iMovie 3 Fast & Easy

iMovie 3 ™ ® Kevin Harreld ©2003 by Premier Press, a division of Course Technology. All rights reserved. No part o...

Author: Kevin Harreld

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iMovie 3

™

®

Kevin Harreld

©2003 by Premier Press, a division of Course Technology. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without written permission from Premier Press, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

The Premier Press logo and related trade dress are trademarks of Premier Press and may not be used without written permission. SVP, Retail and Strategic Market Group: Andy Shafran Publisher: Stacy L. Hiquet Senior Marketing Manager: Sarah O’Donnell Marketing Manager: Heather Hurley Manager of Editorial Services: Heather Talbot Associate Marketing Manager: Kristin Eisenzopf Project Editor/Copy Editor: Cathleen D. Snyder Technical Reviewer: Burt LaFontaine Retail Market Coordinator: Sarah Dubois Interior Layout: Marian Hartsough Associates Cover Designer: Mike Tanamachi Indexer: Sharon Shock Proofreader: Laura R. Gabler Fast & Easy is a registered trademark of Premier Press. Apple, eMac, FireWire, iBook, iDVD, iLife, iMac, iMovie, iTunes, Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh, PowerBook, Power Mac, Power Macintosh, and QuickTime are trademarks or registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Important: Premier Press cannot provide software support. Please contact the appropriate software manufacturer’s technical support line or Web site for assistance. Premier Press and the author have attempted throughout this book to distinguish proprietary trademarks from descriptive terms by following the capitalization style used by the manufacturer. Information contained in this book has been obtained by Premier Press from sources believed to be reliable. However, because of the possibility of human or mechanical error by our sources, Premier Press, or others, the Publisher does not guarantee the accuracy, adequacy, or completeness of any information and is not responsible for any errors or omissions or the results obtained from use of such information. Readers should be particularly aware of the fact that the Internet is an ever-changing entity. Some facts may have changed since this book went to press. ISBN: 1-59200-098-3 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2003105359 Printed in the United States of America 03 04 05 06 07 BH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Premier Press, a division of Course Technology 25 Thomson Place Boston, MA 02210

To Lisa, Genevieve, Jackson, and Hudson . . . the focus of all my films.

Acknowledgments S

pecial thanks go to Stacy Hiquet for thinking of me again for this book. She’s a great publisher and great friend, even though she has terrible taste in movies. (Dude, Where’s My Car? C’mon, I still can’t get over that.) Thanks to Cathleen Snyder for managing the book flawlessly, and to Burt LaFontaine for the technical accuracy. Thanks again to my wife and kids for putting up with this process of late nights and little sleep. Final thanks to my parents for always being there for me . . . and for buying me a camera.

About the Author KEVIN HARRELD is a Senior Acquisitions Editor for Course Technology. After years of working behind the scenes editing and acquiring numerous technology books, he took a starring role as author of iMovie Fast & Easy. The box office success of that book (or maybe it was Apple’s decision to release iMovie 2, and later iMovie 3) pushed him to pen two sequels, iMovie 2 Fast & Easy and iMovie 3 Fast & Easy. Before writing, editing, and acquiring books, Kevin also worked for several years in the newspaper industry, where he learned the definition of a deadline. Spending a year as a film studies minor, living in movie houses (before he had kids), and listening to Joe Bob Briggs has made Kevin believe he’s an authority on movies. Kevin lives in Indianapolis with his wife, Lisa; daughter, Genevieve; sons, Jackson and Hudson Bo; and hound, Dignan. He enjoys fairways and greens, hardwoods and diamonds, and big screens and artificial butter flavor.

Contents at a Glance Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii

PART I FILM SCHOOL 101 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter 1

Tools of the Trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Chapter 2

Capturing Footage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

PART II THE IMPORTING AND EDITING ROOM. . . . . . . . . 21 Chapter 3

Lights, Camera . . . Starting Your Epic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Chapter 4

Importing Footage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Chapter 5

The Cutting Room Floor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

PART III AUDIO AND VIDEO EFFECTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Chapter 6

Stylish Transition Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Chapter 7

Titles and Text Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Chapter 8

Soundtracks and Audio Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Chapter 9

Special Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Chapter 10

Still Image Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

CONTENTS AT A GLANCE

PART IV DISTRIBUTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Chapter 11

Compressing and Exporting Your Movies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Chapter 12

Internet Cinema . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

PART V APPENDIXES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Appendix A

Installing and Upgrading iMovie 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

Appendix B

Expanding Your Sound Effects and Special Effects Libraries. . . . . 245 Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

ix

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii

PART I FILM SCHOOL 101 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter 1

Tools of the Trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Digital Video Cameras. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 The Software and the System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 FireWire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Chapter 2

Capturing Footage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Moviemaking Composition Basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Including an Establishing Shot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Moving into Medium Shots. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 My Close-Up, Please . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Shooting Better Video. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Zooming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Panning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Varying Angles and Shot Lengths. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Steadying Secrets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Other Non-Static Shots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Unique Angle Perspectives and Camera Tricks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Part I Review Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

CONTENTS

PART II THE IMPORTING AND EDITING ROOM. . . . . . . . . 21 Chapter 3

Lights, Camera . . . Starting Your Epic . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Connecting Your Camcorder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Opening iMovie for the First Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Creating a New Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Previewing Your Video in the Monitor Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 What’s on the iMovie Screen?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Getting Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Getting Help from the Help Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Getting Help from Keyboard Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Chapter 4

Importing Footage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Switching Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Importing Clips from Your Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Setting the Destination for Your Imported Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Using iMovie’s Scene-Detection Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Importing Analog Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Saving Your iMovie Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Opening an Existing iMovie Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Chapter 5

The Cutting Room Floor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Selecting Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Playing Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Accessing a Clip’s Info. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Cropping Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Undoing and Redoing Crops. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Restoring Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Splitting Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Copying Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Moving Clips from the Clips Pane to the Movie Timeline . . . . . . . . 63 Trashing Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Part II Review Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

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CONTENTS

PART III AUDIO AND VIDEO EFFECTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Chapter 6

Stylish Transition Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Selecting a Transition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Setting Transition Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Adding the Transition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Why Use Certain Transitions? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Changing Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Deleting Transitions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Inserting a Clip Where a Transition Exists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Chapter 7

Titles and Text Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Opening the Titles Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Selecting a Title Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Typing Your Title Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Selecting a Title Background. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Working with Fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Selecting a Font Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Selecting a Font Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Using the Color Wheel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Using the Color Sliders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Using the Color Palettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Using the Image Palette. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Using the Crayons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Saving a Font Color. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Duplicating a Font Color Used Elsewhere in Your Movie . . . . . 97 Selecting a Font Size. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 Adjusting the Duration and Pause of Your Title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Positioning Your Title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Specifying Alignment and Scrolling Direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Setting the Exact Placement of Titles within a Clip . . . . . . . . . 102 Adding the Title. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Creating Black Space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

CONTENTS

Changing Your Title. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Deleting Your Title. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Chapter 8

