I Movie 09

iMovie 09 http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/imovie_09_stone.html

April 27, 2009

iMovie 09
By Ken Stone

iMovie Interface iMovie Preferences Acquiring Video Projects and Events
Project Library Event Library

Event Browser Clip Selection Crop & Rotate Clip Adjustments Video
Adjustments Audio Adjustments

Precision Editor Transitions Titles Photos Cutaway & Picture in Picture
Music & Sound Effects

Maps and Backgrounds Voiceovers Markers Green Screen Themes
Share Final Thoughts

While I have written about both iDVD and iWeb, I never paid much attention to
iMovie, after all, I work in FCP. Recently I went to the LAFCPUG meeting here in
L.A., where Randy Ubillos, creator of Adobe Premiere, Apple Final Cut Pro and Apple
Aperture, showed off his latest creation, iMovie 09. Now there has always been an
iMovie in the Apple iLife package, but several years ago, Randy created a
completely new version called iMovie 08, now iMovie 09. So why am I writing about
iMovie 09 if I work in FCP? The answer is simple. At the demonstration I saw a
number of features in iMovie 09, that I wished were in FCP and I wondered if there
was a way to use iMovie 09 in conjunction with FCP, utilizing some of its features to
supplement the FCP workflow, most importantly in the rough cut phase of editing,
as '09' has an amazing skimming/edit tool. iMovie also sports a new and modern
tool for exact clip trimming, the Precision Editor, and it's stunning. And, iMovie
provides full Real Time playback, no rendering required, ever.

After doing some testing, I found that the workflow required to use '09' with FCP is
probably not worth the advantages gained by using the two apps together.
However, I did discover that '09' is truly an amazing application, much more able
and sophisticated than it would first appear. Automated video import process,
browser organization, clip skimming and editing, text and animated titles,
transitions, video effects, backgrounds, sound effects, audio control, voiceover,
green screen, background music, speed control and direction, photo manipulation
(Ken Burns effect), markers and chapter markers, color correction, waveforms,
themes, animated maps, video stabilization, picture-in-picture, L-cuts, Precision
Editor, full screen playback, the list goes on. iMovie is a full fledged editor, I think
that you are going to be surprised at what it can do and how intuitive it is.

iMovie Interface
In order to show the entire iMovie interface I have reduced its size for this article.
At normal size, everything is much easier to see and to work with. We will get into
the different elements of the interface later on in the article, but for now, I just want
you to get the general feel of it. The iMovie interface is divided up into five windows.
Top left is the 'Edit Project' and 'Project Library' window, two windows in one. You
switch between these two windows by clicking on the 'Project Library' or 'Edit
Project' button very top left in this window (red box). As shown below, the 'Edit
Project' window is active. Top right is the Viewer. Beneath these windows is the
iMovie Tool bar. Bottom left is the Event Library and to the right is the Event
Browser.

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iMovie offers two different ways to arrange the windows in the Interface. As shown
above, the Project Library and Edit Project window are in the top left corner, at the
bottom of the interface is the Event Library and the Event Browser. There is a
'Switch' button in the Tool bar, left hand side. When you click on it, the top left
window and the bottom windows switch places.

The Project Library window is now the active window, shown below.

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At the far right of the Tool bar are buttons that provide access to the iTunes and
iPhoto libraries, Text, Transition, Map and Background windows which, when
opened, share space with the Event Browser. Click on the 'X' to close the window
and return the Event Browser to its full size, red arrow below, or click on the button
a second time to close the window.

In iMovie, the 'Inspector' or HUD (Heads Up Display), is a floating window, which
provides us with easy access to the various controls that we use to build our
Project. Almost everything we do in iMovie can be controlled in the Inspector
window. Double click on a clip, transition, effect, text, audio, etc. and the Inspector
window will open and will display those settings that are relevant to what we are
working on at the time. Double click on a clip in the Edit Project window and the
Inspector will open, (below left). You can see the different settings and options
available for adjustment. Clicking on the 'Video Effect' menu, will open the Effects
palette, shown below right.

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In the Inspector, Video tab, is the 'Video Adjustment Panel'.

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In the Inspector, Audio tab, is the 'Audio Adjustment Panel'.

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When a Transition has been applied, double clicking on it opens the Transition
Inspector. The Transition menu opens to display the Transition palette, below right.

There are other windows in iMovie, such as the Precision Editor window shown
below. We will cover all of the windows and how to use them later on in the article.

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This is basically how the iMovie interface works, windows and palettes remain
hidden until needed, providing iMovie with a clean and uncluttered interface. Even
the 'Precision Editor' window (above), which is kept out of the way until needed,
when opened, can display audio tracks and waveforms as well.

In the File menu there is a 'Print' command. If you have a Project selected in the
Project Library, you will have 'Print Project'. If you have an Event selected in the
Event Library, then you'll have 'Print Event'. What this Print command does, is print
out the clip thumbnails that are in either your Project or Event. Just pictures of your
clips, no metadata. The printed thumbnails are pretty small and even though there
is a way in the interface to enlarge the onscreen thumbnails, they still print small. If
you are running a second monitor you can place the Viewer window on to the
second monitor, from the Window menu > 'Viewer on Secondary display'. Moving
the Viewer window to a second monitor, opens up a lot of working space in the
iMovie interface on the first monitor. The iMovie 'Command z' (Un-do) is unlimited,
it undoes all the way back to when you last quit iMovie.

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iMovie Preferences
As with any new application, the first thing we want to do is to have a look at its
Preferences, which I know can be a bit boring, but at least you'll know where the
settings are, if you need to make changes later on. The General tab has one very
important control, 'Show Advanced Tools'. This is the setting that enables many of
the important iMovie features, you'll want to turn it on. I have Advanced tools
turned on throughout this article.

The Browser tab offers 'Use large font for Project and Events lists' which make
things more readable and the 'Show Fine Tuning controls' which is used to lengthen
or shorten a clip's duration, one frame at a time, when dragging the edge of a clip.
'Command Option' toggles this feature on and off. The Video tab offers a choice of
video standards, NTSC and PAL, but as is pointed out in the window, changing this
setting requires you to quit and then relaunch iMovie to affect the change.

The other setting is for the importing of 1080i video, as it lets you select which
frame size you want iMovie to work with. Depending on the finial output, like SD
DVD, ATV or the web, the smaller 960 x 540 size will work very well. Choosing the
larger 1920 x 1080 takes up much more hard drive space and could slow things
down a bit. In most cases 960 x 540 will do the job. When importing 1080i video
into iMovie, the video will be transcoded to AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec). AVCHD
or HDV video is always transcoded to AIC regardless of frame size.

