Dear all, welcome to this tutorial! Let's discover together how to edit
your videos with Apple iMovie 2021! After this short video you will be
able to realize your first video project importing media, applying
effects and great pieces of text!
iMovie includes all the features you need to manage your media and make
your own video. You can download it for free from the App Store.
When you open iMovie this opens on the Projects page, showing the complete
list of your iMovie projects saved. You can manage, delete or open these to
start editing again. You also have the Media page to organize your media
files into custom iMovie Libraries.
To start from a new project go to Create New. Then choose Trailer to pick a
ready film-like template to use or Movie to make your own video starting
from your media files. We will go for this.
At this point the new project opens completely empty. You can come back to
the Projects page with its button in the top left corner after defining a
name for the current project that will be added into the projects list.
At this point you have to import all the videos, images and sound files to
use into the timeline at the bottom. To do so you can drag and drop these
from Finder directly into the timeline or from any existing iMovie Library
under the MyMedia panel. You can also get extra samples under Audio and
great images under Backgrounds.
You can also record from your microphone using Record Voiceover. Set source,
volume level and then go to Start Recording, using the stop button
to finish.
The timeline is the place where you edit and work with your files to
realize the final video. All files imported are shown as blocks called
clips and all listed under Project Media, inside MyMedia.
All visual frames are represented with their thumbnails whereas audio files
show their sound waveform, in blue color on videos and in green color on
sound files. Use the slider on the right to adjust the zoom level
over these.
You can use the Video Preview to check the timeline content, hiding the
Media Library to enlarge it. Hover over your clips to check these through
time and use the Space bar key to play and stop the playback. This follows
the main marker on the timeline. iMovie also adds automatic zooms on all
imported pictures by default.
All these clips are collected on several rows called Tracks, such as
maximum two Video Tracks for video frames and pictures and unlimited Audio
Tracks for sound and speech.
The most important Track is the main Video Track with a dark marker at the
beginning. This collects the main project content where clips are placed
sequentially in time without any empty time gap. The other Video Track on
top contains all the visual clips that must be placed in front of all the
clips within the main Video Track, allowing time gaps as well.
Below the main Video Track you get all the Audio Tracks plus a separated
one at the bottom used to include any background music.
Now let's see how to edit the timeline clips!
To move any clip in time just click and drag it. If you move any clip on
the top Video Track or on any Audio Track this gets linked to the main clip
it overlaps in time. This way when you move the main clip in time also all
the visual and audio clips linked to it follow.
Whereas if you need to extract and manage the audio content of any video
right-click on it and go to Detach Audio.
Remember to use CMD+Z to undo any action if you make any mistake.
To trim clips in time drag from their edges. This removes content in case
of video and audio clips. To stretch and shorten in time without affecting
content you can adjust their speed rate by right-clicking and going to Show
Speed Editor. Then you can use the marker on top to increase the clip
length and make it slower or decrease it to make it faster, with either a
turtle or a heap icon on the clip itself.
To cut, copy and paste any clip click on it to select it and use CMD+X, C
or V. You can also cut limited portions from the clip by holding down the R
key and clicking and dragging on it, using CMD+X to cut.
Whereas to split any clip in multiple pieces place the main marker,
right-click on it and go to Split Clip.
On audio clips you can pull up and down the envelope line to adjust its
volume level uniformly. Make sure not to get red levels to avoid
any distortion.
With iMovie you can also add transitions to start or end clips with nice
effects. You can add smooth transitions by dragging from the corners of
visual and audio clips, changing either the opacity or the volume level in
time.
To add transitions between the clips inside the main Video Track drag and
drop any from the Transitions panel. You can drag another to change the
effect to use and adjust the transition length and speed by double-clicking
on its symbol.
iMovie includes several tools to adjust your clips above the Preview. On
visual clips you can open Color balance to adjust colors, taking as
reference any frame or any point from the clip itself or Color correction
to adjust brightness, contrast, saturation and temperature levels.
With Cropping you can select Crop to Fill to crop the clip keeping its
aspect ratio or Ken Burns to apply a great zoom effect by moving and
resizing the Start and the End rectangles on the Preview. You can also use
the Rotate buttons to rotate the clip by 90 degrees.
With Clip Filter you can apply special visual and audio effects choosing
from the list.
If you select any clip placed on a top Video Track you also get the Video
overlay settings that include all the options to manage how the clip shall
overlap on the main content. Use Cutaway to adjust the transparency level;
Green/Blue Screen to remove any green or blue color from the clip and make
these regions fully transparent; and Split screen to show both the top clip
and the main one below it.
Whereas with Picture In Picture you can place the current clip over the
main video directly on the Preview, dragging it to place it and using its
nodes to scale and resize it. You can also apply borders or shadow
if necessary.
If you select audio clips you can open Volume to adjust the volume level
and Noise reduction and equalizer to remove noise and apply audio templates
to adjust the audio spectrum.
iMovie includes several text templates inside the Titles panel of the Media
Library. Get a quick preview on any text by hovering over its thumbnail and
import it by dragging and dropping it on the timeline. This creates a
violet text clip that can be moved and edited just like the other clips.
If you add text on the main Video Track this gets a black background.
Whereas if you place it above any clip it gets a transparent background,
showing what's behind it. Then double-click on the Preview to type in and
use the options above to adjust font style, size, color, distribution and
much more.
While you work on your project iMovie saves it automatically. When you are
ready to export the final video go to the Share button in the top right
corner. You can either choose ready templates for YouTube, Facebook and
Vimeo or your own options with Export File. Here set what to export, the
video resolution up to 1080p HD and the quality and compression levels.
Then define the video name, where to export it and start rendering with
Save. This goes on the background showing its progress in the
top right corner.
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