The Zimmer Twins Movie Maker was a key feature of the site that allowed users to create their own movies using a variety of clips provided for them to use. Users could use a story starter or create their movies from scratch.
What the Movie Maker looks like for VIP members.
Main interface[]
After selecting a starter to use or selecting the "make from scratch" option, the user was greeted with the movie maker page. From there, they could select various clips to create their own original movie, make an ending to a story starter, or edit an already existing movie to add their own twist.
There were 122 clips available for VIP members to use, and 82 clips available for non-VIP members.
Clips[]
Clips are small segments of a movie that users added to the timeline by dragging or clicking the picture associated with a particular clip. Clips vary from 1 frame long to 3 frames long on the timeline. Some action clips can be added more than once to make Edgar perform feats, or bloopers. You wouldn't regularly find these type of clips anywhere in the action clips selection pane, such as being abducted by aliens when the Runs clip is added 4 times.
Talk Bubble Clips[]
Talk bubble clips, also known as "Speech Clips" or "Talking Actions", allow users to make Edgar , Eva , and 13 talk in many different ways. They can read, lecture, sing, think, and more. 17 of these clips were available for VIP members, and 13 were available for non-VIP members.
Action Clips[]
Action clips allow users to make the Zimmers move and are an essential part of telling any story. Included in this section are clips that have the characters run, fly, ride a wagon, and even rock out on a guitar. There were 50 of these clips available for VIP members and 31 available for non-VIP members.
Close-up Clips[]
Close-up Clips clips can be used to show the emotions of the Twins and 13 or to, as the title suggests, show them doing a particular thing more closely than as an Action clip. The characters can act surprised, examine an object, or possibly plot something worth being suspicious about. There were 22 of these clips available for VIP members and 19 available for non-VIP members.
Star Clips[]
Star Clips, also known as "Extra Clips" or "Miscellaneous Clips", consist of clips that don't feature the Zimmers at all. Using these clips, you can write a fortune in a fortune cookie, make a newspaper article, or, if the user was a VIP member, use talking clips for Madame Psycho, The Delivery Boy, The Wizard, The Alien. There were 34 of these clips for VIP members to use and 19 for non-VIP members to use.
The Timeline[]
The timeline, located under the player, the clips selection pane, and the custom sentence is where users can keep track of the clips they've already added to their movie and how many frames they have left. Both VIP members and non-VIP members are allowed 59 frames (with an added "frame zero", so, technically speaking, there are 60 frames for all users) to use in their movies. Users are not required to fill all of the frames in their movie.
Movie Player[]
The most obvious feature of the movie maker may be the movie player itself; it plays the movie in its entirety. A similar version of the Movie Player can be seen in already published movies.
The Undo and Redo Buttons[]
These buttons should be self-explanatory.
The Help Button[]
This button played the tutorial video on how to use the movie maker.
The Play/Pause Button[]
To pause the movie, simply press the play button again. You can resume by once again pressing the same button.
The Rewind Button[]
Next to the play button is the rewind button. It may seem obvious that the function of this button is to rewind the movie being watched to the beginning, whether it is paused or not. Sometimes it can be frustrating when you want to press pause but accidentally rewind the movie you're watching.
The Mute Button[]
The obvious function of this button is to mute the movie you're watching. This can be helpful when users leave a link in the description for a soundtrack to listen to while watching the movie.
Custom Sentence[]
When you add a Talk Bubble, Action, Close-up, or Star clip, a sentence appears above the timeline. With the exception of the Star clips, this sentence can be customized to change who does what with who, while holding whatever object you select if you need one. Edgar, Eva, and 13 can all be used by both VIPs and non-VIPs. However, there are 16 objects available for VIPs and only 15 for non-VIPs.
There is also a wide variety of scenes that can be used in the Movie Maker such as the Alley and the Living room. A notable difference in some of the newly added scenes is that a few of the actions are slower when using them. There are 23 scenes available for VIP members to use and 15 available for non-VIPs.
Saving Your Movie[]
When the user was done making their movie, the "Save Movie" button was pressed. Here, the user gave the movie a title and an optional description.
If the user was a paid VIP member, their movie would be put on the "Watch A Movie" page for all to view. If they used the Collab-o-Write tool to make your own version of a movie, users could click "Original" to see what the original movie was. If the user had movies made before you were a VIP, they will also become available for the public to see.
For non-VIP member, movies made would not be able to be viewed by other users. However, the user could select premade phrases to comment and rate on other people's movies as well as their own. For non-VIP members, movies could not be edited and the Collab-o-Write tool could not be used.
Old Movie Maker[]
A view of the old movie maker from the tutorial video, showing its vastly different layout
The movie maker didn't always look like this. Before July 2006, there were many different features that were once in the movie maker, including actions & dialogues mixed together. A lot of the clips were also different. It is unknown why the Movie Maker changed to what it is now, although it could be speculated that those changes were made to make the movie maker simpler to use.
Before the archival of the Telepicks and other videos from DVDs, the only known footage of the old movie maker was found in The Making of The Zimmer Twins. With the archival of files came a tutorial video demonstrating how to use the old movie maker, demonstrating how it would have worked in its day.
Dialog buttons[]
Prior to dedicated dialog clips, users could use the dialog buttons to add a speech bubble for a character during a clip. Clips that supported these buttons were denoted with an icon on the top right corner of the thumbnail.