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iMovie offers a number of opportunities for us to work with text, for titles and such.
The Fonts palette is shown below, but we are not limited to the 9 different font
colors. Click on any color swatch on the right and the Apple color wheel will open
where we can change the existing color to any color we want.

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The same holds true for our choice of fonts. Click on any of the two sided arrows,
to the left of the color swatches, to produce a font drop-down menu with all of the
Apple system fonts available. You can customize all of the fonts and font colors in
the iMovie Font palette to suit your own taste.

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While the following dialog box, 'Timing', is not part of the iMovie Preferences, it's
important, so I'm showing it here. From the File menu > Properties > Timing. You
can set a number of iMovie parameters, but, for me, the most important one is the
'Initial Photo Placement' which defaults to Ken Burns. Every time you add a photo or
Still Frame, the Ken Burns effect is applied. Now I like the Ken Burns effect just fine,
but not on everything. Turning it off all the time gets to be a bore. In the Initial
Photo Placement menu you can choose, Fit in Frame or Crop. I have selected 'Fit in
Frame'. Easy enough to turn Ken Burns back on in the Viewer window if needed.

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Acquiring Video
There are a number of ways to bring video into iMovie. The primary method would
be to plug your camera into your Mac, iMovie can work with both USB2 and Firewire
inputs. iMovie also seems to be format agnostic and I found that it will import and
work with most of today's format flavors; HDV, AVC HD, DV, XDCAM, XDCAM HD
and XDCAM EX. It works with NTSC and PAL and in 4:3 and 16:9, though Apple
only officially supports; AVCHD, HDV, DV, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 MPEG-1 and H.264 and
just about any .mov file.

iMovie can import from cameras that shoot to tape, memory card, hard drive and
even DVD. For those cameras that shoot to memory card, the camera is not even
required for import. You can use an ordinary card reader to mount the memory
card on the desktop, iMovie will recognize the card and import properly, it will even
recognize and work with a disk image. I imported some HVX 200, DVCPRO HD,
720p 24PN footage, iMovie did not care and handled it properly. A note about
AVCHD video. The best way to capture AVCHD is to use a two step process. First
use the Archive feature (discussed shortly) when you connect the AVCHD
camcorder to your Mac. Then import the 'Archive' into iMovie using the Import >
Camera Archive process, not the standard Import from Finder menu item. iMovie
can import MPEG-4 video from disks or hard drives.

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There is one very important issue to remember. We are working with video files
which take up a lot of storage space on our hard drives. Additionally, as time goes
by, we can add many video sessions (Events) to iMovie. It would be easy to fill up a
hard drive with iMovie videos. For this reason, whenever bringing video in from a
camera or by using any of the import processes, there will always be the
opportunity to select which hard drive you want to store your video on. If you plan
on using iMovie to any extent, you might want to consider getting an additional
hard drive, either USB2 or Firewire, to store your iMovie video.

From a camera
With iMovie up and running, plug your camera into the Mac via USB 2 or Firewire,
turn the camera on and set to 'VTR' or 'Computer'. Additionally you can insert the
camera's memory card into a card reader and the memory card will mount on the
desktop, ready for iMovie. iMovie will detect the camera or card and open the iMovie
Import window. If the Import window does not open, click on the camera icon. The
following example is from a Sony CDR CX-12 memory card based camera. I don't
have a tape based camera to demo here, but the Import window will have playback
controls and provide the ability to set In and Out points for your capture.

As shown below, the four clips that are on the memory card show up in the lower
pane, the duration of each clip is denoted in white. Select a clip, yellow border, and
click the Play button or hit the space bard to preview the clip before import. Lower
left of the Import window is an 'Automatic/Manual' button. If you choose to import
all of the clips, leave this set to Automatic and click on the Import All button.

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If you wish to import only some of the clips, set the 'Automatic/Manual' button to
Manual. Each clip will now display a check box beneath, simply uncheck any clips
that you wish to exclude from the import. Then click on the 'Import Checked' button
to start the import process.

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The Import process starts by opening an Import dialog box that allows you to
select the hard drive that you want to store the video on, the option of adding the
video to an existing Event or creating a new Event and naming it as I have done
here. You will also have the option of choosing the frame size of your video if you
are importing 1080i footage. When importing 1080i video, iMovie will transcode the
video to the Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC). You can import at the full 1080 size,
which does take up a lot of space on your hard drive, or you can import as 'Large
960x540', which will use less hard drive space and would be perfectly adequate for
computer playback, Apple TV, final delivery to iDVD or the the Web (YouTube). Use
the full 1080 import to maintain maximum video quality for delivery to Final Curt Pro
via the Share menu > Export Final Cut XML or for broadcast. There is an additional
setting 'Analyze for stabilization after import', we will cover stabilization later on.

During Import, a progress bar and text will appear beneath each clip. Additional
import information is presented at the bottom of the window.

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The last step of the Import process is the creation of Thumbnails.

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If you have a iSight or other Firewire camera attached to your Mac you can do a live
capture right from the Import window. The Camera button, lower left, will allow you
to select the iSight camera and this will open an 'Import from iSight camera'
window in which you can record live video that will be imported into iMovie. You can
do this 'Live Import' at any time, you don't have to be in the Import window. In the
iMovie interface, below right, there is a camera button, click on it to active the
iSight camera.

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There could be a situation where you don't have the time to go through the Import
process, but you need to bring the video in from the camera/memory card and
store it in your Mac, so that you can erase the camera/memory card and get back
to shooting. iMovie has 'Archive All' button that will allow you to transfer the video
clips to a hard drive directly. You will now be able to go back at a later time, open
the Archive and perorm the Import process. When you Archive your video, you will
be given a chance to name the archive and to select a hard drive to store the video
for later import and use. Do not save an Archive to an iMovie Events or Project
folder, as this can slow down iMovie's performance.

Other Import Processes
There are three Import options; Movies, Camera Archive and iMovie Project.

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1. 'Import Movies'. The very first time you use 'Import', you will get the box
shown below. You can click OK, as the setting options in this window will
appear again in the Import box that opens immediately after you click OK.

At the top, navigate to the hard drive and folder that you want to import from.
You can select a folder or clips inside a folder for import.

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The 'Save to' settings allows you to pick which hard drive you want to save the
imported video to.

6. 'Camera Archive'. I mentioned above that when a camera/memory card is
attached to your Mac, in the Import window there is the 'Archive All' button
that gives you the option to store the video for later import. From the File
menu > Import > 'Camera Archive', now you can navigate to the video that
you archived earlier and run the import process.

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7. 'iMovie HD Project' is used to import video from older iMovie HD projects. But
it can also be used as a type of Media Manager and can be used to import
video from an existing iMovie Project. A new Project and Event will be created
and only the source video of the old Project will be imported, none of the
changes made to the video in the old Project will come across. This process is
akin to bringing in only the used video, the unused video is left behind. Any
transitions that were used in the original Project will be converted to cross-
dissolves, titles, effects and music will not come across. This would be a good
way to rework or update an existing iMovie Project, without changing the
original Project.

