Hello, welcome to this video! Let's see quickly and easily all you
need to know to start using Apple iMovie up to its 2018 release!
Please leave us comments below this video to improve our next and free
video guides for Mac software.
Apple iMovie is a great video editing software completely free of
charge, with great features to realize your own videos, slideshows
and outstanding film-like trailers, applying effects, transitions and
amazing pieces of text.
iMovie comes with three main pages you can browse from the tabs at
the very top: Media, Projects and Theater. Through Media, you can organize
and manage all your media files imported on iMovie, collecting them inside
libraries called Events. You can create your own library by right-clicking
on a free space and going to New Event, importing all the video, image and
audio files inside by using the Import Media button or by dropping your
media from any folder directly.
You can delete an existing Event by right-clicking on it and going to
Delete Event.
In addition, you can check each media file by clicking on one and
using the big preview on the right.
Under Theater you can browse for your own media files from your
iCloud account, in order to playback, share or use them in your iMovie
projects.
You can also drag and drop other files inside to import them on your cloud.
Under Projects, you get the list of all your iMovie projects, shown with
their name and thumbnail. Double-click on them to open, and use
the button next to the project name to playback, share, rename or delete
it.
To start with a new project, just click on Create New, choosing between
Movie and Trailer. Movies are completely customized videos, which can be
either short or long, and are made from imported media files. Whereas
Trailers are very short videos used to realize intros and trailers,
starting from ready-made templates, providing fields and guide lines on
how to create the trailer itself.
In order to get a complete overview on how to use iMovie, let's start from
a new Movie project. At this point, the iMovie workspace opens, divided in
three main sections: on the left you have several panels collecting files,
templates and effects; on the right the Video Preview; and at the
bottom the project timeline, used to edit and manage your content.
To start creating your video, you have to import all the video,
image and audio files you are going to use inside the project first,
and there are several ways to do so.
You can use the My Media section to pick files from your iMovie
libraries seen before, selecting them from the list, and
dragging and dropping them on the Timeline. From the Audio tab, you can
also pick and import sound from Garageband, iTunes, or the Sound Effects
collection inside your Mac.
Whereas, to import files outside libraries, use the Import button in the
top left corner, and browse for your own media files from folders
and hard-drives.
If you have an open folder with your own files, you can import them by
dragging and dropping them on the project timeline directly.
All the files imported inside the timeline are shown as blocks called
clips, collected inside several rows called Tracks. These files are also
listed under the My Media tab, when your Movie project is selected
under Project Media.
You have two different kinds of clips: audio clips, in green color,
showing the audio waveform of your sound files imported; and visual
clips, in blue color, showing thumbnails on images and video frames in time.
In case videos have audio, you can check their sound waveform by looking at
the thin blue line at the bottom.
You can zoom in and out on the timeline by using the zoom bar
in the top right corner.
To check your timeline content carefully, you have to use the Video
Preview in the top right corner. Use its player to playback, or use
the Space bar key to play and stop fast. iMovie applies a soft zoom
on the pictures and photos by default.
Moreover, the Preview shows your project exactly where the grey marker
is placed on the timeline. You can click on one point in time to fix it, or
just hover over your project to get a quick preview frame-after-frame.
Next to the player, you have other useful features. Use the right button
to preview in full screen mode.
Use the button on the left side to record anything with your microphone.
Use the settings button to fix the input source and the volume, and
choose to keep the sound output muted or unmuted with Mute Project.
To start recording, click on the red button. iMovie starts generating a
new audio clip with your recordings starting from the grey marker.
You can stop the recording by clicking on the Stop button, and then go
to Done to come back to the player.
Now, let's see how to create and edit your own video!
To move any clip in time, just click and drag through the timeline. When
dragging videos with audio these are moved together, since they are part
of a unique clip. To separate audio from video, just right-click on the
clip and go to Detach Audio.
The project timeline is made of several Audio Tracks, with all the imported
audio files and your recordings made, and just two Video Tracks, collecting
all your visual clips. In between you have the main Video Track, with the
main visual content of your project, where each clip is preceded by a dark
grey marker. On this Track you can't get any empty content in time,
so when you move any visual clip, you will just change the order
between the several clips imported.
Whereas, the top Video Track is used to manage all the visual clips
that overlap on the main clips in time. In fact, if visual clips are
placed in the same instant of time, iMovie shows the clips on the top
Video Track in front of all the clips coming from the main Video Track.
Moreover, these overlapping clips can be placed anywhere in time,
and also get attached to the clips laying on the main Video Track, as
you can see from the small link between the two clips. At this
point, when you move the clip from the main Video Track, you will
also move all the clips attached to it.
Consider that all the sound clips from the Audio Tracks get attached and
move with the main visual clips as seen for the clips overlapping.
