Web Tutorials
Apple's iMovie tutorial
Add more when you find them!
Notes on "iMovie 08 101"
You can access this by visiting the Mac Provideo web site. Login using the username "lgalehodge@gmail.com" and password "ndsion." Browse to "my tutorials." Click on "launch player" for the web streaming option for "iMovie 09 101: Core iMovie." Click on arrows at left to view chapters under subheadings. The numbers you see below correspond to numbered chapters.
"Capturing" (downloading) Movies From Tape on a Mini-DV Camera
2. Launch iMovie. Make sure tape is in camera. Hook up camera to computer using firewire cable. We have these cables in a box in the cabinet. You can also check the camera bag. The firewire port is under the rubber panel next to the viewfinder on the GL2. Turn slider to "play." A capture window opens in iMovie. Choose manual or auto; manual is what you need if you only want to capture PART of what's on the tape. In manual mode, use the controls on the screen to advance the tape to where you want to start capturing.
3. Use the time counter in the top right corner to determine where you are on the tape's time counter. (The other time counter shows how much of the tape has been captured.) Press import when ready to start capturing. Window opens; keep the hard drive selected here. Name your event. It will start capturing. Press stop where you want it to stop; you can then advance to another part of the tape, if you want to capture a different part of the tape. When finished, close the window. You will see your event(s) in the event window of iMovie.
6 Where do captures go? "Events library" shows up on the bottom half of the interface. This library is stored on the computer's hard drive. Think of it as the place where all the the raw video data is stored before you
start working on it in an iMovie project. The video should be divided into "clips." iMovie creates clips based on when you start and stop the camera. It uses the time stamp on the camera to determine this. If time / date isn't set on the camera, it appears that division into clips will not occur -- you will have one very long clip.
Importing Movie Files Saved on Your Computer
8: Importing Quicktime movies.
Setting up Your Movie
29: The iMovie workflow -- basic intro. to the workflow in iMovie.
31: Setting up project properties. Right click the project in the project library to change preferences. Change to NORMAL (4:3) when you have shot the movie with the GL-2 camera and you did not change the aspect ratio before shooting! GL-2's default aspect ratio is 4:3. Can also control transitions, timing for photos . . . but these will be controlled elsewhere as you edit. Referred to several times below.
Editing Basics
33 Adding clips to project. With selector tool activated (arrow button -- only visible when advanced tools are checked off on the preferences menu; otherwise, it's the default tool that's activated), click and drag inside clips to select parts of clips. Duration selected will show. Then you can drag and drop into project. Just clicking on a clip will select only 4 sec. of clip (unless you change settings). Orange bar appears across bottom of clips in clips window that have been added to a project (any project). Instead of drag and drop, you can click button to right of arrow (star and box), with advanced tools activated, or just press letter e on keyboard. Hovering over buttons seems to show what they do.
34 Advanced edit tools. Probably don’t need some of this.
35 Important! Hold down shift to select mult. clips
36 Play project from beginning by using play button below project files pane. Hide files pane by pressing far left button, same as below. Move clips using drag and drop (green line appears where clip will be dropped) Have to be careful – click and release, make sure whole clip is selected, then drag. Otherwise you end up dragging across the clip and selecting part of it, instead of moving it. Play only part of project in viewer by placing the playhead line where you want to begin play and pressing space bar.
37 Removing clips from project. Click to select, then hit delete. Doesn’t remove it from your events library. Can also select parts of clips. May result in a clip being split into two.
38 Editing clip duration. Click buttons on right or left of clip at bottom, after selecting, to add or remove about one second or less. It’s called “fine tune clip end” or beginning.
39 Trimming more than one second from beg. or end of clip. Use clock icon at bottom of clip instead of arrows. Changes to different view, so that only the clip appears (rest of project disappears). You can select just the part you want to keep. To play selected area click on the play button at top. Place play head (vert. line) elsewhere in clip and hit spacebar to play other parts. Click near middle of selection to activate the hand, which moves selection left and right. Duration of selection appears at bottom of window.
40 Frame by frame editing. Click on left or right edge of clip, hold down option and left or right arrows on keyboard. Can do this in trim mode or just regular mode.
41 Open preferences to display time codes (for prof. editing – time code shows number of frames after number of seconds, which could be confusing if you didn’t know this was turned on; prob. best to leave it off)
42. Split clip by making a selection within a clip then right click, choose “split clip.” makes it into 3 clips. May want to do this to delete a section but examine deleted selection carefully first; or just to make a separate clip to move around.