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Projects and Events
iMovie's organization is very simple and straight forward. There are two elements to
iMovie; Projects and Events. Projects are where you build your movie and Events
are where all your video clips are stored. So a Project file does not contain any
media, rather it contains all the information about your movie, it is like a blueprint
for a building. The Project keeps track of all the video clips that are brought into it,
it points to the clips in the Event file. In addition, the Project file contains all the
information about your movie; themes, titles, markers, color correction, clip
trimming, background audio, transitions, effects, etc. Every time you use a tool in
iMovie, modify a clip in the Project, or make any changes, that information is
recorded into the Project. You can have any number of Projects that you want, but
you can only have one Project open at a time. iMovie is a 'non-destructive' video
editor, so this means that the source video is never touched. When iMovie is
played, the information contained in the Project file is applied, in Real Time, to the
video. You can create a new Project or Event at any time from the iMovie File menu.

When you create a new Event or Project from the File menu, the default settings will
place the new files on your boot drive: User > Movies > iMovie Events - iMovie
Projects. iMovie will automatically create any required support files, like iMovie
Cache and Thumbnail files for you. The path for iMovie Events is shown below.

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While the Project file is normally not too large, several megs or so, the Event file
contains all of your video and can get to be very large indeed. When creating a new
Event, whether from a camera, card or from the File menu > Import, you will
always be given the chance to select a hard drive to place the files on. Shown below
left, is the Import box, that opens when a camera/memory card is attached to the
Mac. Below right is the Import box that opens when Import is selected from the File
Menu.

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Project Library
Top left of the iMovie interface is the 'Edit Project'/'Project Library' window. The
Project Library window is active (below) which shows all of your iMovie Projects and
which drive they reside on. I have two Projects on my Mac HD but no Projects on
my '1TB' or 'Media Drive'.

You can create new Projects right inside the Project Library. First, select which drive
you want to use to store the new Project on, then click on the '+' button lower right
in the window (as shown above). This will open a 'New Project' window, where you
can name the Project, select the format, Standard, iPhone or Widescreen. You can
also choose a Theme for your new Project if you so desire.

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If you create a new Project from the File menu, you will not be given the option of
picking a drive, the new Project will be placed on your boot drive automatically. The
drive that a Project file is stored on is not as critical as an Event, because Project
files are relativity small. However, to keep things organized, you can move a Project
from one drive to another. In the Project Library, select the Project and then drag it
to the desired drive, in this case from the 'Mac HD' to the 'Media Drive', as shown
below.

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If your Project has content, clips have already been added to the Project, then after
you drop the Project onto the new drive a dialog box will open offering the option to
Copy the Project or Copy the Project and the Events (media). This action will copy
to the new location but will leave the original Project and Events where they are,
below left. If you want to 'Move' the Project and not copy, hold down the Command
key while you drag, the Project or Event will be written to the new location and
deleted from the old location, below right.

A simpler way to create a new Project and place it on the correct drive in the first
place, is to open the Project Library and then Control click on the drive that you
want to use, from the drop-down menu, choose New Project. Or, you can select the

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drive you want to place the Project on and then click on the '+' button lower right of
the window.

Control clicking on a Project in the Project Library, offers a variety of options
including 'Move Project to Trash' which removes the Project from both iMovie and
from your hard drive.

You can playback your movie in the Viewer window from any Project in the Project
Library. Place your cursor anywhere over a film strip and as you drag or skim, the
video will play in the Viewer window. When you place the cursor over a film strip, a
thin vertical red line called a 'Pointer', is displayed that behaves much like a
playhead showing the current position of playback (green box below). You can also
select a Project and hit the space bar to play in the Viewer window. At the bottom
left of the Project Library window are two buttons: 'Play Project full screen' and 'Play
Project from beginning'.

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When you have finished in the Project Library, select the Project that you want to
work with, then click on the 'Edit Project' button, upper left of the Library window.
This will open the Edit window. You can toggle back and forth between the two
windows by clicking the button upper left.

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If you Control click on a clip in the Edit Project window and select 'Reveal in Event
Browser. The Event containing the source clip in the Event Library will become
highlighted and the corresponding clip in the Event Browser will be highlighted
(selected) as well.

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Event Library
Every time you bring video into iMovie, either from a camera, a card reader or any
of the import processes, an Event is created and it is named with the current date
and the new Event is placed into the Event Library. The Event Library is a powerful
organization tool, as we shall see. You can select the Event name and change it to
something more appropriate. If you control click on the Event a number of options
are presented. If you select 'Move to Trash', iMovie will remove the Event from the
Event Library and from your hard drive as well.

Shown below, I have named all of the Events in my Library and iMovie has sorted
the Events chronically by year. iMovie looks at the date stamp in the metadata of
the incoming video and places the Event into the year that the video was shot. To
the right of the Event Library is the Event Browser, when an Event is selected in the
Event Library, the clips contained in that Event are displayed in the Browser.

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If you shot video over a three day period, iMovie would create a different Event for
each of the 3 days. You can easily merge different Events, regardless of when they
were shot. In the Event Library, select and drag an Event onto the Event that you
want it to merge with.

When you release the Event on top of the other Event, a naming dialog box will
open allowing you to name the new, merged Event.

The newly named Event now shows up in the Library, note that the two Events that
were merged, Santa Monica and Santa Monica 08, are now gone from the list.

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Not only can we merge Events but we can split Events apart as well. Select the
Event that you want to split, in the Event Browser, select the clip that is to become
the first new clip in the new (second) Event.

From the File menu select 'Split Event Before Selected Clip'.

The Event will now be split, the new Event will retain the original Event name but
will amended with the number 1.

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You can copy a clip from one Event to another. Select the Event that you want to
copy the clip from, then, click on the clip and drag it out of the Event Browser into
the Event Library and drop it on the Event that you want to copy the clip to. As
show below, the Beverly Hills Event is active and I am dragging the clip to the
Farmers Market Event. The 'Copy Clip to New Event' message will appear.

You can change the clip(s) Date or Time to change their chronological order in the
Event Library. Select a clip or multiple clips in the Event Browser, and then choose
File > Adjust Clip Date and Time.

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The default order of the Events in the Event Library is chronological, in either
ascending or descending order, however, you might need to view your Events
based on which hard drive they are stored on. You can toggle between the two
display modes by clicking on the hard drive icon, upper right in the Event Library.
You can also do this from the View menu > Group Events By Disk.