Soundtracks and Audio Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Touring the Timeline Viewer and Audio Pane. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Adjusting the Size of Thumbnails in the Timeline Viewer. . . . . . . . 114 Adding Music from an Audio CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Adding Music from Your iTunes Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 Adding Sound Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Adding Voice-Over or Narration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 Editing Audio Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 Cropping Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 Splitting an Audio Clip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Positioning an Audio Clip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Accessing Audio Clip Information and Renaming an Audio Clip. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Deleting an Audio Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 Adjusting Audio Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 Muting Audio Tracks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 Adjusting the Volume of a Clip or Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Adjusting the Volume Levels in a Single Clip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Extracting Audio from Video Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 Locking and Unlocking Audio and Video Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 Unlocking Audio from Video Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 Locking Audio to Video Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

Chapter 9

Special Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 Creating Slow-Motion and Fast-Motion Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 Playing Video Clips Backward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Distorting Video Clips in the Effects Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 Altering Color, Brightness, Contrast, and Hue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 Creating Hollywood-Film Looks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Just Plain Weird Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Using Special Effects to Your Advantage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

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CONTENTS

Chapter 10 Still Image Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 Extracting Still Images from Your Videos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 Creating a Still Image within Your iMovie Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Adding a Still Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Importing an Image from the File Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Importing an Image from iPhoto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Using the Ken Burns Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 Applying the Ken Burns Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 Altering the Ken Burns Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 Deleting the Ken Burns Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Varying the Ken Burns Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 Freezing a Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 Applying Two Effects to One Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 Part III Review Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

PART IV DISTRIBUTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Chapter 11 Compressing and Exporting Your Movies . . . . . . . . 189 Saving Your iMovie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Making a Copy of Your iMovie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Exporting Your Movie to Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194 Copying your Movie onto VHS Tape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 Exporting Your Movie to QuickTime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 Understanding the QuickTime Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 Importing QuickTime Clips into Your iMovies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Preparing Files and Exporting to iDVD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Chapter 12 Internet Cinema . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Setting Up a .Mac Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 Accessing and Adding Your Movie to iDisk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 Creating and Editing Your Home Page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220 Part IV Review Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

CONTENTS

PART V APPENDIXES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Appendix A Installing and Upgrading iMovie 3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 Appendix B Expanding Your Sound Effects and Special Effects Libraries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 Extra Sound Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 Extra Special Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 Adding an Effect to iMovie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

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Introduction S

o, you wanna be in pictures? Home-movie Hitchcock wannabes have a simple and exciting desktop video-editing tool: Apple’s iMovie 3. iMovie 3 is the perfect tool for turning those long, boring home videos into interesting, polished productions that your family and friends will enjoy. Let’s face it, without video-editing software to sharpen your home movies, even your own kids and creative filming techniques (of the floor) can be unwatchable. With iMovie 3, you can be a modern-day Orson Welles, and write, direct, and star in your own original short films or edit those shelves of dusty videotapes you’ve had for years. After you master iMovie 3, you will start to think like a movie director or an editing room technician every time you pick up the camera. iMovie 3 Fast & Easy will teach you to make better home movies using Apple’s exciting video-editing software. You will learn to edit your video clips, add smooth transitions, insert opening titles and closing credits, add soundtracks and sound effects, create special effects, and export your finished production. You’ll also learn some camera shooting tricks to help you visualize a better epic. Finally, you’ll learn how to create a simple Web page to post your final masterpieces. Premier Press’s Fast & Easy guides are visual solutions to getting started and learning computer-related subjects. The easy-to-follow, highly visual Fast & Easy style makes this a perfect learning tool. Computer terms are clearly explained in non-technical language, and numbered steps keep explanations to a minimum to help you learn faster.

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INTRODUCTION

Special Features of This Book In addition to the visual and detailed descriptions of useful tasks, this book also contains some extra comments, including: Notes give background and additional information about various features. Tips reveal shortcuts or hints that make using iMovie even simpler. A glossary of terms is also included, as well as an informative appendix to help you download and install iMovie 3 from Apple’s Web site. Have fun with iMovie 3 Fast & Easy, and good luck directing your home movies. Your family and friends will thank you.

P A R T

I

Film School 101

Chapter 1 Tools of the Trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Chapter 2 Capturing Footage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

1

Tools of the Trade

What tools do you need to become a desktop filmmaker? With iMovie 3 and the plummeting prices of digital video cameras, you can now afford to use state-of-the-art video and computer hardware. You basically need four things: a digital video camera, a Macintosh, the iMovie 3 software, and a FireWire cable/port. However, it’s important to know the peripherals of iMovie 3, its computer system requirements, and the digital video cameras it supports. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to: Identify supported digital video cameras Identify computer system requirements Identify FireWire

4

CHAPTER 1: TOOLS OF THE TRADE

Digital Video Cameras Apple’s iMovie Web site lists the digital video cameras that are supported by iMovie 3 (http://www.apple.com/imovie/ compatibility/camcorder.html). In this book, I use Sony’s DCRTRV510 Digital8 Handycam model. Sony’s Digital8 camcorders offer a bridge between the old and the new, meaning that they have the advantage of being able to play back either digital video or traditional analog video. You can also capture digital information on standard 8mm and Hi8 videotapes, which are a little more affordable than mini DV tapes for DV camcorder models.

You can play back and import into iMovie your old analog video from 8mm and Hi8 tapes using your Digital8 camcorder. You’ll learn how to do this in Chapter 4, “Importing Footage.” If you have a camcorder that is not on the list on Apple’s site and you’re not sure whether it’s compatible, you can check with the camera manufacturer to find out. The camcorder also requires a FireWire, iLink, or IEEE 1394 port for importing and exporting digital video. If you are not sure whether your camcorder has this capability, check with your camera manufacturer.

The Software and the System When you purchase a brand new iMac, eMac, Power Mac G4, iBook, or PowerBook G4, iMovie 3 is already installed on the machine.

FIREWIRE

5

If you already have a Mac and you want to install iMovie 3 or update from a previous version, see Appendix A, “Installing or Upgrading iMovie 3.” But before you install iMovie 3, you need to make sure your Macintosh computer meets the following system requirements:

• •

Mac OS X v10.1.5 or later

• • •

256 MB of RAM recommended

•

1024×768 screen resolution or higher

•

QuickTime 6.1 required

Macintosh PowerPC G3 or G4 processor at 400 MHz or faster

2 GB of free hard disk space Macintosh with built-in FireWire ports

FireWire FireWire is a multimedia peripheral that allows you to import and export video and audio from your camcorder at lightning-quick speeds — 400 megabits per second (Mbps), to be exact. FireWire has 30 times more bandwidth than USB (Universal Serial Bus), which used to be the standard for this type of activity. But you don’t need to know all the technical mumbo jumbo.

6

CHAPTER 1: TOOLS OF THE TRADE

FireWire is also referred to as iLink or IEEE 1394. The FireWire cable has four-pin and six-pin connectors to connect your digital camcorder to your Macintosh. Now that you have a brief overview of the tools you’ll need to make your films, take a quick look at Chapter 2, “Capturing Footage,” to see how to shoot great footage.