44 -45 “Adjust video” tool. Click on divided circle button at right. Click on a clip first, only adjusts that clip. If you adjust a clip in an event, it saves it in the event library and in the project where that clip is “applied” (not sure what he means). Controls brightness, contrast, color. Try “auto” first. For manual adjustments, “levels” helps bring out lights or darks. Try to adjust so that rgb histogram spreads across graph instead of being crowded on one side or the other. Other adjustments much like in Photoshop, for color correction, etc.
47 Applying effects to clips. After adjusting video for one clip, once done, keep it selected and choose edit, copy. Then select any other clip(s) and edit, past adjustments (choose video, audio, cropping.) To remove effect, select one clip, on video adjustment, choose revert to original, then copy and apply to other clips.
Transitions
49 Applying transitions. Open trans. pane by clicking small icon at far right, after T. Click and drag the transition to the spot between clips where you want it in your project. Select transition and hit delete to remove. Right click on trans. to change duration. To replace a trans,. just drag and drop on top of it. Duration will stay the same as selected before.
Titles
52 Adding titles. Click “T” button to open titles pane. Click and drag selected title format over the clip where you want title to appear. It will be in edit mode. The blue box that appears above with time stamp on it designates the title. Select this later to edit the title as needed. To change duration of a title that appears over a video clip, click and drag left or right end. Click somewhere in middle to drag the entire title around. When applying a title over video clip, note where blue appears below. Move title to left or right to make it appear only on first or last third of clip. When changing the selected format for a title applied, you must actually delete the title and re-drag the new format over, then re-type the text. To change font size, color, etc., click “show fonts.” Highlight text to be changed. Note “kerning” spaces out letters. Also note where you can make an outline around the letters. Text menu will allow you to make some of the same changes. Select background strip to alter color, opacity, etc. of it, if there is one.
To make new line, hold down option and press return.
To copy a text style, select text, copy, then select text on another title, paste style. Doesn’t paste background style. But you can select entire title and copy title. Or hold down option while dragging a title will copy the title.
58 Using scrolling credits. Use tab to move around from one field to another; easy to mess up formatting otherwise. Alignment needs to stay set at left.
59 Changing duration of credits. Select the black background clip. Right click to change duration of clip. Then grab the end of the title and extend it to duration of clip. Watch clip to test if it’s too fast to be readable.
Cropping / Zooming
61 Working with clips with different aspect ratios and/or resolutions. In the properties window, there is an option to “crop” or “fit in frame.” The latter option will ensure that there is no cropping if you are working with different resolutions or aspect ratios. Letter bars or pillars may be added (black areas on screen).
63 Cropping / zooming into clips. Enable crop tool (button in middle) or click on small crop icon on the clip in the project window. Controls will appear in preview window at right. When a clip has been cropped, the crop icon will be darkened on the clip, to distinguish from clips not cropped. Note that this works much better with HD clips, as you have more resolution to work with, of course. Low resolution videos should not be cropped.
Adding Photos
65 Adding photos. Click camera icon. Photos from iPhoto will appear. Click and drag into project. Ken Burns effect is automatically applied. Right click the project in files pane to view properties. Can control photo duration here. Also can apply “fit to frame” instead of ken burns effect.
66 You can also right click a photo to set duration for just that photo or all photos. Click the crop tool icon on the photo to open crop controls. You can control ken burns effect here (start and end point, size of zoom), flip the photo, crop the photo, etc. Back on the image in the project window, click divided circle icon to make adjustments to color, contrast, etc.
67 Organizing photos. Right click in gray space w/ photo thumbnails to show list view for photos. To import images not in iphoto, open finder and drag and drop images into upper part of photos pane. Copies photos into a directory called "photos."
68 Adding still frames. Set play head over frame in clip (in events window). Right click to add freeze frame to project. You can also right click on a clip in a project to do this. Still frame will be added at the END of the project. May notice that Ken Burns effect is supposed to be applied but it isn’t working. Have to manually zoom in and set controls for it.
69 iMovie HD – free upgrade from Apple support web site for iLife 08. Probably don’t need this right now.
Audio
Some of this will seem lengthy and confusing, but once you play around you will get the hang of it.
74 Open music and effects browser by clicking on music notes icon. You can browse pre-loaded music here – iMovie and iLife sound effects. Can also browse iTunes library here. Activate audio skimming using toggle switch to right of video adjust button. You can click on time to arrange by time, etc.
