by Joyce L. Morris, Ed.D..............................................................................January 2001
The University of Vermont..........................................................Department of Education
1. Bringing your movie from your camera into your computer:
a. Connect the firewire cable to your camera and to your computer. This is the fastest and most desireable way to connect these two devices. Also make sure your camera has power, either using a well charged battery or connect it to an outlet. The camcorder in the photograph is the Ultura by Canon and the computer an iBook.
Ultura digital camcorder iBook
b. Make sure your camera is turned on and in VCR mode. You slide
the gray button down for the VCR position. 
c. Open the camera and click the eject button. Your camera must be on
for your eject button to work. Insert the cassette and where you see the
finger in the picture, press to the left, pushing the cassette into the
camera.
d. Open iMovie and under the File Menu, select New Project. To bring in video from your camera, move the iMovie mode button to the left and your screen should say camera connected.
You can now hit the play button on the screen and see your movie. To import any movie clips, click the
Import button. Your clips will appear on the ìshelfî to the right. This is temporary storage for clips you plan to use in the movie. Unused clips can be dragged to the trash. Anytime you paused during your filming, youíve created a new clip.
2. Editing your clips
a. When you are working on a movie in iMovie, itís called a ìprojectî because itís in an editing format and not its final viewing format, like Quicktime. Your next step is to click on one of the clips on the shelf.
Click on the play button on the playback controls. You can also drag the playhead to move to any point in the clip. If you wish to include any part of this clip in your movie, you need to drag it to the clip viewer. The order that you place the clips on the clip viewer, is the order they will appear in the movie.
b. To Rearrange the Video Clips on the Cip Viewer:
- Choose Select None from the Edit menu(Edit/Select None),
- Drag the clips into the sequential order you wish them to be on the clip viewer bar.
- If you wish to remove some footage from your clip, click and drag your mouse just below the scrubber bar under the iMovie monitor. Crop marks will appear.
- To move the crop marker in small increments, click the crop marker and use your arrow keys to movie the clip forward or backwards.
- Choose clear from the Edit menu and the part you selected is deleted. A new clip will appear that contains the part of clip that you wish to keep.
- To split a video clip first select the clip on the clip viewer.
- Choose Split Video Clip at Playhead from the Edit menu (Edit/Split Video Clip at Playhead). The split off segment of Clip 01 would be named Clip 01/1
- To Insert a different clip between the split Clip 01, Select the clip you wish to insert from the clip viewer (click on it once) and drag it in between the newly split video.
- On the scrubber bar, drag the playhead to the image you wish to capture.
- Choose Create Still Clip from the Edit menu (Edit/Create Still Clip).
- Click once on the name of the new ìStill 01î clip on the shelf, and type in an identifiable name like victory.jpeg. This picture may then be inserted into your movie or used in other documents.
-
The default duration of this still
image is 5:00 second. You can change the length. - You can now insert you image into your clip viewer. Just place it between the clips, in front or at the end
- To use an effect Select the clip (or multiple clips with the Shift key)
- Click the Effects button
- Select Effect (Sepia Tone) in the Effects panel
- Click the Preview button to see a preview of the effect in the iMovie monitor.
- Click Apply if you wish to use that effect.
- To add a transition click on the transition button.
- Select a transition and preview it to see what the effect looks like.
- Adjust the Speed slider to control the length of your transition.
- Drag the transitionís green icon to the clip viewer and place it between the clips you wish to effect.
- Select the clip on the clip viewer that you wish to add the text to.
- Click on the Titles button and the Titles dialogue box will appear.
- You can place a title over a section of a clip or create it as a separate clip with a black background.
- If you want the title to appear over a clip, click the clip in the clip viewer.
- Click the Titles button
- Select the text effect. Some text effects have a directional feature in which case you will have an option to select from the Direction button.
- Write your text in the scrolling text bar. Add additional rows with the + bar and erase any extra text that may remain from a previous action.
- Select the speed of your text effect with the sliding bar under the preview window.
- Drag the title from the list to the clip viewer. If you want the title to appear over a clip, place it before that clip.
- A title icon appears under it. When the progress bar disappears, the rendering is done and you can continue to edit.
- If your computer has a built in microphone or an external microphone connected, you can record your voice directly into your movie.
- To record a voice narration in your movie:
- Position the playhead where you want the narration to begin.
- Click the Audio button
- Click the Record Voice button in the Audio panel.
- Speak into the microphone. Use the volume meter (above the Record Voice button) to determine how loud you should speak. (50 - 75%)
- To end the recording, clock the Stop button.
- Click the Audio button
- Insert the audio CD into your computerís CD-ROM drive.
- Select a Track in the Audio panel.
- Then you can do one of two things.
- Choose Import File from the File menu.
- Select the file and click import. The music clip appears on audio track2 in the timeline viewer.
- Click the Audio button
- Drag a sound effect from the list in the Audio panel to the desired position on audio track 1 or 2 in the timeline viewer.
c. To Delete Extra Video:
d. Splitting and replacing video
- You can create a single image from your clip, save it and insert it
into a document or your movie.
4. Adding Effects to your video
iMovie offers video effects that can enhance your movie. One
effect is to create a Sepia tone on one or more of your clips. Other effects
include:Adjust Colors, Black and White, Brightnes/Contrast, Sharpen, Soft
Focus and Water Ripple.
5. Adding Transitions
Transitions can smooth the change from one scene to the next or be used to indicate the passage of time between clips.
6. Add Titles
You can add text to your movie clips with this feature. You may want to add a title, ending credits or comments along the way.
7. Working with Audio
a. Record a voice clip
You can add music to your movie by recording it directly from a CD into the movie.
- `1) Drag the audio CD track from the Audio panel
to the audio track 1 or 2 in the timeline viewer or
c. To import an Aiff or MP3 (quicktime) audio file into your
movie:
Position the playhead in the timeline viewer to the place where you
want to insert the audio file.
d. To Add Sound Effects
e. Removing an audio track
- If your video clip already contains audio when you imported it, you
can extract the audio from the clip.
- To extract Audio, drag your video clip to the clip viewer and look at it in the timeline viewer mode. (timeline view mode displays the movieís video track and two audio tracks).
- Select the video clip that contains the audio that you wish to extract.
- Choose Extract Audio from the Advanced menu
- Connect your DV Camcorder to your computer as previously described in this document (Step 1)
- Put the tape you will be recording into the DV Camcorder
- Choose Export Movie from the File Menu
- Choose Camera from the Export to menu
- Click Export
- Choose Export Movie from the File Menu
- Choose QuickTime from the Export to menu
- Choose a movie format from the Formats menu (the smaller the file size, the less space it takes up and it is ususally better quality).
- Click Export and Save.
8. Saving Your iMovie
You can save your iMovie in different formats and on different media.
a. Recording a Movie to a DV Tape
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