2

Capturing Footage

iMovie 3 is a great editing tool, but it alone cannot help you make great movies. A great movie begins with the footage that you capture. This book will mainly teach you how to use iMovie 3, but knowing some basic camera tricks and techniques will help make your movies more interesting. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to: Compose better shots Improve zooming and panning shots Vary camera angles and shot lengths Improve lighting Steady your camcorder

8

CHAPTER 2: CAPTURING FOOTAGE

Moviemaking Composition Basics Whether you are capturing video or extracting clips from existing videotapes, it’s a good idea to have a picture in mind of what you want your video to say or accomplish. You don’t have to sketch out a storyboard like they do in Hollywood, but some advance thought will help you produce a more captivating finished product.

Including an Establishing Shot The establishing shot, or full shot, shows the audience the setting of the scene and establishes how the subjects of your movie fit in with the background or surroundings. You should include this shot somewhere at the beginning of your movie, so your audience can see the big picture early on.

MOVIEMAKING COMPOSITION BASICS

9

Moving into Medium Shots Medium shots reveal the action and subject of the movie.

They generally show one to three players within a small area, and include the gestures and expressions of the subjects in the shot.

10


My Close-Up, Please Close-up shots introduce the individual players to the audience.

Expressions and emotions are revealed through zoomed-in, tight frames of your actors’ faces. Close-up shots of subtle objects, such as a time clock ticking slowly away at a sporting event, are also very effective.

SHOOTING BETTER VIDEO

11

Shooting Better Video Techniques such as zooming and panning add to the effectiveness of your movie, but you must use them judiciously and correctly. Here’s a quick tour of the camera dos and don’ts to help you in your moviemaking.

Zooming It takes a little while to get the feel for delicately zooming in and out with your camcorder. It’s important to zoom in and out slowly when you’re going from a full shot to a close-up or from a medium shot to a full shot. Many people make the mistake of constantly zooming in and out, thus confusing or dizzying the viewers.

A better way to create the same effect might be to stop recording, move to a new location or change your zoom setting, and then start recording again. This is frequently called a jump cut, or cut zoom in/out.

12


Panning A panning shot rotates the video camera along a horizontal line, from right to left or vice versa. A common mistake is to quickly sweep back and forth across a scene, confusing or dizzying the viewer.

Again, another way to vary this panning technique is to stop the camcorder and vary the angles and shot lengths. Panning is effective when done slowly and steadily, however, and is useful when capturing a scene that cannot fit into one establishing shot, such as footage of the Grand Canyon.

SHOOTING BETTER VIDEO

13

Varying Angles and Shot Lengths As I mentioned before, one of the most effective ways to make your movie more engaging is to vary the angles and shot lengths.

Capture or select footage from the front, side, above, and straight on. Also, use full shots, medium shots, and close-ups throughout your movie.

14


Lighting Bad lighting can easily wash out your videos. This might go without saying, but try to avoid shooting into a bright light, such as sunlight, lamplight, or light blazing through a window. In your basic filming of scenes, try to put your main light source behind and to one side of you, so your subject is well lit and doesn’t cast any shadows.

Sometimes lighting is used not only to illuminate the scene, but also to set a mood. For instance, lighting people from below makes them look evil; lit from above, they look angelic.

STEADYING SECRETS

15

Steadying Secrets Even though many camcorders have stabilization features that compensate for your shaky hands, it can be difficult to keep the camera still. Tripods are the best solution for shots that absolutely need to be steady. You can also use pillows and beanbags for support. Pillows and beanbags mold to fit the contours of your camcorder while you rest it on the ground or other flat surface.

Leaning on a table to brace yourself also gives you a steadier shot. Or, you can kneel or sit down and rest the camcorder on your knee or in your lap to reduce those camera shakes.

16


Other Non-Static Shots Most of the time, your subjects should be moving, not the camera. In certain situations, though, it’s effective to use tracking shots, in which you physically move along with the camera as it is shooting. Be careful, though. Even though these shots can be effective and show more action in your movie, you don’t want to overdo them. You still want to be steady and avoid too many of the nauseatingly jerky shots that this type of technique can produce. Think Blair Witch Project. Enough said.

Dolly shots have the camera moving on a smooth track. It’s a cross between a tracking shot and a tripod. Hollywood uses actual dollies created specifically for this technique. . . . I created this effect by setting the camera on our baby stroller.

UNIQUE ANGLE PERSPECTIVES AND CAMERA TRICKS

17

Unique Angle Perspectives and Camera Tricks Don’t be afraid to experiment. There are no rules. The ways you frame a scene or position, group, arrange, and view your players or objects can add emotional impact to your finished production. For example, tilting the camera slightly can add tension to a scene.

Use dramatic angles. Low camera angles can make your characters and objects appear tall and powerful. Lie down on the ground to capture these. Diminish your characters and objects with high camera angles. Get up in a building or a tree, or get on a ladder to get these shots.

18


Use extreme close-ups to frame a magnified view of inanimate objects or your characters. Extreme close-ups are effective because viewers are not used to seeing a magnified level of detail in people and objects.

By filling the frame with an extreme close-up, you draw the viewer directly to that subject.

PART I REVIEW QUESTIONS

Part I Review Questions 1. What video cameras are compatible with iMovie 3? See Digital Video Cameras in Chapter 1

2. What is digital video? See Chapter 1 3. What are the minimum computer system requirements to run iMovie 3? See The Software and the System in Chapter 1

4. Why is FireWire important to iMovie 3? See FireWire in Chapter 1

5. What is an establishing shot? See Including an Establishing Shot in Chapter 2

6. Why is it important to limit zooming and panning with your camcorder? See Zooming and Panning in Chapter 2

7. What’s a better way to use the zooming and panning effects? See Varying Angles and Shot Lengths in Chapter 2

8. What are some non-static shots and how should you use them? See Other Non-Static Shots in Chapter 2

9. What are some tricks to steady your camera? See Steadying Secrets in Chapter 2

10. How can you avoid bad lighting? See Lighting in Chapter 2

19

P A R T

I I

The Importing and Editing Room Chapter 3 Lights, Camera . . . Starting Your Epic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Chapter 4 Importing Footage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Chapter 5 The Cutting Room Floor . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

3

Lights, Camera . . . Starting Your Epic

Now that you know the basics about your equipment and how to capture video, it’s time to fire up iMovie 3 and feel your way around the screen. Quiet on the set, ‘cause we’re getting ready to roll. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to: Connect your camcorder to your Mac Start iMovie Create a new project Preview your video Get help

24

CHAPTER 3: LIGHTS, CAMERA . . . STARTING YOUR EPIC

Connecting Your Camcorder All new iMacs, eMacs, Power Macs, iBooks, and Power Books come with the FireWire cable and ports you need to connect your digital video camera to your computer. Two FireWire ports are built into these machines. If you have an older Macintosh, it must have a built-in FireWire port or an add-on FireWire card for you to be able to connect your DV camera and import digital video footage.