75 To add background music, drag and drop a song file in the gray space of the project window – NOT over a specific clip. Don’t drop until green highlight appears in background. Once dropped, you have background music that begins at beginning of project and runs to where you see green highlight stop. To delete, click inside green area to select (yellow outline appears) and then press delete key.
76 - 77 Mixing and trimming audio. You can add another background song by clicking and dragging in gray area outside of song already applied. A line will appear where new song begins. If ending song runs longer than project, iMovie automatically fades it out and a dotted line appears at end. Beginning song may not play all the way to line between two – doesn’t explain why. There may be silence between the two. You can right click and choose “trim.” (Note that pink denotes where music is playing behind video; black is where iMovie has cut off music, which you can see in the end song) You can trim off silence or parts of song you don’t want as needed in this mode to fix problem mentioned above. Click on yellow line and drag to where you want music to end, then click done. After doing this, second song will be pushed further back and a cross fade will automatically be applied.
78 Arranging background music. To re-order tracks, don’t drag and drop. Right click inside background music, then choose “arrange music tracks.” A window opens. “Floating music tracks” (green) are the background tracks. Drag and drop track titles to rearrange.
79 Pinning music to video clips. By default, background music begins at beginning of track. To make music track begin elsewhere, use pinning. To pin, grab edge of green highlighted area and drag to where you want music to begin. Highlight turns to purple; this signifies pinning is being applied. If you pin a track, then try to add another track, it gets added as a background track. To pin it, click it and drag to where you want it. To change from a pinned track to a floating track, use the “arrange music tracks” window and click “unpin track” button.
80 Adding sound effects. From sound effects library, drag and drop on top of a specific clip. Note that it appears as bright green bar with arrow on top of clip, with time stamp. This kind of audio can be controlled with volume controls to make it louder than background.
81 Moving and trimming effects.
Voiceover
82 Voiceovers Recording. Enable voiceover tool – microphone icon on button. Window opens with controls. Place the playhead where you want recording to begin. Once you click on the clip, iMovie prepares to record by moving playhead backward a few seconds and giving you a countdown. Then you begin speaking. Click again to stop the recording. Once finished, a purple bar with time stamp indicates voiceover track on top of clip. If you have background music applied, iMovie automatically softens (or ducks) it. Note: I recommend recording any voiceover audio in Garageband and then importing into iTunes. Garageband allows more control.
83 Voiceover settings. Pull down menu to select microphone. Input volume is important – you don’t want input level to hit right side of input indicator (red appears when this happens). Adjust input volume accordingly to avoid this. Noise reduction reduces white noise such as a computer fan. The further to the right, the more noise removal. Voice enhancement alters recording to make voice smoother. Don’t select play project audio while recording unless you are wearing headphones.
84 - 85 Audio adjustment. Activate this tool by clicking the speaker icon. Must select an audio track or clip. Can control volume of ducking here. (volume of tracks playing below selected clip) Defaults seem to be OK for most cases. Volume slider at top controls volume for selected clip. “Normalize audio” will bring it up to its highest level. If you do this for each voiceover, it will ensure that the volume is the same for each.
86 - 89 Copying audio adjustments. This is really tricky; not sure I completely understand, but looks like you have to select the video clip and copy, then paste audio adjustments to another video clip. He doesn’t explain which adjustments (voice over? sound effect?) get copied and pasted. To extract audio from a video clip and paste it over another is also explained here.
To add a new file folder of music, go to finder, find the folder, drag and drop into music files pane. iMovie creates a folder called “folders” where you will find the new folder. Looks like iMovie just creates a shortcut. If you delete the folder, the files can still be found in original location with finder.
To get music from Garageband, just click the Garageband icon in the files panel.
Sharing Finished Movies
90 Sharing to iTunes. Select project file, then use share pulldown menu. It’s all laid out for you in the window that opens. Four size options. It’s shared as an mpeg-4 (.m4v), stored in iTunes music library.
94 Sharing to media browser. Probably don’t use.
95 Media browser to iWeb.
105 Export movie. Goes to movies folder on user account, uses save controls for size indicated above. Probably best to use this when preparing a DVD.
106 Export using Quicktime. This is what we’ll do to prepare podcasts. Use exactly the same settings for video and audio that he uses in this segment.
Tips and Tricks
Add here when you've got 'em!
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