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You can copy an Event(s) to another hard drive. With the Event Library set to
'Group Events By Disk', click on the Event to want to copy and drag it onto the hard
drive you want to copy the Event(s) to. As shown below left, I have dragged the
Salt Lake City Event to my Media drive. This will make a copy of the Event. If you
want to move the Event, hold down the Command key while you drag, the Event
will be deleted from it's original location.

From the View menu you can also arrange the Events by Month, Most Recent
Events at Top and Show Separate Days in Events. Events by Month is shown below
center. You can also have iMovie display the date that the event was recorded, but
this setting is found in the iMovie Preferences > Browser tab > 'Show date ranges in
Events list.' Event Library with shooting dates shown below right.

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Event Browser
When you select an Event in the Event Library, all of the clips contained in that

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Event show up to the right in the Event Browser. It is in the Event Browser that we
audition our clips, playing them in the Viewer window and making our selections.
Lower right in the Event Browser is a slider that sets the number of frames of video
that is displayed per thumbnail. As shown below, I have the slider set at 2 seconds,
so each thumbnail in the Browser represents 2 seconds of video. This setting can
be adjusted from 1/2 second of video to 30 seconds of video. It also has an 'All'
setting that will show each clip as a single thumbnail. When you place the pointer,
(thin red vertical line), over the thumbnails, the start of each clip is denoted by the
clip duration in seconds and a 'Gear' icon.

When this slider is set to 'All' each thumbnail in the Browser represents an entire
clip, regardless of the length of the video clip. Throughout this article, I am in the
'All' mode, so that you can see the different clips, but when you are working, you
will take advantage of displaying your clips stretched out, by adjusting this slider.

We can control the size of the thumbnails of the clips in both the Event Browser and
in the Edit Project window. Shown below at the smallest size.

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Thumbnails shown below at the largest size.

As you skim a clip in the Event browser, the video plays in the Viewer window.
When you place the pointer over a clip in the browser and hit the space bar, the clip
will play in the Viewer and will continue to play until all the clips in the Browser have
been played or you hit the space bar to stop playback.

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There is also a 'play full screen' option, shown below with 'Cover Flow'.

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Working in the Event browser, we can select clips or portions of clips for use in our
Project. Place the Pointer over any thumbnail in the Event browser and click once.
This will set a default selection of 4 seconds. The duration of the selection is set in
the iMovie Preferences > Browser tab. After the default section has been set, the
cursor turns into a double sided arrow, click and drag to extend or shorten the
selection to the desired length. As you drag, the frames of the clip will be displayed
in the Viewer. If you hold down the Option key, before you click into a thumbnail,
the entire clip will be selected. Once you have made your selection, you can drag
the clip into the Edit Project window or hit the E key and the clip will added to the
Project for you.

During editing we make selections of the video that we want to use in our Project.
But, as we review our clips in the Event browser, we can select and 'mark' them for
future reference, add keywords and hide or even remove clips from the Library. We
can mark clips as Favorites (green bar), mark clips as Rejected (red bar), add
Keywords to clips (blue bar). Clips that have been added to the Project in the Edit
Project window, are marked with an orange bar in the Event browser, to show us
that they have been used. In the iMovie Preferences > General tab, I have 'Show
Advanced Tools' selected, you'll want to turn this feature on.

I have selected a portion of clip that I will want to work with in the future and want
to mark it for future reference by clicking on the 'Favorite' button in the Tool bar.
After making it a 'Favorite', the clip now sports a green bar, the length of the green
bar and its position in the clip represents the selection that was made.

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I have found a section of video that is simply no good and I don't want to be
bothered with it, so I want to mark it as 'Rejected'. With the bad portion of video
selected, I click on the 'Reject Selection' button, which places a red bar on the
thumbnail. Marking the video as 'Rejected' does not remove or Trash the video, you
would do that manually.

When a portion of video has been selected and placed into the Edit Project window
for use in the Project, that section of video, in the Event browser, is marked with an
orange bar to denote that it has been used (great feature). This process is done
automatically for us by iMovie. With Favorites or Rejected, the colored bar is placed
at the top of the clip thumbnail, the orange bar representing 'used' is place at the
bottom of the thumbnail.

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We can also add Keywords to clips in the Event browser. Select a clip or section of
video and click on the Keyword button in the Tool bar. This will open up the
Keyword window, where I checked the keyword 'Outdoor'.

iMovie automatically records the keyword and places a blue colored bar at the top
of the clip. You can add any keyword of your own choosing, by typing in the
Keyword box lower left of the window. After you type in the keyword, click on 'Add
to Clip', which it will and it will be added to the list of keywords as well.

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Click on the Spyglass to open the Keyword window.

There is a way to filter the clips that you have marked, hiding the video that you
don't need at the time. At the bottom of the iMovie window is a 'Show' drop-down
menu, which gives you the option of filtering the clips in the Event browser based
on Favorites Only, Favorites and Unmarked, All Clips and Rejected Only. As shown
below, 'All Clips' has been selected.

All four types of markers are displayed.

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As shown below, Favorites and Unmarked are displayed. Note that blue bar,
'Keywords' and orange bar, 'Used' are also displayed. When you launch iMovie the
'Show' menu defaults to 'Favorites and Unmarked'. Rejected clips, red bar, are
hidden from view.

Being able to sort the Event browser is a great organizational tool, an efficient
workflow. iMovie even allows you to delete those clips that you have 'Rejected'. Set
the Show menu to 'Rejected Only'.

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Click on the 'Move Rejected to Trash' button. Most often, when you 'Trash'
something, it happens instantaneously, but in iMovie it can take a little time, you
actually get a progress bar.

The Trash is shown below.

If after sending the Rejected clips to the Trash, you realize that you have made a
mistake and need to restore the clips to the Events browser, simply 'Un-do',
Command z from the keyboard. iMovie will rewrite the clips from the trash back to

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the Event browser, you'll even get a dialog box showing that the clips are being
returned (rewritten). After the clips have been restored to the Rejected window, if
you open the Trash you'll see that the clips are still in the Trash. This is okay, as the
clips have been rewritten back into iMovie and the clips in the Trash are now dupes.
It's okay to empty the Trash.

You can Unmark any clip(s) at any time. Select the clip(s) that you want to
Unmark, click on the 'Unmark tool in the Tool bar. There is an exception, the
orange 'Used' bar will remain on the clip even if Unmark is used. If you delete the
clip from the Edit Project window, the orange bar will disappear from the clip in the
Event browser (as it will no longer be in use).

There is a way to Media Manage your hard drive space. In the File menu > Space
Saver. In this box you can choose to send clips that you have not used in a Project,
clips not marked as Favorite or clips not marked with a keyword to the Trash. You
need to be careful as to which boxes you check, I think that 'Not added to any
Project', might be a good way to manage hard drive space at the end of a Project.
Even after you click 'Reject and Review' you will have another chance to remove
items from the Rejected list before trashing, by selecting the item and then clicking
on the 'Unmark' button in the Tool bar. This will move the Rejected clip out of the
Rejected list and back into the Event browser.