NOTE If all you plan to do is edit existing digital video, QuickTime movies, or still pictures in iMovie 3, you don’t need a FireWire port and cable. You can download, install, and run iMovie 3 on Macintosh computers that meet the minimum system requirements; you just can’t import digital video from your camcorder.

Put the longer, flatter (six-pin) end of the FireWire cable into the appropriate port in your Mac . . .

OPENING iMOVIE FOR THE FIRST TIME

25

. . . and the smaller, square (fourpin) end into the appropriate slot in your camcorder. The position of the camcorder slot will vary depending on the make and model of your camera. That’s it. You’re connected.

Opening iMovie for the First Time If iMovie 3 is already installed on your computer, all you have to do is fire it up from the Dock. If you still need to acquire and install iMovie 3, refer to Appendix A, “Installing or Upgrading iMovie 3.”

1. Click on the iMovie icon on the Dock. The program will open and a Welcome to iMovie box will open.

26


2. Click on one of the following: •

Create Project. This will allow you to create a new iMovie project. You will learn more about creating a new project in the “Creating a New Project” section later in this chapter.

•

Open Existing Project. This will allow you to open an existing iMovie project that you have already created. If this is the first time you’ve used iMovie, you obviously will not have any existing iMovie projects to open. You’ll learn more about opening an existing iMovie project in Chapter 4, “Importing Footage,” after you’ve had the chance to import footage and create some movies.

•

Quit. This will allow you to exit iMovie.

CREATING A NEW PROJECT

27

Creating a New Project You just learned that when you start iMovie for the first time, a text box will give you the option to create a project, open an existing project, or quit. If you are still at the opening screen, click on Create Project and then jump to Step 3 in this section. Otherwise, start at Step 1.

1. Click on File. The File menu will appear.

2. Click on New Project. A new project window will drop down.

3. Type a name for your movie in the Save as text box.

28


4a. Navigate to a folder in which you want to save the movie by clicking on the up and down arrows to the right of the Where text box. If you selected this option, you can skip to Step 8. OR

4b. If you want to create a new folder, click on the down arrow button to the right of the up and down arrows. A list of folders will appear.

5. Click on the New Folder button. The New Folder box will open. 6. Type a new name in the Name of new folder text box. 7. Click on the Create button. The new folder will be created.

PREVIEWING YOUR VIDEO IN THE MONITOR WINDOW

29

8. Click on Save. Your new project will be saved in the designated folder. The iMovie screen will appear with a blank Monitor window and your movie file name in the Movie Timeline and at the top of the project.

Previewing Your Video in the Monitor Window You can start previewing your footage with just a click of your mouse. Make sure your camera is switched to VTR/VCR mode, or you won’t be able to see your footage on your computer screen.

1. Click on the Play button. Your video will play in the Monitor window.

30


2. Click on the Fast Forward and Rewind buttons to scan through your video. TIP You can use the Play, Fast Forward, Rewind, Pause, and Stop buttons on your camcorder to achieve the same results.

3. Click on the Pause or Stop buttons to pause or stop your video, respectively. NOTE The video playback on your monitor will be choppier than the playback you see on the viewfinder of your camcorder’s flip screen. This is because digital video on your computer monitor only plays at approximately 20 frames per second. Normal DV plays at approximately 30 frames per second.

WHAT’S ON THE iMOVIE SCREEN?

31

What’s on the iMovie Screen? Now that you’ve started iMovie, you will want to know all of the features you can toy with to create the perfect production. Later chapters will go into detail on each feature — this is just a quick tour around the iMovie screen.

•

Monitor window. This is where you can preview your video directly from your digital camera, using the Rewind, Fast Forward, Play, Stop, and Pause buttons along the bottom of the window. You will also preview your clips and iMovies here.

•

Clips Pane. This is where you’ll store clips that you might decide to use later in your final epic. It is also where clips are automatically imported.

•

Design Pane. This is where you’ll enhance your movies with titles, transitions, effects, audio, and still images. It’s also where you will create DVDs of your movies.

32


•

Menu bar. The File, Edit, Advanced, Window, and Help menus guide you through tasks.

•

Movie Timeline. This is where your movie will come together. You will edit, place, enhance, and arrange clips, audio, and transitions. The Movie Timeline has two views — Clips view and Timeline view, which you’ll learn about in detail in later chapters. Timeline view is shown here.

•

Scrubber bar. Using this bar, you can drag through a clip frame by frame.

•

Mode button. You will use this button to switch between Camera mode (for transferring video from your camcorder) and Edit mode (for editing your movie).

•

Volume slider. You can use this slider to control the volume of your playback.

•

Trash. This is where you will discard unwanted clips and free up that valuable hard disk space.

•

Disk space indicator. This monitors your available hard disk space.

Again, you will learn in detail how to use all these features in the subsequent chapters of this book.

GETTING HELP

33

Getting Help If you run into trouble and need a quick solution to your problem, you can always access the Help files within iMovie. If I’ve done my job, by the time you finish reading this book, you’ll never need to open these help features . . . but I’ve never been one to turn away a helping hand.

Getting Help from the Help Files The iMovie Help files offer a way to search for answers to specific questions in iMovie. A simple point, click, and search can yield the information you need.

1. Click on Help. The Help menu will appear.

2. Click on iMovie Help. The iMovie Help dialog box will open.

3. Click on one of the following options:

•

What’s new. This lets you know what’s new in the latest version of iMovie.

•

Overview. This gives you a quick rundown of the necessary requirements to run iMovie, and some info about iMovie in general.

•

Tutorial. This gives you seven lessons on the basic concepts and tasks in iMovie.

34


•

Contents. This provides a list of topics in case you are not exactly sure what to search for.

•

Website. This takes you directly to Apple’s iMovie Web site (as long as you are connected to the Internet).

You can also ask a specific question.

4. Type your question in the Ask a Question text box. 5. Press Return on your keyboard. The search results will appear.

GETTING HELP

35

6. Click on the result that most closely relates to your question. An answer will appear in the bottom portion of the Help box.

Getting Help from Keyboard Shortcuts The Help menu also has a quick list of keyboard shortcuts at your disposal.

1. Click on Help. The Help menu will appear.

2. Click on iMovie Keyboard Shortcuts. A list of keyboard shortcuts will appear.

4

Importing Footage

Before you jump in and start editing scenes in iMovie, it’s best to have a picture of your epic in your mind, so you know what footage you need to gather and import. iMovie will help you make the production, but it cannot provide the vision. After you have planned all your shots and captured the footage, you’re ready to begin importing and editing the footage. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to: Import clips from your camcorder Store clips Use the scene-detection feature Import analog video Save and open iMovie projects

38

CHAPTER 4: IMPORTING FOOTAGE

Switching Modes iMovie includes two modes: Edit and Camera. Before you can begin editing your clips, you need to get into Edit mode. If you are importing digital video clips, then you need to be in Camera mode.

1. If you haven’t already done so, launch iMovie. iMovie will open. You’ll notice there is a blue toggle switch between the Monitor window and the Movie Timeline.

