So, you're a Mac user and you finally made the decision to start creating
online videos. Exciting! But there's a lot of decisions to be made, like which video-
editing software should you use? Well, if you have a Mac, most likely it came
bundled with the video-editing application, iMovie. But is iMovie enough?
Find out, coming up.
Hey, it's Mike with more tips and tools to help you create engaging, informative
and educational video. And if it's your first time here make sure to hit the big
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miss a thing. Editing is probably the most challenging
and intimidating aspect of video creation. To do it well, you need both a
firm grasp of video storytelling and the ability to effectively use video-editing
software. But which video-editing software should you use? I mean there's a
lot of choices out there. Well, if you're a Mac user you already have a video-
editing application sitting on your machine. It's called
iMovie. Many people overlook iMovie as a serious video-editing application. They
think it's just a simple tool to make home movies.
So, is iMovie capable of more polished professional-looking videos? Well, having
been a professional video creator for close to 30 years I can tell you that
professional looking has less to do with the tools and more to do with the
technique. Having said that, there are certain pro-level features that I look
for in video-editing software. Let's see how iMovie stacks up. An important
feature I look for in video-editing software is color correction. Color
correction tools allow you to fix strange and distracting color effects in
your video, usually caused by your lighting or incorrect white balance
settings on your camera while recording. iMovie has a simple,
built-in color correction feature that allows you to adjust the brightness
contrast and color saturation of your video. It also has a color temperature
shift control. This is especially handy when you're trying to correct improper
white balance in your footage. Clip speed controls are another thing I look for in
video-editing software. This feature allows you to speed up or slow down a
video clip. Speeding up a video clip is a great way to show the passage of time,
particularly if what you're showing takes a long time but needs to be shown,
like an important process. Slowing down a video clip is an effective way to show
the viewer important information or details in a shot that would otherwise
be hard to see because the action is too fast, like sports training, for example. In
iMovie, you can both speed up and slow down your clips. Multiple video tracks is
a must-have feature. Having multiple video tracks gives you incredible
flexibility when it comes to editing. You can use additional video tracks to
easily add cutaway footage or what's known as b-roll into your project. You
can use additional video tracks for popular effects like picture-in-picture,
split-screen and green-screen. iMovie lets you do all of those things, but you
have to do it using only one additional video track. Complex three, four, five-
layer compositing effects aren't possible in iMovie. However, for the vast
majority of videos you see online, iMovie's dual-track multimodal editing
system is more than adequate. Another important feature I look for in video-
editing software is high-quality on-screen text. We use on-screen text to
deliver a lot of information in our videos, from
titles to lower-third IDs to captions. You don't want to have to use a separate
graphics application every time you need some nice-looking text in your video.
Having a solid text engine built into your editing software saves you a lot of
time. iMovie comes with an assortment of nice-looking on-screen text templates
for titles, lower-thirds, captions and credits. And many of these templates are
already animated for you. But you can't customize them very much. You can select
different fonts, sizes and colors, but you can't change the text position on screen,
for example, which is kind of limiting. But with some imagination, iMovie's
built-in templates can go a long way. But what if you need to display custom text
elements or graphics in your video? To be able to do that your video-editing
software needs to be able to import and use graphic files, and that's another
feature I look for in video-editing software - the ability to use graphic
overlays. Graphic overlays are essentially custom images or graphics
you create in other applications that you can bring in and add to your video
project. But in order to use graphic overlays your video-editing software
needs to be able to use graphics that contain transparency information, or
what's called an Alpha Channel. Only certain image formats support an Alpha
Channel. The most popular formats being PNG and TIFF. iMovie can import both PNG
and TIFF files, including their Alpha Channels. Keyframe animation is a feature
you may not think of as being terribly important in your video-editing software.
Keyframe animation allows you to move objects around the screen, determine when
they appear or disappear or shrink or grow. Having a keyframe animation system
built right into your video-editing software, no matter how basic it is, will
save you loads of time, because you won't have to use a separate
dedicated animation program, like Adobe After Effects for example, to create even
the most basic of animations for your project. iMovie has a keyframe animation
system buried within its Picture-in- Picture feature. It's pretty bare-bones
and not very intuitive. Once you figure it out, you can use it to create some
basic animations. Okay, let's talk about one of the most vital ingredients in any
good video - audio. People will put up with subpar video quality if the sound
quality is decent, but not the other way around. Bad sound can make a video
unwatchable, which is why when I look at video-editing software, I pay particular
attention to its audio features, like does it have audio meters. Audio meters
tell you if the sound level of your video is too low, in which case your
audience will have a hard time hearing things, or too high, in which case your
sound may become distorted and unusable. Audio meters also provide you with a
sound level reference. Keeping the sound level of all your videos at this
reference point means the sound levels in all of your videos will be consistent,
which is good. You don't want to force your viewer to constantly adjust the
volume of their speakers while watching a bunch of your videos. iMovie does not
have traditional audio meters. Instead, it uses a waveform and color-coding to
gauge sound levels.
Another audio feature I look for in video-editing software is the range of
audio filters available. Audio filters can help fix and enhance the sound
elements in your project. iMovie has a collection of basic audio filters. It has
an automatic Optimize filter that essentially boosts and evens out weak
sound levels. There's also a suite of noise-reduction and equalization filters
to help fix common sound issues. But I think one of the most important audio
features to have in your video-editing software is multiple audio tracks
Multiple audio tracks allow you to add elements like voiceovers, music and sound
effects to your project. These elements can really make your videos more
engaging. iMovie allows you to create multiple tracks of audio. So you can have
multiple tracks of music, voiceovers and sound effects. But this would quickly
become a sonic mess if you had no way to control the volume levels of all these
different tracks. In iMovie you can adjust the sound levels of individual
clips over time using keyframes. This is a fairly precise and easy to use method
for controlling sound levels. iMovie also has a sound-mixing feature that will
automatically lower the sound levels of all the other clips on the timeline in
relation to the selected clip, a process known as ducking. So, after going through
all of those features, is iMovie a capable enough video-editing application?
Well, for the vast majority of the types of videos you see today,
I'd say iMovie is more than adequate. Sure, it's limited, particularly if you're
creating longer-form videos or videos with a lot of effects or animations. But
even then, you could create that kind of content in a separate more capable
application and then easily import it into your iMovie project.
When you take into account the price-point, feature set and ease of use,
iMovie is a fairly solid contender. Well, that's it for this video. I hope you
found value in it. And if you want to discover more tips and tools for
creating engaging, informative and educational video, click the Subscribe
button on the screen, so you don't miss a thing.
Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time.