[Top]

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Clip Selection
I'm starting off with a new empty Project and am going to be working with footage
shot here in L.A., at the Farmers Market. In the Event browser, skimming and
playing the clips in the Viewer window, I have selected my establishing shot and
dragged it into the Edit Project window. The green vertical bar shows the placement
of the clip when dropped into the Project. As this is the first clip, the green bar is at
the very start. A clip can be automatically added to the Project from the Event
browser by selecting the clip and then hitting the E key on the keyboard, no need to
drag.

When you select a clip (one click) in the Edit Project window (below left), it gets a
thick yellow boarder around it. When you double click on a clip in the Edit Project
window, it opens up the Inspector. You can always tell when the Inspector is open
because the yellow border around the clip, in the Edit Project window, becomes a
'thin' yellow border (below right). If you have forgotten to close the Inspector and
try to do something else, you get a warning 'bonk' sound from iMovie.

In the Edit Project window, (shown below), placing the cursor into the first clip
displays a pointer (thin red vertical line - playhead), a grab hand for moving the clip
around and several blue icons. The two blue left-right arrow icons, found at each
edge of the thumbnail, are for fine tuning the trim of the clip. Click on either one of
the icons and a partial orange border will appear, you will then be able drag the
edge of the clip in one frame increments. In this case I am lengthening the clip so a
+ sign with the number of frames added appear, dragging inward will shorten the
clip and a - sign with the number of frames removed will appear.

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Clicking on the Gear icon drop-down offerers access to a number of iMovie's
features which we will get into soon. The top two items, the Precision Editor and
Clip Trimmer, are only available from the Edit Project window. Selecting 'Clip
Trimmer' from the menu opens the Clip Trimmer window where we can change the
start or end point of the clip by dragging on the handles left or right. Place the
cursor over a handle, hold down the Option key and use the right and left arrows to
adjust the handle one frame at a time. If you move the cursor into the clip it turns
into a grab hand, click and hold down the mouse button and you can slide the clip
selection left or right, choosing different video to be displayed without changing the
duration of the clip. While trimming, you can preview the changes in the Viewer
window. When you have finished, click the Done button, the Clip Trimmer window
will close. Note that if you selected the entire clip in the Event browser and loaded it
into the Edit Project window, then, in the Clip Trimmer window, you will not be able
to extend the start point or end point of the clip, as there is no additional video to
work with. You will be able to shorten the clip by moving the start and/or end
points inwards.

iMovie provides three different ways that you can precisely trim a clip; the Fine
tuning controls, the Clip Trimmer and the Precision Editor which is covered later.

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I have continued to select and add clips to the Edit Project window. Below left, I
have decided that the clip that I am bringing in belongs between clips two and
three, so that is where I have positioned the clip. The green vertical bar shows the
insertion point for the clip. You can move clips around at any time by clicking on
them and moving to a new location, below right.

iMovie has a very powerful Edit tool, selectable from the Tool bar (below left). When
the Edit tool is selected and the cursor is placed into a thumbnail in the Event
browser, it's icon turns to a small tan piece of paper with a folded corner (below
center). As you click and drag with the Edit tool, the area that you select turns
yellow and the duration of the selection is displayed (below right). When you
release the mouse button, the clip is automatically added to the Project, no
dragging required. If you are unhappy with your selection, use Un-do, Command z
from the keyboard or you can select the clip in the Edit Project window and hit the
delete key.

[Top]

Crop & Rotate
The Viewer window is the 'workbench' for a Project. It is in this window that all of
the effects and abilities that iMovie has to offer are made available and are applied.
We will start with the options made available in the Gear (Action) drop-down menu.
When we select 'Cropping & Rotation', the first thing that happens is that when the
cursor is placed in the Edit Project window, a cropping icon is added to the cursor
to remind us that we are in cropping mode. The video will now show up in the
Viewer window with special cropping icons.

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In the Viewer window, click on the 'Crop' button, this will add green brackets at the
four corners of the green bounding box. The cursor will turn into a 'position' marker
when placed over one of the corners or into a left-right facing arrow if placed on
one of the green borders. Clicking and dragging in will reduce the size of the
selected area inside the bounding box, but the video will retain it's proper aspect
ratio. After the video has been cropped to the correct size, placing the grabber hand
icon on the green + in the center allows you to drag and reposition the cropping
borders.

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When you have sized and positioned the cropping border as you want, click the
Done button, iMovie will perform the crop and the cropped image will fill the frame.
Cropping is an excellent tool when you have some image at the edge of your video
that you would like to remove, but there is a caveat. The more that you enlarge the
video, the softer the image will look.

After you have completed the crop, if you look at the clip in the Edit Project window
you will see that a Crop icon has been added to the upper left of the clip. This icon
denotes that you have either cropped, rotated or applied the Ken Burns effect to the
clip. Double click on the crop icon to open the clip back up in the Viewer window so
that you can edit or make changes. Clicking on the 'Fit' button will return the video
to its original size.

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Center top of the window are two 'Rotation' arrows to rotate the video 90°
clockwise or counter-clockwise. The icon just to the right of the Rotation icons is
the 'Play' button. Notice that if you have rotated the video, back in the Edit Project
widow, the thumbnail of that video has been rotated too.

[Top]

Clip Adjustments
Selecting 'Clip Adjustments' from the Gear (Action) menu in the Edit Project window
opens the iMovie Inspector. You will notice that while Clip, Video and Audio
Adjustments are available from the Action menu, they are also available as tabs in
the Inspector window. The Clip tab in the Inspector provides us with both
information and settings to affect the selected clip. Near the top is the Duration and
Source Duration. You can click into the Duration field and change the duration of
the clip. Click on the Video Effect button and the Effects Palette will open. We can
also change both the speed and direction of the clip and add image 'Stabilization' to
the clip. When you have made your adjustments click 'Done' and the change will be
applied. Additionally you can invoke the Inspector palette at any time by selecting

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the clip and clicking on the Inspector button in the Tool bar.

Click on Video Effect button to open the Effects Palette, which offers 19 different
Effects that can be applied to the selected clip. Now here is one really amazing
feature of iMovie's Real Time abilities. In the Effects palette, each Effect thumbnail is
actually a miniaturized version of the selected clip. As you movie your cursor over
the different effects in the palette, tiny versions of the clip play out right in the
palette window and the Viewer window shows you the results of that effect full size
and in Real Time and all you are doing is moving your cursor around the palette.
The Cartoon effect is shown below right. If you want no effect or to remove an
effect, click 'None' upper left of the palette. There is also a 'Flipped' effect which can
come in handy.

