iMovie: Creating Videos On Your Mac
iMovie: Creating Videos On Your Mac is a complete course with more than 30 videos and 4 hours of instruction that will teach you how to use iMovie to edit your clips together into short films. You’ll learn how to use all of the tools in iMovie such as the precision editor, transitions, titles, backgrounds, overlays and much more.
iMovie is the video editor that comes with your Mac. It is both easy and fun to use. You can take videos shot on your iPhone or digital camera and create your own movies for home or work use.
This course starts off with a very simply example of how to use iMovie to stitch a few clips together. Then you’ll learn how to trim, crop and adjust individual clips to make them look better. You’ll see how you can add standard video elements like text, titles, transitions and background audio. You will also learn how to use more advanced techniques like putting two videos on the screen at the same time in an overlay or split screen. You’ll find out how to speed up and slow down video and apply special filters.
This course is meant for casual Mac users. iMovie is not a pro tool, but something that typical Mac users can work with to produce their own movie projects. With only a basic understanding of how to use your Mac you can now learn how to produce your own movies for home, school or work.
The version of iMovie used in this course is 10.1.4. iMovie versions 10.1.5 and 10.1.6 introduced mainly bug fixes.
Getting Started
Learn a little about the history of iMovie and find out what you should do before starting the course.
Watch the building of a very basic iMovie project and learn the names of the parts of iMovie in the process.
Clip Editing and Movie Building
Learn how to add multiple clips to iMovie and trim them to get only the portion you need. Add multiple clips to a project to make a longer movie.
Find out how you can work with the color in a clip to make it more visually appealing.
Use the cropping tools to only show a portion of a clip, trimming the edges. Use the Ken Burns Effect to animate a clip moving from one section to another over time.
Work with the image stabilization feature in iMovie to make shaky video look better.
Adjust clip speed, reverse the direction of a clip, and use freeze frame for dramatic effec
Learn how to use the special video and audio filters in iMovie
Working with Audio
Use the audio controls to enhance or alter the audio in a video clip.
Adjust the volume of audio over the duration of a clip
Add additional audio tracks and background music.
Narrate a movie with iMovie voiceovers
Enhancing iMovie Projects
Use transitions to make cuts between clips smoother and more interesting.
Incorporate text into your videos to introduce or explain the content.
Look at the various title styles available.
Learn how to use cutaways, picture-in-picture and split screen functions to combine more than one video at a time.
Learn how to add background as placeholders or additional content behind titles.
A special feature of iMovie makes it easy to show a location on a map, or a path.
iMovie includes several special themes that give you new transitions and titles, as well as making it easier to automatically create videos from a selection of clips.
Advanced Topics
Learn about how iMovie stores your video clips and projects so you can better manage your iMovie files.
Find out about the different export functions in iMovie and choose the one that you need to complete your project.
Instead of using videos in iMovie, you can use photos as video clips to make complex slideshows. You can also combine video and photos in an iMovie project.
While you can’t record video in iMovie, you can use QuickTime Player on your Mac to make new clips with your Mac’s built-in camera.
By using transparent images created in image editing tools, you can add logos, shapes and other transparent images to your iMovie projects.
If you have a green or blue screen you can use iMovie to take this video and combine it with background images or video.
Markers in iMovie can be used to help place clips and audio in your projects.
A special theme in iMovie allows you to store sports team images and information and quickly make sports news-like projects.
iMovie includes a bunch of special project types that you can fill in with video clips and photos to make Hollywood-like movie trailers from your clips.
If you are using iMovie for many projects you may want to divide them into libraries. You can create, open, close and transport libraries easily.
Examples
See how to use iMovie to create a simple project that combines a few videos, some transitions, some titles and music.
Learn how you can quickly combine a series of photos into a complex slideshow.
Find out how to use overlays to make a simple project like a new segment.
In this example an old public domain ephemeral video source is used along with an iMovie audio jingle to create a silly music video. You can use your own clips and music to quickly create a simple music video.
Use a single high resolution image to create a narrated documentary with only cropping, the Ken Burns effect, titles, a small graphic overlay and voice narration.
