iMovie Basics:

Necessary equipment:

• Digital VideoCamera with firewire capability
• Firewire capable computer
• iMovie software
• Digital Video Tape

Getting Started:

• Using the firewire cable plug the camera, into the computer. There is only one type of port that will accept the firewire cable so it shouldn’t be any problem.
• Turn the camera to the VTR setting. This is done to show the pre-recorded video.
• Open iMovie.
• If this is you first project iMovie will ask you to name your project. Choose the location and name of your new movie.
• *If a movie opens that is not your movie or it does not ask you to create a new movie then choose FILE...New Project. If you don’t do this you will write over someone elses movie!

Capturing

• If your camera is connected correctly you should see a blue screen that says “Camera Connected”
• This is the window in which you will view your video tape. Notice the control in the lower left. This controls whether you are viewing your video tape or editing your video. The left side has an icon of a video camera (which views what’s on the video camera) and the right side has an icon of scissors (when the slider is here you will be viewing what is on the computer).
• The buttons located in the lower middle of the screen control your camera and allow you to view, rewind, pause, etc.
• The button located directly above the “play” button is the import button. This is the button used to capture the parts of your video you wish to use in your new movie.

1. To capture a clip simply navigate the tape to the part that you want.
2. Once you’ve found the part of the tape that you want to capture, push the import button. Whatever you see on the screen will be saved onto the computer.
3. When you reach the end of the section you wish to capture push the import button again, this will stop the import.
4. Continue this process until you have captured all the clips you wish to use to make you movie.

As you “log” the clips you should see them appear to the right side of the screen in what’s called the “bin”. All the clips that you log will show up in the bin. If you make a mistake and log a clip you don’t want then just highlight it (click on the clip) and press the delete button on the keyboard (don’t use the one under the F14 key, use the delet under the F13 key). The Bin can hold as many clips as you want.

HINT: There is no way to speed up this process, it is real-time!

Now you are ready for editing.

Editing

Adding to the Time-Line:
The Time-Line can be viewed in two ways, the controls for these are located below the screen where you view your video, on the far left-hand side:

1. The one that looks vaguely like a piece of film (on the left) is used to arrange and edit your video clips.
2. The one that looks like a clock (on the right) is used to add and work with audio

HINT: Although you can use either view of the timeline. If you want to work with the clips it is easier to use the film icon. You only use the clock icon for specific tasks.

• Drag the clips that you wish to use in your movie down onto the time-line. The time-line is located at the bottom of the window. You want to drag the clips in the order you want them to appear if possible. It is possible to change the order later if you need to.
• You will also notice that the control in the lower left of the window is now slid to the right. This means that you are now viewing your edited movie, not what’s on the camera.
• There are several things that you can do to your movie at this time
  Each of these buttons will allow you to add these things to your video.

Photos: This tab allows you to work with iPhoto to import photos, zoom in on them and use the “Ken Burns” Effect

1. In order to import photos in this manner you must first import them into iPhoto. Make sure you quit iMovie, import your photos into iPhoto, then restart iMovie to see them under the photo tab.
2. Choose the photo you want to import.
3. Change the options at the top of the window, and drag the photo into the timeline.
4. If the Ken Burn’s Effect is selected then you can choose what the zoom (the photo icon) and position (drag the photo around in the preview window) for both Start and Finish. Then when you apply the effect the photo will appear to move and zoom. It’s very cool!
5. How long the photo plays depends on the length of time you choose. This is done by moving the slider between the rabbit and turtle.
6. If you are trying to apply a change to one of the pictures already in the time-line just select it, make the change and click “Apply”.

Audio: The audio controls allow you to add a preset sound, record your own voice, or add sounds, music, etc from a CD.