2. Click on one of the following: •

Camera (the camera icon). The blue screen in the Monitor window will indicate whether or not the camera is connected. Note that your camera needs to be in VCR/VTR mode for iMovie to read that it is connected.

•

Edit (the scissors icon). The blue screen in the Monitor window will turn black.

IMPORTING CLIPS FROM YOUR CAMERA

39

Importing Clips from Your Camera Once you’ve captured your footage, you need to get it into iMovie. Make sure your digital video camera is connected to your Mac, your digital videotape of footage is in your camera, and the camera is on and switched to the VTR/VCR setting.

1. Switch to Camera mode, which you learned how to accomplish in the previous section. You will now be able to import your video.

2a. Click on the Play button below the Monitor window. OR

2b. Press the Play button on your camcorder. Your video will play in the Monitor window. 3. Click on the Import button just below the Monitor window when you find a scene you want to import into iMovie. The clip will appear in the Clips Pane, with a running time count in the upper-left corner of the clip and the clip number at the bottom of the clip. TIP You can skip Steps 2a or 2b if you want to — clicking on Import will immediately import the video footage from your camcorder. However, if you want more control over what footage you import into iMovie, you might want to press the Play button first and then click on Import when you see specific footage you want to use.

40


4. Click on Import again when you want to stop importing footage. The final length of the clip will appear in the upper-left corner of the clip.

TIP Don’t worry about importing and ending your clip at exactly the right spot. Later, you’ll edit the individual clips precisely with cropping tools. With that in mind, it’s best to give yourself some breathing room. Start importing footage a few frames ahead of where you want the clip to start. Stop importing the footage a few frames after where you want the clip to end. This will ensure that you have all the footage from that particular clip, and you can always edit again later.

Setting the Destination for Your Imported Clips As you just learned, the digital video clips that you import into iMovie are saved to the Clips Pane. This is the easiest way to manage your clips in the initial stages of editing. If you want, however, you can change this setting to automatically save your clips to the Movie Timeline (which you’ll learn more about in Chapter 5, “The Cutting Room Floor”).

SETTING THE DESTINATION FOR YOUR IMPORTED CLIPS

41

1. Click on iMovie. The iMovie menu will appear. 2. Click on Preferences. The Preferences dialog box will open.

3. Click on the Movie Timeline button. 4. Click on the close button. Your clips will now import directly into the Movie Timeline.

42


Using iMovie’s SceneDetection Feature You can import and separate clips using an automatic scenedetection feature in iMovie. iMovie will automatically find the beginning and end of a scene that you captured and save it as one clip. You might have noticed that iMovie was doing this during your importing — it may already be set to this feature. If you are a moviemaker who likes to stop and start the camera often, this is a great feature.

1. Click on iMovie. The iMovie menu will appear.

2. Click on Preferences. The Preferences dialog box will open.

3. Click on the Automatically start new clip at scene break check box, if it is not already selected. (The option is probably selected already by default.)

IMPORTING ANALOG VIDEO

43

4. Click on the close button. Now, when iMovie detects where you started a new scene, a new clip will appear in the Clips Pane (or the Movie Timeline, if you have designated that as the destination for the clips you import). When iMovie detects the end of a scene, that clip will stop importing and a new clip will appear with the next scene you captured. You can just sit back and watch iMovie create the clips for you.

Importing Analog Video If you want to import some old VHS tape footage into iMovie, you can dub the footage onto a DV tape and then import it into iMovie. All you need is a VCR, some A/V connecting cables, your DV camcorder, a blank DV tape, and, of course, your VHS footage. (Some video cameras do not support AV input, so check with your camera manufacturer to see whether you can proceed with this section.)

1. Insert your VHS footage into your VCR, and insert a blank DV tape into your camcorder. 2. Attach one end of the A/V connecting cables to the appropriate ports on your camcorder.

44


3. Attach the other end of the A/V connecting cables to the output ports on your VCR.

4. Confirm that your camcorder is set to VTR/VCR and press the Play button on your VCR. The VHS footage will play in your camcorder . . .

IMPORTING ANALOG VIDEO

45

. . . and on your television.

5. Press the Record button on your camcorder at the instant you want your footage to start recording on your DV tape. The footage will begin recording. 6. Press the Stop button when you want to cease recording the footage. The recording will stop. Now you have your old analog video footage on your DV tape, ready to import into iMovie. Just follow the steps in the “Importing Clips from your Camera” section earlier in the chapter to help you import the footage into iMovie, and you’re all set.

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NOTE You’ll notice that the footage might be a bit grainy. It’s definitely not going to have the same sharp quality as your digital videos, but the important thing is that you got the footage into iMovie.

Saving Your iMovie Project Now that you’ve created a new project, imported some footage, and named your project (in Chapter 3), you need to save the project so you can make further enhancements down the road.

1. Click on File. The File menu will appear. 2. Click on Save Project. Your project and all of the changes you made will be saved.

NOTE Your project will be saved in the folder in which you originally created it (which you did back in Chapter 3, in the “Creating a New Project” section).

OPENING AN EXISTING iMOVIE PROJECT

47

Opening an Existing iMovie Project Now that you actually have a movie project, you need to know how to access it when you want to do further work on it or simply view it. By now, you might have imported hours of footage and saved it as three or four different movie projects.

1. Open iMovie, if it isn’t already open. iMovie will open with the last project you worked on. 2. Click on File. The File menu will appear. 3. Click on Open Project. Your movie folder directory will drop down.

4. Click on the movie folder that you want to open. The movie folder will be selected.

48


Three icons will appear in the left side of the window. One is the actual iMovie project, another is a QuickTime movie file of your iMovie, and the last one is a Media folder that houses all of the individual clips for your iMovie.

5. Click on the iMovie file (the top icon). The right side of the window will show the type of file, how big it is, when it was created, and when it was modified.

6. Click on Open.

The movie will open. You’re all set to play the movie project or work on it as you wish.

5

The Cutting Room Floor

With iMovie, you can edit your clips to filter out hours of the repetitive footage you take while waiting for your 11-month-old son to take his first steps. You can make it look as if he did it on cue, even though it took an entire cassette of digital tape. You will get an idea of what Hollywood film editors go through to make a great film. And the next time you watch the Academy Awards, maybe you won’t go to the kitchen to make a sandwich when the Oscar for Best Film Editing is announced. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to: Select and rename clips Crop and split clips Restore clips Copy and move clips Trash clips

50

CHAPTER 5: THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR

Selecting Clips You can select a single clip or several at once. Later in this chapter, you’ll learn more about moving, editing, and modifying clips. In these situations, you might need to work with just one clip, or perhaps a few at a time. To start the following exercises, open your iMovie project and make sure you are in Edit mode, if you haven’t already done so. If you don’t remember how to do this, jump back to Chapter 4 for a quick review.

1. In the Clips Pane, click on one clip to edit. The clip will be highlighted and will appear in the Monitor window.

NOTE You will notice that a long blue bar appears under the Monitor window after you select your clip. This is called the Scrubber bar. You will learn more about using this editing tool in later sections of this chapter, starting with the “Cropping Clips” section.