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After having made adjustments to a clip, you can Copy the adjustments and Paste
them to other clips. Select the clip and Copy, then, select the clip (s) you want to
add the adjustments to and from the File menu > Paste Adjustments. There will be
a list of the different adjustments that you can paste.

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Sometimes the video we are working with is shaky due to camera movement during
the recording process. Running while shooting or shooting from a moving vehicle
can cause this.

During the initial Import process we are given a chance to 'Analyze for stabilization'.
This process does not stabilize the incoming video but rather analyzes it so that we
can 'Stabilize' the video at a later time. This process can take awhile, so you may
want to see which clips, if any, need stabilization and then perform the process just
on those clips that need the help when the time comes, this can be done later from
the Inspector for the clip in question. Stabilization is a two step process. First the
video needs to be analyzed, then later, stabilized if requested.

When you have turned Stabilization on, you will get a process bar. When the
analysis has completed, the stabilization will be applied. In the Edit Project window,
look at the clip that has been stabilized and you will see that a 'hand' icon has been
added (red arrow).

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Double click on the hand icon to return to the Inspector, where you can make
adjustments or turn stabilization off. The stabilization process involves moving the
video image in the opposite direction to the movement of the camera and it
becomes necessary to enlarge the video, to be able to crop out the uneven edges
of the video. The greater the enlargement, the greater the amount of cropping
required. You can control the degree of zoom, using the Zoom slider in the
Inspector, to find a balance between the amount of smoothing and the amount of
cropped video. If you open the Inspector > Clip tab and there is no Zoom slider at
the bottom of the window, this means that the clip has not yet ben analyzed.

iMovie will inform us, in the Edit Project window, the level of zoom or enlargement
applied to the clip. If the 'Hand' icon has a black background (below left) there is
little zooming required to stabilize the video. An orange colored background
requires more zooming (below center) and a red background requires a large
amount of zoom, much of your video may be cropped out (not shown). If there is
too much shake and iMovie can not successfully smooth the video, you will see a
warning, a squiggly red line through the bottom of the clip (below right). A general
rule of thumb, zoom in for greater stabilization, zoom out to show more of the
picture. It often is a compromise. If you decide to turn stabilization off and then
change your mind, you can turn it back on in the Inspector without the need to
reanalyze the video.

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If you have clips that have too much shake and you get a squiggly red line through
the bottom of the clips, noting that the clips are really not usable, you can hide
those clips from view by clicking on the 'squiggly red line' button found at the
bottom of the iMovie window. If you need to bring the problem clips back into view,
click on the button again.

[Top]

Video Adjustments
Selecting Video Adjustments from the menu opens the Inspector - Video tab, this
window is called the 'Video Adjustment Panel'. When the Video Adjustment Panel
opens, a color wheel icon becomes attached to your cursor and the video will loop
as it is being played in the Viewer.

The tools offered in this window are pretty straight forward, easy to use, and work
well. What is exciting here, is the fact, that as you play your video in the Viewer and
make adjustments in the Inspector, the changes show in Real Time as the video
plays back. A really good way to see the effect of your color corrections applied to
the entire clip as it plays. Using the slider is good for getting you in the ball park,
but on either side of the slider controls (red boxes) are small icons, that, if clicked,

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change the setting in one unit increments for fine tuning. There is also an 'Auto'
button for automatic white balance, that when selected, turns the cursor into an
eye dropper when placed into the Viewer window. Click the eyedropper on some
part of the image that is supposed to be white, iMovie will set the white point for
you. If you are unhappy with the automatic white balance, click on the 'Revert to
Original' to remove the effect. When you have finished and clicked 'Done' and
returned to the Project widow, you'll see that iMovie has placed yet another icon
(color wheel) in the clip thumbnail. You can't say that iMovie doesn't tell you what
it's doing.

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After having made adjustments to your video, you can Copy the adjustments and
Paste them to other clips. Select the clip and Copy, then, from the File menu >
Paste Adjustments. There will be a list of the different adjustments that you can
paste.

[Top]

Audio Adjustments
Selecting Audio Adjustments from the menu opens the Inspector - Audio tab.

At the top of the Inspector window is the Volume slider for adjusting the volume of
the selected clip. There will be situations where you'll be adding background music,
sound effects, audio from other clips or voice overs. The 'Ducking' control allows
you to reduce the volume of any added audio, giving priority to the audio that
belongs to the clip. There are Fade In - Fade Out controls that when set to 'Manual'
allow you to adjust the duration of the Fade from 0.0 to 2.0 seconds. Because we
can use video clips that come from many different video shoots, it could be that the
audio volume from the different clips is very different. We can use the 'Normalize
function to adjust the audio volume across multiple clips, giving them equal volume
levels. If you do not like the way your Normalized audio sounds, you can turn this
feature off and remove the Normalization effect.

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When you have finished adjusting your audio and have clicked on Done and
returned to the Edit Project window, you see that the clip now sports an audio icon
in the clip thumbnail. Double click on the audio icon to return to the Inspector.
When skimming a clip in either the Event browser or in the Edit Project window, the
audio will skim too. If the skimmed audio starts to become annoying, you can turn
off 'Audio Skimming' from the View menu, you can also toggle the audio skimming
on or off by clicking on the small audio skimming button in the Tool bar, below
right. Even if audio skimming is turned off, the audio will still play normally when
you playback your video in the Viewer window. You can 'mute' the audio of a clip, in
the Edit Project window, select the clip and from the Edit menu > 'Mute Clip'. To
turn the audio back on > 'Unmute Clip'.

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After having made adjustments to the audio of a clip, you can Copy the
adjustments and Paste them to other clips. Select the clip and Copy, then, from the
File menu > Paste Adjustments. There will be a list of the different adjustments that
you can paste.

[Top]

Precision Editor
In iMovie we can trim (shorten or lengthen) a clip, photo, title, cutaway, audio track
or transition by selecting the item in the Edit Project window and dragging on the
handles on the left or right of the item. We can also click on the Gear icon of the clip
and choose 'Clip Trimmer'. These techniques work well, but iMovie has a more
powerful and accurate tool for us to use when working on the Edit point between
two clips or two clips with a transition. Part of the skill of story telling is knowing
exactly which frame to start or end a clip on. The tool is the 'Precision Editor', and
it's a visual editing tool. When using the Precision Editor, a special window opens
that shows both clips and if there is a transition between the two clips, that will
show up too. It's a graphical tool that allows us to see the frames of video for both
clips at the same time, displaying both used and unused frames. As we skim
through the two clips in the Precision Editor window, the video is displayed in the
Viewer window. As I said, a very powerful tool.