1. To get the preset sounds choose iMovie Sound Effects from the drop-down menu and then click on the sound you want and drag it down to one of the sound channels on the time-line. You have to be looking at the view of the timeline indicated by the clock, if you don’t see 3 rows in the timeline then you need to change views)
2. If you have a microphone connected to your computer you will be able to record your voice. Just click the button with the red dot and start talking. When you are finished click it again and it will stop recording. You shold see the sound level in the bars beside the record button.
3. If you wish to use a sound from a CD just put it in the computer, it should appear in the drop-down menu (if it doesn’t you might have to import the song you want into iTunes, then you will be able to import it easily).You need to choose a track and drag it onto the time-line.
4. All of these sounds must be placed into the sound channels on the time-line. You can put two sounds in at the same time by placing them in two different sound channels. For example: you can have a voice-over with music playing in the background. If you want more sounds than 2 you can actually stack them on top of each other in the time-line.
5. Sometimes it is necessary to change the volume of a sound. To do this click on the sound you wish to work with, select “Edit Volume” and then change the volume with the slider. By moving the slider back and forth you can control the volume. You can also adjust the volume of specific sections by dragging the line on the sound.
6. If you want to shorten the sound you can:
   • grab the sideways arrows on either end of the sould and drag it.
   • Only the part of the sound that is a dark color will play, the rest is hidden.
   • The second way is to select the sound you want to work with.
   • Put the play-head (downwards pointing, white arrow) where you want to clip the sound.
   • Choose “Edit...Split Selected Audio at Playhead”
   • This will divide your sound into 2 parts, you can now select the one you want to delete and hit delete on the keyboard

Transitions:

1. Click on the Transitions button
2. This will bring up a window in which you can control your transitions.
3. To add a transition to your movie you just choose the transition you want and then drag it onto to timeline into the place that you want it to be.
4. This can be between two clips or at the beginning or end of the video.
5. Always look for the bright turquoise line to appear to show you where to drop your transition
   Hint: Before you drag a transition onto the time-line you can preview it by clicking on the “Preview” button
6. You may change the speed of a transition either before or after you put it into the time-line. To do this move the slider next to the “Speed:” command on the window. Moving it further to the right slows the transition and moving it to the left makes it faster. If you are changing a transition you have already placed in the time-line then click on it so it is highlighted (it changes a yellow color) and then change the speed and then click on the “Update” button.
7. If you have a clip that is not long enough for the transition to work a message will appear: “ The clip before that title or transition is too short: it must be at least 04:31.
   You now have to either not put in a transition or shorten the duration of the transition until it fits.
8. If you wish to get rid of a transition just click on it so that it is yellow and then push the delete button on the keyboard.

Hint: A red line will appear on the transition on the time-line until it has had time to render. The transition will look choppy until the red line has disappeared.

Titles:

1. The title controls are very similar to those for transitions. The titles are placed onto the time-line in exactly the same way (drag and drop) and the speed is controlled in the same way.
2. In addition to all the controls available for transitions there are also controls for color, font, size, and what text is desired.
3. The box that is called “Over Black” will control whether the words for the title will appear over black or over the movie itself.
4. The different types of titles will all allow for different amounts of text and different orientations. You may want to test a few to find the one that will match what you are doing the best.
5. The “Pause:” control will control how much time elapses before the title appears or starts it’s animation.
6. Titles can be changed once they are in the timeline by clicking on them, changing their settings and then clicking the “Update” button.
7. You place the text you wish to add to your movie in the text box.
   If it does not fit or has too many lines then choose a different title.

Hint: Once again remember to look for the turquoise line for placement of titles and remember that some of the titles will take some rendering that may take a few minutes.

Effects:

1. These can be applied to the clips that are in the time-line. They are applied by choosing the clip you want to effect, then what effect you want to apply and then clicking the “Apply” button. You may want to try these to achieve some different effects.

iDVD: iDVD is used if you are planning to burn your movie to a DVD, on this tab you will be making Chapters for the DVD.

