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Apple iMovie is a great video-editing product with advanced features to
create your own videos, such as media editing, transitions, special
effects and title templates. This is the right choice to realize simple
and professional videos, slideshows, intros and also trailers.
When opening iMovie its startup page opens, divided in three sections
listed on top: Media, Projects and Theater.
The Media section is used to manage and check all your media clips
imported inside iMovie, organizing these into collections called Events.
If you right-click on the left side and go to New Event, you will create a
new collection listed under iMovie Library. At this point you can add
videos, images and audio files inside iMovie by using the Import Media
button or dragging and dropping these directly.
To remove the Event, just right-click on it and go to Delete Event.
To check any media file just select it and use the big preview on the
right. You can also hover over each file to check its content directly on
its thumbnail.
Inside the Projects section you can retrieve all your iMovie projects
saved and in progress. You can open any by double-clicking on it.
Whereas the Theater section is a page connected to your iCloud account, in
order to share your own videos and media across any other device
online.
To start from a new iMovie project, go to Create New under Projects. Here
you can choose between Movie and Trailer. Movies are custom videos made
with your media files, edited and combined together as you like.
Trailers are videos created from ready templates similar to film trailers,
with fields and slots to fill with your media.
In order to see how to use iMovie, let's start from a new Movie.
The new project opens on the main workspace, divided in several parts. On
the left you have all the main panels collecting media, samples, templates
and effects available; on the right you have the Video Preview to check
your video in progress and at the bottom the project Timeline, where you
edit and manage the content of your video.
You can always come back to the startup page by using the Projects button
in the top left corner. At this point you can rename and save your new
project that will be added in the Projects list with its name and
thumbnail. If you hover over it you can use the right button to manage,
share or delete the project made.
At first the new project is empty, so you have to import any video,
picture or sound file to start working. You can add files by dragging and
dropping these into the Timeline from any Mac folder or from the panels
on the left side. With My Media you can pick files from your iMovie Events;
from Audio you can import sound files from iTunes or Garageband; and use
Sound Effects to add audio effects.
You can also browse and import media files by using the Import button.
All the files imported inside the Timeline are shown as colored blocks
called clips which are also collected under Project Media inside the My
Media panel.
There are two kinds of clips. Audio clips represent any audio or
speech with a green background color and their sound waveform shown.
Visual clips are videos and pictures with a blue color and progressive
thumbnails showing their content. In particular, videos with audio also
show their audio waveform on the bottom blue part of the clip.
You can check these clips better by using the zoom bar in the top right
corner.
Use the Video Preview to check the project content in progress inside the
Timeline. Hover over the Timeline content to check any frame and click on
any point to fix the main grey marker. This is the starting point when you
playback the content with the player or the Space bar key.
To playback in full screen mode, just use its dedicated button in the
bottom right corner.
Inside iMovie you can also record audio with your microphone by using the
Record button below the Preview. As you click on it, the player changes,
showing all the recording options in order to set input source, volume or
mute/unmute the project audio if you need.
When you click on the record button, iMovie starts recording from the main
marker after a 3-second countdown. Use the Stop button to stop the
registration and Done to come back to the main player.
Now, let's see how to work with the project Timeline!
All the clips are contained inside several rows called Tracks such as
Audio Tracks for sound and recordings and Video Tracks for videos and
pictures. You can move these clips through time or different Tracks by
clicking and dragging these.
Audio Tracks are unlimited and are all placed below the Video Tracks,
except the main Audio Track which is always visible and placed at the
bottom separately.
Video Tracks are indeed limited to two, divided in main Video Track and
top Video Track. The main Video Track is the place where you collect the
main visual content of the project. This does not admit any empty gap in
time, so clips are changed in order if you move these.
The top Video Track collects all the visual clips that must be placed
above the main content and overlap in time. In this kind of Track you can
move the clips freely, allowing gaps.
The visual clips inside the top Video Track and the audio clips below the
Video Tracks also get attached to each clip inside the main Video Track.
You can see this through the blue or green connection between the two
clips. In this way, if you move the clip inside the main Video Track, all
the other clips connected to it will be moved together with it.
Video frames and audio are part of a unique video clip by default. If you
want to move and edit these separately just right-click on the clip and
go to Detach Audio.
