It seems so long ago but once we were in a happy relationship with Movie Live Maker. Ok Movie Maker, it wasn’t all good and maybe time apart and nostalgia has made us forget the problems we had with you. Like how you’d freeze when we touched you. How even the simplest commands would lead you to have a complete meltdown. Looking back, the signs you were unstable were there from the beginning. But we were naive. Inexperienced. You were our first (editing software). Everything was new, thrilling. The rush that we’d found something we could understand was overwhelming. At first we got on so well. Whatever we wanted, you did. But then the doubts started creeping in. You weren’t as quick as you used to be. You wouldn’t open up for us like you used to. As we got more experienced, we realised you weren’t everything we thought you were. In fact, you weren’t as clever or brilliant as we thought you were. You were actually pretty simple. Limited. As we grew in confidence, we realised you were just holding us back. Stopping us from reaching our potential. We could be so much more with something else. Software who met our needs and gave us what we wanted.
Then we met Power Director 10. It was flash, experienced, everyone who’d ever had it loved it. At first we were nervous. Movie Maker, you were the only one we’d been with and well, that ended badly. We were scarred. Afraid to try something new. But gradually Power Director won our trust. It showed us what it could do. Best all it, it didn’t freeze when we touched it. It understood our impatience and love for speed and instead of forcing us to slow down, it embraced it. Finally we could achieve so many new things with something better. It was fantastic. We were swept up in the thrill of having something that responded to our commands, that listened to us, that did everything we asked of it. Finally we found something that DESERVED our attention. Everyone commented how much BETTER Power Director was for us. How they’d noticed the change. We wasted hours on you. We put you out of our heads. We couldn’t even bring ourselves to mention your name because saying it brought the bad memories flooding back.
Until now. We don’t want to admit it but the doubt are creeping in. While Power Director is better than you in every way and we’re happy with it, it’s just…it’s too clever for it’s own good. Sure it can do fancy transitions and its effects leave us breathless but it has a real problem with the simple things, like captions. Text. It leaves massive spaces in between the lines and frankly when faced with any kind of text it just can’t perform. That’s where you used to shine. You understood our love for words. You nurtured it, let us put the text where we wanted and didn’t leave huge spaces in between the lines.
We know the break up was bitter. We regret the way we slagged you off to all our friends online, badmouthed you to anyone who would listen and flaunted our relationship with Power Director in your face. But you hurt us so badly. We’re not naive any more. We now appreciate your simplicity. Yes you froze but maybe we weren’t patient enough. Maybe our inexperience was part of the problem.
Will you take us back?
Here’s something we wrote, just to express how we feel.
It’s all coming back to us now (Celine Dion)
There were nights when the task was complex
That the programme froze in place
If we tried to direct it
to something complicated.
There were days when you were so slow
That our projects turned to dust
And we just knew our time was
ending forever
We bought Power Director in the instant that we left
And we can’t remember where or when or how
And we deleted every project you and us had ever made
But when we want text like this
And you do it like that
We just have to admit
That it’s all coming back to us
When we want simple like this
And you’re simple like that
It’s so hard to believe but
It’s all coming back to us
(It’s all coming back, it’s all coming back to us now)
There were moments of good
And there were flashes of light
We said we’d never use you again
But now you seem so right
There were nights of endless cursing
It was more than our computer allowed!
Movie Maker!
If we load you like this
And you perform just like that
Our work was lost long ago
But it’s all coming back to us
If you do captions like this
And do transitions like that
You were dead long ago
But it’s all coming back to us
You’re so hard to resist
And it’s all coming back to us
We can barely recall
But it’s all coming back to us now
There were those empty threats and hollow lies
And whenever you tried to close down
We just cursed you even worse
And so much deeper
There were projects that just went on for days
When alone at last we’d count up all the slides
That were lost to us forever
But you were history with the arrival of new software
And we made ourselves get good with it somehow
And we never wasted any of our time on you since then
But when we want text like this
And you do it like that
We just have to admit
That it’s all coming back to us
When we want simple like this
And you’re simple like that
It’s so hard to believe but
It’s all coming back to us
(It’s all coming back, it’s all coming back to us now)
There were moments of good
And there were flashes of light
We said we’d never use you again
But now you seem so right
There were nights of endless cursing
It was more than our computer allowed!
Movie Maker!
If we load you like this
And you perform just like that
You were gone with the wind
But it’s all coming back to us
When you see me like this
And when we see you like that
Then we see what we want to see
All coming back to us
The text and the fantasies
All coming back to us
We can barely recall
But it’s all coming back to us now
If you forgive us all this
If we forgive you all that
We forgive and forget
And it’s all coming back to us
When you see us like this
And when we see you like that
We see just what we want to see
All coming back to us
The text and the book trailer
All coming back to us
We can barely recall but it’s all coming back to us now
Raven's Retreat 