1. To add a Chapter put the playhead, the little downward facing white triangle, where you want the Chapter to start.
2. Click on the “Add Chapter” button.
3. Name the Chapter, this is the name that will appear as a menu item on the DVD.
4. When you are completely finished with the movie you can choose the “Create iDVD Project” to launch iDVD and create your iDVD.

Advanced Topics:

1. To fine tune a clip once you have captured it you should stop the movie where in the clip you want to edit and then go to “Edit” on the top menubar and choose “Split Video at Playhead” this will split the clip and allow you to get rid of the part of the video you did not want by selecting it and then pushing the delete key on the keyboard.
   
   Hint: Be careful what is selected before you hit the delete button. The default is to highlight both of the new clips. To select just the one you want click somewhere else on the screen and then click on the part of the clip you want to delete.
2. To get rid of the sound in a clip there are two options. First select the clip you wish to get rid of the sound in. Then you can either turn the volume on that clip down by checking the “Edit volume” box and then moving the volume slider all the way to the left.
   The second option for deleting a sound is to select the clip you want to work with then go up to the “Advanced” control on the top menu bar and choose “Extract Audio”. This will put the audio from that clip in the audio channel in the time-line window. You can now select the audio part of the clip and push the delete button on the keyboard.
3. It is possible to create a still picture from a frame in a clip by stopping the clip at the picture you want and then choosing “Edit” control on the top menu bar and choose “Create Still Clip”. This clip will then appear in the “Bin” and you may drag it onto the time-line.
   
   Hint: The duration of the still clip in the time-line can be controlled by double-clicking on the still clip in the time-line and then changing the time in the pop-up window.
4. To change the speed of a clip, for slow or fast motion effects, choose the clip you want to work with then move the slider located on the bottom of the time-line.
5. To move clips around after they have been put into the timeline or to move a clip from the time-line back up to the bin click on the “Eye” to the left of the time-line window.
   
   This will allow you to view the time line by individual clips. You can now move the clips around or move a clip from the time-line to the bin for use later.

Exporting Your Movie:

When you are satisfied with your movie you want to export it in some form that you can use. The most common choices are back to the camera and then to a VHS tape or to Quicktime, for use on a CD-ROM or webpage.

Export to Camera:

1. Save your movie
2. Go to File...Export Movie.
   
   HINT: If you don’t have this option under File go down Alternative Method for Exporting.
3. Now look at the final screen. It’s pretty simple just choose what you want for black screen before and after the movie and then click export. This will control the camera and export the movie to the tape in the camera.
   
   Hint: Make sure the tape is at the beginning before you do this so that you can find your edited movie easily!
4. Once your movie is on the tape you can take this tape and use the station that will tape from digital tape to VHS.

Export to Quicktime:

1. Follow the same first two steps as above
2. When you get the Export Movie window click on the “Camera” button
3. Now you are in the Quicktime screen. Click on the Formats” Email Movie, Small and choose what you are make the movie for.
   Hint: The small movie are about 2” wide. The medium movie is about 4” wide. Full quality will probably not fit on any kind of disk. Also, the larger the size the longer it will take to load on a webpage and the more disk space it will take. If you want to burn it to DVD then you don’t need to export the file at all!
4. Now click on “Export”
5. This process will take awhile depending on what kind of Quicktime you chose and the length of your video

Alternative Method for Exporting:

Some of the computers in the lab have a new version of iMovie. For this one the steps are:

1. Go to “File...Share”
2. A pop-up window will appear. You just need to choose what you want to do with the video.
3. The Camera icon will step you through sending the video back out to the camera.
4. The Quicktime icon will allow you to save your video for CD-ROM, Web, or full-quality.
   Hint: The small movie are about 2” wide. The medium movie is about 4” wide. Full quality will probably not fit on any kind of disk. Also, the larger the size the longer it will take to load on a webpage and the more disk space it will take. If you want to burn it to DVD then you don’t need to export the file at all!
5. Now click on “Share”
6. This process will take awhile depending on what kind of Quicktime you chose and the length of your video.