2. Press and hold the Shift key and click on any other clips you want to select. All the clips that you click on will be highlighted in blue, indicating that they are selected. The clip that appears first in the Pane will show up in the Monitor window.

PLAYING CLIPS

51

3. Click anywhere outside of the Clips Pane if you want to deselect the clips. The highlighted clips will be deselected, and the Monitor window will fade to black.

Playing Clips You can preview your clips to get an idea of what you might need to modify.

1. Click on a clip or clips, as you learned in the previous section. The clip or clips will be selected.

2. Click on the Play button. The clip(s) will play.

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Notice that the buttons below the Monitor window are different in Edit mode. Click on either of the following buttons:

•

Play Full-Screen button. The clip or clips will play on your entire computer screen. Press the Esc key to return to the iMovie screen.

•

Home button. You will be returned to the beginning of the clip or clips you selected.

Accessing a Clip’s Info In iMovie, you can access a clip’s name, find out its size, see when the clip was captured, and discover its duration. The main reason to access a clip’s information is to rename it. iMovie just assigns a generic “Clip #” name when a clip is imported. To better manage your clips and so you know what clips you’re dealing with, it’s a good idea to give them more descriptive names.

1. Double-click on a clip. The clip’s Clip Info window will appear. The window includes the following information:

•

Name. This is the temporary name that iMovie assigns to the clip.

ACCESSING A CLIP’S INFO

53

•

Media File. This is the permanent file name of the clip. This name isn’t changed, even after you change the temporary name.

•

Size. This shows you the size of the clip.

•

Captured. This shows you the date you captured the clip.

•

Duration. This shows you the length of the clip.

2. Select the text in the Name text box to rename the clip. The text will be highlighted. 3. Type the new name of the clip. 4. Click on OK. The new name will take effect.

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NOTE Notice when you doubleclick on the clip you just renamed, the clip shows the new name in the Name text box, but it also displays the original clip name in the Media File section, as I mentioned earlier. iMovie doesn’t rename the media clips it houses in the Media folder within an iMovie project. You’ll learn more about media clips in Chapter 11, “Compressing and Exporting Your Movies.”

Cropping Clips Here’s your chance to crop out that unwanted footage from the beginning and end of your clip, or edit your clip just the way you want it.

1. Click on the clip you want to crop. The clip will be selected and will appear in the Monitor window.

CROPPING CLIPS

55

2. Click and hold the mouse button on the crop markers (the two triangles below the Scrubber bar) and drag the mouse to the right until you are at the position where you want the clip’s footage to end. The right crop marker will move along with the mouse pointer and, as you move to the right, the playhead will move along with the crop marker, the blue Scrubber bar will turn yellow on the left, the video will move along in the Monitor window, and the time of the clip will increase.

3. Release the mouse button. The right crop marker will be set at your desired position. 4. Click and hold the mouse button on the left crop marker and drag it to the right until you are at the position where you want the clip’s footage to begin. The crop marker and playhead will move along with the mouse pointer and, as you move to the right, the Scrubber bar will turn back to blue and the video will move along in the Monitor window.

56


5. Release the mouse button. The left crop marker will be set at the desired position.

TIP For even more precise control over the placement of your crop markers, click on one of the crop markers to select it, and then use the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard to position the crop markers. As you tap the arrow keys, watch as the video moves one frame at a time in the Monitor window.

6. Click on Edit. The Edit menu will appear.

7. Click on Crop. The clip will be cropped before and after the section marked by yellow in the Scrubber bar.

UNDOING AND REDOING CROPS

57

Undoing and Redoing Crops If you’ve cropped a clip and then you decide you want to go back to how it was, you can use the Undo feature, which is similar to the Undo feature in many software programs. You can also redo the undo. Keep in mind, though, that you can only Undo or Redo for the most recent action you’ve taken.

1. Click on Edit. The Edit menu will appear. 2. Click on Undo. The clip will return to its previously saved state. OK, so you can’t make up your mind, and now you do want the clip the way you cropped it.

3. Click on Edit. The Edit menu will appear. 4. Click on Redo. The clip will revert to the way you cropped it.

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NOTE The Undo and Redo features work for any action you’ve just taken and want to reverse, not just cropping. Follow the previous steps to undo or redo anything. However, you cannot use Undo or Redo after performing a Save or Save As, so be certain about the changes you are making to your clip before you save. Follow the steps in the next section, “Restoring Clips,” if you need to restore a clip to its original state after saving changes.

Restoring Clips If you’ve made several edits to a clip, but now you want to revert to the clip’s original state, you can use iMovie’s Restore Clip feature.

1. Click on the clip you want to restore. The clip will be selected.

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2. Click on Advanced. The Advanced menu will appear. 3. Click on Restore Clip. A confirm message box will appear, asking whether you want to restore the original clip media.

4. Click on OK. The clip will be restored. CAUTION You can only restore a clip to its original state if you have not emptied the trash in iMovie. Once you have emptied the trash containing the edited footage from the clip you want to restore, iMovie has no way to retrieve the media files that you have permanently deleted.

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Splitting Clips The split-clip feature allows you to take an imported clip and split it into two separate clips. This is important when you have imported a clip of a certain scene and you want the clip to have a transition within it (you’ll learn about transitions in Chapter 6, “Stylish Transition Effects”), or when you want to include parts of an imported clip at different places in your finished movie. Also, you might have footage in the middle of a clip that you want to crop out. By splitting the clip to create two separate clips, you can crop each at the beginning and/or end.

1. Click on the clip that you want to split. The clip will appear in the Monitor window.

2. Press and hold the mouse button on the playhead (the triangle icon in the blue Scrubber bar) and drag it to the spot where you want to split the clip. Remember, you can use the arrow keys for more precise navigation.

3. Release the mouse button. The playhead will be in position.

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4. Click on Edit. The Edit menu will appear. 5. Click on Split Video Clip at Playhead. The single clip will become two separate clips, and both will appear in the Clips Pane.

Notice that the first part of the clip retains the original name of the clip, whereas a /1 is appended to the name of the second part of the clip.

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Copying Clips Instead of splitting a clip in two, maybe you want an exact copy of it. One reason to create a copy of a clip is to leave one version of the clip in its original form while testing effects and edits on another version. By making a copy, you will always have the original footage exactly the way you captured it.

1. Click on the clip you want to copy. The clip will be selected and will appear in the Monitor window.


3. Click on Copy. A copy of the clip will be made.


5. Click on Paste. The copied clip will appear in the Clips Pane, next to the original.

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Notice that the copied clip has the same name as the original. You can always change the name of the copy using the method you learned earlier in this chapter, in the “Accessing a Clip’s Info” section.

Moving Clips from the Clips Pane to the Movie Timeline After cropping a clip just the way you like it, you might want to move it to the Movie Timeline, where you can see your movie come together chronologically. You can put as many clips as you want on the Movie Timeline, in any order you want. You can also shuffle clips around and add transitions, special effects, audio effects, and so on. You’ll learn all about the special features of the Movie Timeline as you read the rest of the chapters in this book. For now, you need to start by getting the clips onto the Movie Timeline.

