheapest paid plan doesn't offer more features than the free plan

Video Toolbox

VideoToolbox is a useful movie maker that lets you convert, cut, crop, merge your video files. You can store 300MB of videos in their file manager and 700MB of data in their recent output files. With this online tool, you can extract audio, video, or subtitle text from a file. For source files, you can record videos from your webcam or another movie device. Besides, you can take snapshots and creates thumbnails of your video clip, and you can add embedded subtitles to your video files.

Pros:

• It's capable of processing video files up to 1500 MB
• Analyses your video files and displays detailed information about the codec, bit rate, frame rate, resolution, etc.
• Adds a text watermark to your video file
• Cuts video at start and endpoints that you determine

Cons:

• Only 300 MB of storage for video files
• No video effects

Conclusion

Although making a movie that is the same as what we watched in the cinema is difficult, it's really convenient to make a short movie with some movie makers.

Among all those tools we introduced above,EaseUS Video Editorcan be considered the best one since it's powerful and user-friendly. Download this software. Even novices can create wonderful works using this all-in-one video editing tool.

How to Make a Movie on Windows 10 FAQs

1. What is the best free movie maker?

According to this post, you can make your own decision now because all those recommendations are capable of letting you create free-style movies, with the possibility of adding stunning visual effects as well as cool transitions. In my opinion, apart from the basics, a product that is regularly optimizing can ensure a steady user experience and a high-level of video editing skills. Hence,EaseUS Video Editorstands out while asking to select the best one among the 17 candidates.

2. What can I use instead of Windows Movie Maker?

EaseUS Video Editorhas perfectly replaced the role of Windows Movie Maker for Windows 7/8/10. If you are interested in having more than one video editing software on your computer, check the 9 best Windows Movie Maker alternative.

3. Is Windows Movie Maker free?

这是一个必要的Windows软件套件。As it is built in the system, so it's definitely free to download and use. However, Windows Movie Maker is a discontinued video editing software by Microsoft, and it's no longer available for download on newer Windows operating system versions.

4. Where can I make movies online for free?

There is plenty of online video editing software for you to make movies without downloading and installing a program on your computer. You can refer to the five online movie makers to make a movie online for free. They are:

• Animoto
• Youtube Video Editor
• Kaltura
• One True Media
• Video Toolbox