When we want to work on the edit point between two clips, click on the Gear icon
of the second of the two clips and from the menu, select Precision Editor, shown
below left. A blue box will be displayed between the two clips in the Edit Project
window, showing that we are in Precision Editor mode. If there is a transition, the
blue box will encompass the transition, below center. Below right, Precision Editor
has been applied to two clips with no transition. If there is no transition, you can
double click between the two clips to open the Precision Editor.

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The Precision Editor window is shown below. The vertical blue line shows the edit
point between the two clips. The top film strip is the first clip, the bottom film strip
is the second or following clip. In the top or first clip, the video frames to the left of
the edit point (blue line) are highlighted, the highlighted frames are the frames that
will be used (red arrows below), the frames that come after the edit point are
grayed out and will not be used (brown arrows below). With the bottom film strip or
second clip, the frames to the right of the edit point are highlighted and are the
frames that will be used, to the left of the edit point, the frames are grayed out,
these frames are not in use.

Using the Precision Editor is very easy. In the example below, I want to extend the
length of the first clip. As I skim into the area of the first clip that is to the right of
the edit point, the clips highlight and as I skim, I can see the video, frame by frame,
in the Viewer window. Below, my pointer is on the exact frame that I now want to
be the last frame in the first clip, red box below.

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When you have the pointer on the frame that you now want to be your edit point,
just click. The Precision Editor will move the frames between the edit point and the
pointer to the left, into the highlighted area of used clips. Look below and you can
see that the film strip has shifted to the left adding those additional frames to the
end of the first clip.

The same process works for the lower or second clip. I want to add some additional
crowd footage to the start of the incoming clip. Below I have skimmed to the left, in
the unused section of the clip. As I skim, I can preview the frames in the Viewer.

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When I have found my new starting frame with the pointer, I click. The frames that
were to the left of the edit point and were not used, have been moved to the right
of the edit point and will now be added to the start of the second clip for playback.
In both of my examples I have added frames but of course you can move the
pointer in the opposite direction and remove frames from either of the two clips.
Just skim in the used area till you find your new start or end frame and click, very
simple.

Another way to use the Precision Editor is to place the pointer over a clip, it turns
into a grab hand, red box below left. You can click with the hand and drag the film
strip left or right, viewing the frames in the Viewer window as you go. When you
find the correct frame and release the mouse button, the trim will be made. We can
play and audition our current edit by clicking on the 'Play current edit' button, red
box below right. Just to the left of the 'Play current edit' button are 'Show Previous
edit' and Show next edit' buttons, so you can navigate from one edit point to the
next right in the Precision Edit window.

There is an often used editing technique called a 'L-cut' or 'Split Edit', in which the
audio from one clip extends into an adjoining clip. We use the Precision Editor to
create this type of audio cut and use the same technique as when trimming video.
In order to work with the audio we will need to turn on the audio track, audio wave
forms, in the Precision Editor, click the Waveform button in the Tool bar.

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The Precision Edit window is shown below with the audio tracks turned on. There is
a blue vertical edit line that cuts through both the first (top) clip and the second
(bottom) clip. It is where the blue edit line intersects the audio track, that we do
our trimming. In this case, the audio at the start of the second clip is not very
good, but the audio of the first clip, even after the edit point is fine. What I want to
do is to extend the audio of the first clip into the second clip, to replace the bad
audio at the start the second clip.

Placing the cursor over the blue edit line, turns it into a left-right arrow, red box
below left. I have clicked on the blue edit line that runs through the top audio track
and dragged the edit line to the right, extending the audio of the first, or out going
clip, into the second, incoming clip, below middle. Below right shows the new
position of the blue edit line in the audio track. As you can see, the audio that is
between the original edit point and the new edit point is no longer grayed out, it is
now highlighted and will play.

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Great, I now have better audio playing into the start of the second clip, but the bad
audio of the second clip is still playing. I need to shift the edit point of the bottom
(second) clip to the right, excluding the bad audio. As shown below right, the blue
edit line in the bottom clip has been moved to the right and falls exactly under the
edit line of the top audio track. In the bottom track, the audio that is between the
original edit point and the new one is now grayed out, it will no longer play.

We can also use the Precision Editor on other elements of our Project, such as
photos and picture in picture, green screen, markers and titles. This also includes
all audio and sound effects. Basically any element that has a duration can be
trimmed in the Precision Editor. The ability to see each frame of video in the Viewer
window as you skim in the Precision Editor is extraordinary.

One tool I would like to see incorporated into the Precision Edit window is the
yellow guide lines that we have in the Picture in Picture function in the Viewer
window. This would facilitate lining up edit points of the video and audio tracks.

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[Top]

Transitions
iMovie offers 20 transitions to use in our Projects. You open the Transition palette
by clicking on the Transition button in the Tool bar (Command 4 from the
keyboard). The Transition palette will open into the Event browser space. To close
the Transition palette, click on the 'X', top left of the palette window. You can
audition the different transitions right in the palette by placing your cursor over
each one, the transition thumbnail will play for you.

To add a transition, click and drag the transition from the palette into the Edit
Project window and place the transition between the two clips of your choice. As
you do this, you will see a green vertical placement bar, showing where the
transition will be added.

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The transition icon is added between the two clips. To change the duration of the
transition you can click on the transition icon to open the transition Inspector, or
place your cursor on the transition and click on the Gear icon, you will get a
drop-down menu, choose 'Transition Adjustment'. You can change the duration of
the transition by clicking into the Duration box and make the change. If you want
the new duration to apply to all transitions, put a check in the 'Applies to all
transitions' box, this will change the duration of both existing and future transitions.
You can also change your choice of transition.

You can move the transition from one place to another by clicking and dragging to
the new location, the green bar will light up to show your placement. If you hold
down the Option key when dragging, you will make a copy of the transition. To
remove a transition, simply select it and hit the Delete key. If you want to fade up

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at the start of your movie and fade down at the end, place the 'Fade to Black'
transition at the very start and end of your movie and adjust the duration.

[Top]

Titles
iMovie 09 comes with 32 Titles, a little more than half of which are animated,
including Scrolling and Far Far Away credits and the ever popular Lower Third. Click
on the Title icon in the Tool bar (Command 3) to open the Title palette, to close,
click on the 'X', top left of the palette window. You can audition the different Titles
by placing your cursor over each one, those that are, will animate for you.

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We can apply titles in two different ways. One way is to place the title on top of a
clip. The other way is to place the title at the very start or end of the movie, or even
in between clips, but doing it this way, we are placing the titles over empty spaces,
so a background for the titles will be required. I have dragged the Scrolling Credits
title into the Edit Project window and dropped it at the very end of my movie. As
soon as I release the title, the 'Choose Background' palette opens. As you move
your cursor over the different backgrounds in the palette, they will show in the
Viewer window. Some of the backgrounds are animated, place your cursor over a
background and hit the space bar, the animated background will play and loop in
the Viewer. You really get to see what what the backgrounds look like.