To stretch or shorten a clip in time, just approach its edges, and
click and drag, checking the clip duration in seconds from the
small dialog box in a corner. Consider that you can't stretch video
and audio clips over their maximum duration, and, if you shorten these,
you will cut part of their content.
To stretch or shorten video and audio clips freely, you have to change
their speed or 'playback rate'. If you right-click on the clip, and go to
Show Speed Editor, you can click and drag from the top grey marker to
adjust the playback rate of the clip: if you shorten it, the clip will be
played faster, and a hare icon shows up; if you stretch it, the clip will
be played slower, with a turtle icon on it.
To cut, copy or paste a clip, just click on it to select it, and then use
CMD+X, CMD+C and CMD+V respectively. When you paste, the copy of
the clip is pasted where your pointer is.
Whereas, if you need to cut just a part of the clip, just hold down
the R key, and click and drag on the clip to define the interested
region. Then, just cut it.
If you make any mistake, use CMD+Z to undo your latest actions in
order.
To split a clip in two, just click on the timeline to fix the grey marker,
then right-click on the clip and go to Split Clip. This works just on clips
placed on the main Video Track or on an Audio Track.
With iMovie you can also apply amazing transitions, which are special
visual effects added at the beginning or in the end of a clip, or
also between two clips.
You can add transitions to a clip on the top Video Track by hovering over
it, and using its markers on top. This creates a fade transition on both
sides of such clip.
To add transitions to clips inside the main Video Track, you have to use
the Transitions tab above. Here, choose the right transition to use, and
then drag and drop it between two clips. To change the transition duration,
just double-click on its icon. To change the kind of effect to use instead,
drop another transition from the Transition tab.
You can also apply audio transitions on sound clips by using their
lateral markers. These apply a smooth volume transition in time.
To adjust the volume of sound clips and audio from videos, just click and
pull up or down the horizontal line you see. Make sure to avoid any red
waveform, or you may get saturation or distortion in output.
Inside iMovie it is also possible to apply corrections and adjustments on
your clips by using the tools above the Video Preview. These get enabled
or disabled depending on the clip selected from the timeline.
Let's start with videos and pictures.
Use Color balance and Color correction to adjust brightness, contrast and
color intensity and appearance. With some of these features, you have to
apply all by using the checkmark button on the right; with others, you have
to click and drag on the bars for each property you want to change.
Use the Cropping tool to fit and crop the clip according to the Style
chosen on the left: use Fit to fit the clip size with the preview; use
Crop to Fill to crop the clip by using the nodes on the corners,
and move the clip on the screen by clicking and dragging it.
Use Ken Burns to apply a dynamic motion where the clip goes from the
Start state to the End state in time, both completely customizable.
On the right, use the Rotate buttons to rotate the clip by 90 degrees.
When selecting overlapping clips from the timeline, you can also use Video
overlay settings to control the way the clip must overlap. With Cutaway,
set the transparency level with Opacity, and the fade transition duration
with Fade. With Green/Blue Screen, you apply full transparency just where
you get uniform colors. Choose Split Screen to show both the overlapping
clips; and use Picture in Picture to show the clip scaled and placed where
you like.
If you select clips with sound, you can use Volume to correct the clip
volume; Noise reduction and Equalizer to apply filters and reduce audio
noise; and Speed to adjust the playback rate of the output sound,
preserving the Pitch or not, or reversing it.
On sound, videos and pictures you can use the Clip filter and audio
effects tool to apply special visual and audio effects from the
list of iMovie.
You can also add amazing text and titles by using the Titles tab.
Hover over the ready templates to check them, and drag and drop one
on either the main Video Track, or the top Video Track, especially
to apply text over your videos.
Title clips are shown with a violet color, with its duration and title
content inside, and can be moved and edited just like standard clips.
To edit and customize text, just select the text clip, and then click on
Title settings to type inside and set the font family, size, paragraph,
style and color through the options on top.
Now, let's see how to save and render your project!
iMovie saves your project automatically while you work on it. You can also
come back to the main iMovie page by using the Projects button in the top
left corner and use the button next to the project name to rename and share
it.
Whereas, to export the timeline content, just click on the Share button in
the top right corner. Here you can render and upload your video to social
websites, such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, with optimized templates.
Whereas, to render and export the video on your own, choose File.
On the new dialog box, add metadata with Description and Tags, and choose
to export Video plus Audio or just Audio with Format. Fix the video size
(up to 1080p HD) with Resolution, and apply the maximum quality with Best
Quality and Better Quality under Compress.
After these, click on Next..., and set the video name and where to
save it in your Mac. When you click on Save, the render will start and
proceed in the background. You can check its process through the circle button
next to Share.
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