1. If it isn’t already selected, select the filmstrip icon above and to the far left of the Movie Timeline. 2. In the Clips Pane, click and hold the mouse button on the clip you want to move and drag the clip to the Movie Timeline.

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3. Release the mouse button. The clip will appear in the Movie Timeline.

4. Click and hold the mouse button on other clips you want to move and drag them to the Movie Timeline.

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Often, you’ll want to insert a clip between two clips in the Movie Timeline. Notice that when you drag a clip and move it into position between two existing clips, the existing clips separate to make room for the new clip. Release the mouse button to insert your clip between them.

Trashing Clips Do you have clips that you’ve decided not to use? Want to free up some space? Dump them in the trash can. Just remember, once you empty the trash, you can’t retrieve anything that was in it.

1. Click on the clip you want to trash. The clip will be selected (highlighted in blue). 2. Press and hold the mouse button on the clip and drag it to the trash can icon in the lowerright corner of the screen. 3. Release the mouse button when the trash can is highlighted. The clip will be trashed.

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5. Click on Empty Trash. A confirmation message box will open.

6. Click on OK. The trash will be emptied.

PART II REVIEW QUESTIONS

Part II Review Questions 1. How do you create your first iMovie project? See Creating a New Project in Chapter 3

2. How do you view your video on the computer screen? See Previewing Your Video in the Monitor Window in Chapter 3

3. How do you get your video into iMovie? See Importing Clips from Your Camera in Chapter 4

4. How do you save your imported clips to the Movie Timeline? See Setting the Destination for Your Imported Clips in Chapter 4

5. How do you automatically find the beginning and end of a video scene and save that scene as a clip? See Using iMovie’s SceneDetection Feature in Chapter 4

6. How do you name to a clip? See Accessing a Clip’s Info in Chapter 5

7. How do you cut unwanted footage from clips? See Cropping Clips in Chapter 5

8. How do you split a clip into two separate clips? See Splitting Clips in Chapter 5

9. How do you put a clip in the Clip Viewer? See Moving Clips from the Clips Pane to the Movie Timeline in Chapter 5

10. How do you make an exact copy of a clip? See Copying Clips in Chapter 5

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P A R T

I I I

Audio and Video Effects Chapter 6 Stylish Transition Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Chapter 7 Titles and Text Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Chapter 8 Soundtracks and Audio Effects. . . . . . .

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Chapter 9 Special Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 Chapter 10 Still Image Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

6

Stylish Transition Effects

Transitions can make your movie look seamless. Instead of straight cuts from one scene to the next, you can apply a number of different transition effects to the breaks in action. The transitions in iMovie add stylish cross-fades, dissolves, washes, and other effects to your videos. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to: Select a transition Set the speed of a transition Add, change, and delete transitions Insert a clip in a transition

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CHAPTER 6: STYLISH TRANSITION EFFECTS

Selecting a Transition Selecting transitions for your scenes takes a bit of forethought. You can mix or match different transitions, but it’s usually best to stay simple and consistent and use similar effects throughout the picture. Some of the best editing and transitions occur when the viewer doesn’t notice they are even there at all. Try some of these effects and see what works best for your footage.

1. Move your clips from the Clips Pane to the Movie Timeline, if they’re not already there.

2. Arrange the clips in the order you want them. (You can rearrange them later, but it’s a good idea to have them somewhat in the order you’ll eventually want them.)

NOTE Go back to Chapter 5, “The Cutting Room Floor,” if you need a refresher on how to move your clips to the Movie Timeline.

3. Click on Trans in the Design Pane. The Transitions Pane will appear.

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4. Select two clips on which you want to preview the effects of a transition. 5. Click on a transition effect. The effect will quickly appear in the small preview window in the Transitions Pane. 6. Click on Preview. The transition effect will appear in the Monitor window on the clip you selected. This will give you a good idea of how this transition will look with your clips before you add the effect.

NOTE As of this writing, the Preview button doesn’t seem to want to work properly. This might be a bug with iMovie 3, so check http://www.apple.com/imovie for updates that may rectify this glitch. If you are having this problem, try resizing the iMovie window after you select a transition. To do so, press and hold the mouse button on the triangular grooves in the bottom-right corner of the iMovie window and drag up and to the left just slightly. Then click on the Preview button. The effect should preview in the Monitor window after you do this.

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Setting Transition Speed You need to assign a duration, or speed, to your transitions. If you want a slow, deliberate effect between your clips, you should increase the duration. If you want just a slight hint of an effect, reduce the duration.

1. Click and hold the mouse button on the Speed slider in the Transitions Pane.

2a. Drag the slider to the left to reduce the duration of the transition. OR

2b. Drag the slider to the right to increase the duration of the transition. The transition time will appear in the lower-right corner of the preview window as you drag the slider.

NOTE The number at the left end of the Speed slider, 00:10, or 10 frames, represents the minimum length you can set for a transition. The number at the right, 04:00, or 4 seconds, represents the maximum length you can set for a transition. As you drag the slider, the duration appears in the lower-right corner of the preview window. For example, 01:20 means that your transition is 1 second and 20 frames in length.

3. Release the mouse button when you reach your desired duration. The transition effect you chose, as well as the duration you established, will be shown in the preview window.

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Adding the Transition Now that you’ve thought about the effect you want for your clips, selected a transition, and set the duration, you need to add the transition.

1. Press and hold the mouse button on the transition you’ve selected and drag the transition to where you want to apply it. The clips will move slightly to make room for the transition. 2. Release the mouse button and drop the transition. A monitor icon will appear where you added the transition. A red bar will appear and slowly extend at the bottom of the monitor icon. This is iMovie rendering the transition. NOTE The longer the transition, the longer iMovie takes to render it. Rendering is when iMovie creates video frames for the transition. You might want to keep this in mind when you are determining how large you want your finished movie to be, and how you eventually plan to export the movie. For example, if you are planning to send this movie in an email to your relatives, you might want to keep the transitions short and sweet.

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3. Repeat the process to add more transitions.

NOTE You might notice that the clips at the active ends of a transition shrink a bit in duration when you add the effect. (You can tell a clip has a transition attached to it by the small tabs on the sides of the monitor icon.) This is because the transition uses up a few frames of the clips to produce its effect.

Why Use Certain Transitions? Some of the transitions in iMovie need to be placed between two clips because they utilize both clips in their effect. Cross Dissolve and Push are two examples of transitions that need to use two clips to produce their effects. Certain transition effects work best when you use them in combination or at the beginning or end of your movie. The Fade and Wash transitions are two such effects. For example, adding a Wash Out transition to the end of one clip and a Wash In transition to the beginning of the following clip creates a smooth effect. You can place a Fade In transition before the first clip in your movie and a Fade Out transition at the end of the last clip.

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Notice that there are tabs on the transition’s monitor icon that attach to the clips associated with the effect. These tabs indicate whether the selected transition uses one or both of the clips surrounding it.