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Be careful here, if you 'click' on a background in the Background palette, the
Background palette closes and the background is set in the Viewer. Well, there is
always Un-do. It is important to note that we are dealing with two different
elements. We have the background and we have the title, they are separate
entities. If you want to change the background, you must double click on its icon in
the Edit Project window. If you want to change the title, double click on its icon.

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Double clicking on an icon will open the Inspector, Click on 'Background' or 'Title' to
open up the palettes and make your changes. Also, here in the Inspector, is where
you set the duration for the background and the title.

Here is something interesting, look below left, the blue title icon bar looks like it's
pinned to the clip. Well it is. Click on the clip and drag it to a new location in the Edit
Project window and the title goes right along with it.

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But, if you click on the blue title icon bar and drag, you can change its position
relative to the clip. If you drag too far, iMovie gives you several cryptic warning
icons.

Click on the title icon in the Edit Project window to edit the title in the Viewer. Click
on the 'Show Fonts' button.

When the Font palette first opens the title may disappear from the Viewer. Place
you cursor over one of the Fonts in the palette and skim back and forth, you'll see
the title reappear in the Viewer. As this is a scrolling title, as I skim the title will

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scroll in the Viewer. Move from font to font until you find the font you want. Click on
the font name to select it. A white bounding box will now appear around the font
name. Do the same for the font color and font size. You can see the white bounding
box around 'Chalkboard', font color gray and font size 4. There are several
additional settings available. Click Done when finished.

Changing the text in a Title is done in the same manner as working with text in any
text application, click and drag through the text, to select it, then type in your new
text.

To add a title over video, simple drag the title from the palette onto a video clip in
the Edit Project window. You can reposition the starting point of the title by
dragging the blue title icon bar in either direction. As you drag, the pointer (thin red
vertical line) moves showing the starting location for the title.

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You will adjust your font settings in the same manner as before, select the title icon
in the Edit Project window and click in the Viewer.

The iMovie Font's palette offers 9 different fonts and 9 different font colors for you
to pick from. But, as described in the iMovie Preference section of this article, you
can set your own fonts, picking from the Apple system font list. You can also set
font colors to colors of your choosing. Changes that you make to the Font palette in
iMovie Preferences will show up throughout iMovie.

[Top]

Photos
There are a number of different ways to work with photos in iMovie. The first and
most obvious is iMovies' connection to iPhoto or Aperture. Click on the 'Photo
Browser' button in the Tool bar (Command 2). The Photo browser offers several
ways to search for photos. There is the standard Search box, lower left of the
window is a search by date range, shown unchecked here. Lower right, you can
vary the size of the thumbnails in the photo browser. Clicking on the 'Photos'
drop-down menu provides access to your iPhoto Albums.

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Double clicking on a photo thumbnail will open that photo up in a larger size in the
photo browser. Please remember that I have set my iMovie interface to its smallest
size for this article, with the interface at normal size you get a much bigger picture.
Click once on the enlarged image to return to the photo browser. When you have
found the photo that you want to use, drag it into the Edit Project window and drop
at the desire position.

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With the photo in place there are two ways to access the iMovie photo controls. All
photos in iMovie will have a small crop icon upper left in the thumbnail which you
can double click on to open the photo in the Viewer window. There is also a 'Gear'
icon that you can click on and select 'Cropping, Ken Burns & Rotation'. Either way
works the same.

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If you place the photo into the project and do nothing else, it will play with the Ken
Burns effect (turned on by default) and last for four seconds. Click on Fit or Crop to
turn off the Ken Burns effect. Double click on the photo thumbnail in the Edit Project
window to launch the Inspector, where you can set the duration of your still photo.
The Inspector also offers access to both the Clip Video Effects palette and the Video
Color Correction window. The 'Choose Video Effect' palette is open below, as you
move your cursor over the different effects, they play in Real Time in the Viewer
window.

Clicking on the Video tab opens the Video Adjustment Panel. Just as when working

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with video clips, you can preview the Video Effects or Color Correction to the photo
in Real Time in the Viewer window. The photo loaded into the Viewer shown below
right at default.

When iMovie works with a photo, it will do its best to fit the image to the screen but
it will alway protect the aspect ratio of the photograph, that is to say that no matter
what you do with the photo, there will be no distortion or squeeze applied. In the
example shown below left, I have clicked on the 'Fit' button. iMovie fills the window
top to bottom but because of the shape (aspect ratio) of this particular photo, it is
not wide enough to fill from side to side. Below right, I have selected the 'Crop'
button. iMovie produces a single green cropping box over the image. When I
created this project I chose Widescreen (16:9), so the green cropping box is in the
Letterbox format.

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I have reduced the size of the cropping box by dragging in one one of the corners.
Below right, I have clicked on the center + and dragged to position the cropping
box. When finished, click the Done button.

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The finished photo is in the Viewer window. You can always go back and change
both the size of the cropping box and its placement on the photo.

The next option is the Ken Burns effect. The photo in the Viewer has two boxes
superimposed over the photo. The green box is the starting size and placement, the
red box is the finished size and placement. You can tell that you are in the Ken
Burns mode because of the yellow arrow head in the center of the photo. Click on
the green word 'Start' to work the green border or click the red word 'End' to make
the red boarder active. As shown below I have left the green Start border as is, I
clicked on the red word 'End' and then dragged in from a corner to reduce the size
and then clicked in the middle of the image and dragged to reposition. The small
yellow arrow represents the movement and direction that will occur during the Ken
Burns effect. Before you leave this window, you can play the effect in Real Time in
the Viewer window. If you click the 'play' button upper right, the effect will play
once and stop. If you play by hitting the space bar, the effect will play and loop until
you stop playback.

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In iMovie we can make either a 'Freeze' frame or a 'Still' frame. To make a
Freeze frame, in the Edit Project window, move the pointer over the frame that you
want as your Freeze frame. Hold down the Control key and click, this will open a
drop-down menu, select 'Add Freeze Frame'. This will add the Freeze Frame at the
location of the pointer, with a duration of four seconds. Adding a Freeze frame is a
little like stopping time. The video plays, stops, shows the freeze frame (for four
seconds) and then finishes up. The original clip is below left. Below right you can
see how iMovie works. It splits the clip, adds the chosen frame as a clip in the
middle and then creates another clip with the remaining video. You can always
change the duration of the Freeze frame and apply Video effects and Color
correction. BTW, when iMovie plays through the Freeze frame, there is no audio.
You can add audio back to the Freeze frame. More on this later.

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