Moviestorm 1.4

Moviestorm is a program for creating original movies – complete with actors, sets, lighting, props, sound effects, music and titles – on any modern home PC.

The results, being entirely computer-generated, are visually similar to what you would see in the virtual world of Second Life or the popular game The Sims.

That doesn’t mean, however, that Moviestorm isn’t capable of delivering dynamic, entertaining short movies – far from it – and once you have become comfortable with the interface, you will appreciate just how far it lets you stretch your creative wings.

Although the basic software is free, you will need to take out a subscription to get the extra characters, props, sets, musical content and so on that make it really worthwhile, and fees start at £5 per month.

Moviestorm divides projects up into different views. The Workshop view is where you build and dress the set (indoors or out), then characters are added in the Dressing Room.

The Director’s view is used to set up action and dialogue, you set the shooting angles in the Camerawork view, edit in the Cutting Room (adding music, sound effects voice dialogue and titles) and then publish your masterpiece, either to the Moviestorm website or using Youtube.

At first it’s all a bit head-scratching, but the site has plenty of helpful tutorials (though there’s not enough documentation for our liking) and if you follow these you will soon start to get the hang of things.

Characters and props were easy to add and position with the mouse, and Sims-style pop-up buttons let you move your players around and make them interact with each other and their environment.

There are plenty of pre-packed sets, characters, props, music and sound effects to get you started and if you like the look of the free software, then we recommend trying one of the cheaper subscription options which gives you Moviestorm ‘points’ to spend on extras such as these. It will make life much easier.

We were impressed with the depth of Moviestorm. It’s by no means the easiest program to use but it allows any enthusiastic movie maker with a home PC to produce rich, atmospheric stories and then share them with friends.