To stretch or shorten clips in time, just click and drag their edges.
Consider that you can't stretch over their original duration and you cut
part of their content if you reduce these.
You can also change the clip duration by increasing or decreasing its
speed rate, without affecting its content. If you right-click on a clip
and go to Show Speed Editor you can drag the marker on the right side of
the clip to change its rate. If you stretch it, the clip will be played
slower, showing a turtle icon. If you shorten the clip, this will become
faster, showing a hare icon. This feature is not available on pictures.
To cut, copy or paste a clip, use CMD+X, C and V. When you paste, the
Timeline marker is taken as reference. To undo any action made, just use
CMD+Z.
To cut just a part of a clip hold down the R key and click and drag on the
interested region to select it and then cut.
To split a clip in multiple pieces just place the Timeline marker and then
right-click and go to Split Clip.
On audio clips and on the audio part of video clips you can adjust volume
by pulling up or down the envelope line on these. Just make sure not to
meet any red waveform or you risk distortion on the output sound.
With iMovie you can also apply amazing transitions in order to introduce
or end any clip in a cool way.
On audio clips and on clips inside the top Video Track you can add
transitions by moving their left and right markers. Audio transitions
change the clip volume in time, whereas visual transitions affect its
opacity level.
To apply transitions on the clips placed on the main Video Track you
have to use the Transitions panel instead. Here you can hover over any
transition to check it on the Preview first and then apply it by dropping
at the beginning or in the ending part of a clip or between two clips.
Double-click on the transition to adjust its duration and change its
effect by dropping another on it.
Let's see how to apply adjustments and effects on clips!
All the tools and features to correct and enhance clips are collected
above the Preview. These get enabled or disabled depending on the kind of
clip you have selected from the Timeline.
When selecting audio clips or videos with audio you can use Volume to
adjust the clip volume and Noise reduction and equalizer to remove noise
from the clip or balance its spectrum depending on the template you choose.
Use Speed to adjust the speed rate or reverse the clip, either saving or
not its pitch.
When selecting visual clips, you can use Color balance to correct whites
and color by taking any frame or point as reference. Use Color correction
to adjust contrast, saturation and temperature levels.
Go to Cropping to crop the clip in different ways. Use Fit to use the
original clip size; use Crop to Fill to crop the clip according to the
rectangle you size and move on the Preview; and use Ken Burns to apply
dynamic zooms by editing the two Start and End rectangles you see.
Consider that a nice zoom effect is applied on all pictures by default.
In addition you can use the Rotate buttons on the right to rotate the clip
by 90 degrees. Remember to apply all by using the checkmark icon
on the right.
The clips placed on the top Video Track also show Video overlay settings
to adjust how these clips must behave when overlapping other clips.
Cutaway is the default option, showing just the top clip with Opacity
level and Fade transition defined. Select Green/Blue Screen to merge the
top clip and the clip behind it where the colors are either green or blue.
Use Split screen to show both the clips cut in between. Choose Picture in
Picture to show the top clip reduced in size. You can click and drag it
to move it and use its blue nodes to scale it as you need. You can also
apply any border or shadow effect from the options above.
Inside Clip filter you can add amazing visual and audio effects to your
clips. On Clip Filter choose the visual effect to apply, hovering over any
to get a fast preview of it. Use Audio Effect to apply audio effects.
Inside your project you can also add pieces of text by using the Titles
panel. Hover over any template to check it on the preview and then drag
and drop it above all visual clips to show text on these. You can also
import titles inside the main Video Track, but in this case the title gets
a black empty background.
The title clips are shown with their text content and a violet background.
You can move and edit these just like other clips and adjust the text
font, size, color, distribution and style under Title settings. Use the
Preview to type text directly.
iMovie saves your project in progress while working on it. Whereas if you
want to save and export your video outside iMovie use the Share button in
the top right corner.
Here you can either send your video to social websites with optimized
setup or choose File to fix rendering options on your own and save your
video inside your Mac. In this case add Description, Tags and, on Format,
choose whether to import everything or just audio. Fix the video size up
to 1080p HD on Resolution and set Quality and Compress levels. Once you
click on Next... you can set video file name and where to save it. The
video will be rendered in background, with a progressing circle in the
top right corner.
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