This unusual package, from an unusually-named company, offers BBC owners the chance to join the moguls of Hollywood and make their own mini-series.

Movie Maker is a screen design package for mode 7 that combines both static and dynamic effects. Within the limitations of the Beeb and its mode 7 display you can produce a 'film' running for several minutes (the demo supplied lasts about 20 minutes). The pack comprises two sideways ROMs, a demo cassette, and a rather poor 50 page manual.

Everything you create with Movie Maker is based on a 'scenery map' the size of 90 teletext screens. Onto this are put predefined 'shapes'. These can also form a 'cycle' - a short series of frames that are displayed one after another. The shapes are placed and moved according to a program also entered by the user.

The shapes are defined on what must be one of the best teletext screen designers around. The shapes are drawn out using a cursor the size of a single mode 7 pixel under the control of the cursor keys. Unusually these provide not only the four expected directions but diagonal movement as well when combined with the Shift key.

Colours and other teletext effects are produced with the function keys and the designer is clever enough not to let you erase the control codes when drawing. When the shape is complete it is stored away to be called up again by name at any time. In a similar manner, shapes can be converted into a cycle of frames with a simple editor and these stored as well.

When the casting is finished, the filming can begin. Using the cursor keys the shapes are placed on the scenery map in sequence as they are required. The shapes can be set moving automatically and the screen window set to follow close behind, or centre on them, or stay just where it is. Some shapes can be made to pass 'in front of' or 'behind' others.

The movie programming process is controlled with the cursor keys, a few single key commands and Movie Maker's inherent intelligence. Captions can be displayed at the bottom of the screen and even speech 'bubbles' assigned to shapes on the screen, their speech scrolling across an eleven character window above the shape. When the whole movie's in the 'can' you can save the entire film or even generate a stand alone program to show it on a Beeb not equipped with Movie Maker.

The whole process of defining shapes and assembling the movie is not a simple one, and the single key commands take a while to get used to. However, the package can produce some excellent results, as the demo 'movie' demonstrates. The program has obvious applications in the development of educational software and demonstrational/instructional material. However, not only does Movie Maker succeed well in these fields, but it provides excellent opportunities for just having fun as well.

Product: Movie Maker
Supplier: Slippery Slug Software, PO Box 83, Bath, BA1 1ZA. (0225) 69236
Price: £29.90