Also notice that when you select certain transitions, a directional dial appears. Certain transitions have a directional effect associated with them, so you can choose, for instance, to “push” the next clip in a scene to the right, left, up, or down.

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NOTE The transition duration cannot be longer than the corresponding clip’s duration. You will get an error message if you try to attach a transition that is longer than the clip to which you want to attach it.

Another thing to keep in mind is not to overuse transitions. Many times video editors get overzealous and add transitions everywhere. A straight cut between scenes can be just as effective as a transition. The next time you go to the movies, check out how many times special effects for transitions between scenes are used versus how many times just a simple cut is used.

Changing Transitions Change your mind about that Wash Out transition? You can change the style, duration, or both of any transition.

1. Click on the transition you want to change. The transition will be selected.

2. Click on a new transition style in the Transitions Pane. The new style will be selected.

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3. Move the Speed slider to a new duration. The new duration will be selected.

4. Click on Update. The changes will take effect, and the new transition will be rendered.

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Deleting Transitions Want to get rid of that transition altogether? You can completely delete it. The first few frames of the clip that were used with the transition will be restored after you delete it.

1. Click on the transition you want to delete. The transition will be selected.

2. Press the Delete key. The transition will be deleted.

Inserting a Clip Where a Transition Exists Suppose you decide that you want to add a new clip between two existing clips connected by a transition, and you want that same transition to appear on either side of the new clip. If you drag the new clip to the Movie Timeline, iMovie doesn’t open a space for you to drop the clip — you can’t split a transition, so to speak. Sometimes you just have to improvise.

1. Click on the transition in the Movie Timeline where you want to add your new clip. The transition will be selected.

2. Press the Delete key. The transition will be deleted.

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3. Click on Clips in the Design Pane, if it isn’t already selected. The Clips Pane will appear. 4. Drag the new clip from the Clips Pane to the area where you deleted the transition in the Movie Timeline.

5. Release the mouse button. The clip will appear in position between the clips.

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6. Click on Trans in the Design Pane. The Transitions Pane will appear.

7. Add the transitions between the clip you just dragged to the Movie Timeline and the clips on either side of it. In doing so, you have essentially “split” your transition in two and inserted a clip.

7

Titles and Text Effects

A picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes you just need to spell it out for your audience. Using text in your movies allows you to give titles to your epics, provide explanation, and give credit where credit is due. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to: Select a title style and background Work with font styles and colors Adjust the duration of your title Position your title Add a black screen Change or delete your title

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CHAPTER 7: TITLES AND TEXT EFFECTS

Opening the Titles Pane The Titles option is located at the bottom of the Design Pane, along with the Clips, Transitions, Effects, and Audio options. You open the Titles Pane the same way you opened the Transitions Pane in Chapter 6.

1. Move your clips from the Clips Pane to the Movie Timeline, if you haven’t done so already.

NOTE You must have your clips in the Movie Timeline to add title effects to your movie. You can’t add titles to clips while they are in the Clips Pane.

2. Click on Titles in the Design Pane. The Titles Pane will appear.

3. Click on Clips or any of the other Design Pane options to “close” the Titles Pane. The Titles Pane will disappear.

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Selecting a Title Style Just below the preview window and the Speed and Pause slider bars in the Titles Pane is a list of the title styles available for you to use.

1. Click on a clip on which you want to place a title. The clip will be selected. 2. Click on Titles in the Design Pane, if you haven’t already done so. The Titles Pane will appear. 3. Drag the scroll bar in the title styles window to search through the different styles available. 4. Click on a style name. The title style will quickly preview in the small preview window.

Typing Your Title Text Depending on the style of title you choose, different title text boxes will be available. Some styles allow you to type in long blocks of text or scrolling credits. Others allow you to simply add a short, one-line billboard. You’ll see what’s available after you select a style.

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1. Triple-click on the default text in the title text box. The default text will be highlighted.

2. Type the title you want for your movie.

3. Press Return.

Your title will preview in the preview window.

4. Click on the Preview button. Your title will preview in the Monitor window.

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NOTE As of this writing, the Preview button doesn’t seem to work properly. This might be a bug with iMovie 3, so check http://www.apple.com/imovie for updates that may rectify this glitch. If you are having this problem, try resizing the iMovie window after you select a title style. To resize the window, press and hold the mouse button on the triangular grooves in the bottom-right corner of the iMovie window and drag up and to the left just slightly. Then click on the Preview button. The title should preview in the Monitor window after you do this.

Selecting a Title Background There are three ways you can show the opening title for your movie: over a video clip, over a plain black screen, or over a still image. You can select the first two options directly from the Titles Pane; the following steps describe this process. See Chapter 10, “Still Image Effects,” for more information about the third option.

1a. Click on the Over Black check box to select it. A check mark will appear in the check box. This will allow your title to be shown over a black background rather than over a video clip. OR

1b. Leave the Over Black check box unchecked and click on the clip to which you want to add your title. This will allow you to use the video clip as the background for your title.

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Working with Fonts The font you choose for your movie title sets the tone for your entire epic. Different font styles, sizes, and colors say various things to the audience. Also, you want your audience to be able to read the font easily.

Selecting a Font Style It’s important to choose the correct font for your movie, since different fonts will set different tones. For example, a thicker, bolder font makes a strong impression, whereas a smaller, more delicate font sets a gentler mood.

1. Select the clip on which you want your title to appear or click on the Over Black check box to select a black background for your title.

2. Click on the font styles popup menu. A list of fonts will appear.

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3. Click on a font from the list. The font will preview in the preview window.

NOTE Another thing to keep in mind when selecting a font style is how your movie will be shown to your audience. Although a thin, script-type font might look nice on your computer monitor, it probably won’t look very good in a QuickTime movie, especially if you are selecting text over video. It’s usually best to use bolder, simpler fonts. The key is to make sure that any text in your movie will be readable in any format.

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Selecting a Font Color Selecting a font color is also something to consider. You need to select a color that will show up well when it is superimposed on your video or background. iMovie 3 allows you to select from a wide variety of colors, brightnesses, and hues.

1. Click on the Color box. The Colors window will appear.

Notice that there are five color icons at the top of the box, denoting the Color Wheel, Color Sliders, Color Palettes, Image Palette, and Crayons. For your purposes, and for the scope of this book, these five color pickers are simply different ways of selecting a variety of colors. Some of the color settings, such as the RGB and CMYK sliders, are really for much more advanced purposes — not necessarily for us home Spielbergs who are making movies of our kids. The following sections describe each selection in a little more detail.

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Using the Color Wheel 1. Click on the Color box, if it isn’t already selected. The Colors window will appear.

2. Click on the Color Wheel icon. A color wheel will appear in the window.

3. Click on an area of color. The color will appear in the bars at the top and right of the window.

4. Move the slider bar at the right to control the brightness of the color you selected. 5. Click on the close button. The color will be selected.

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TIP If you want to use a color that is currently on the video screen to complement your text color, you can use the magnifying glass. Just click on the magnifying glass icon, and your mouse pointer will turn into a magnifying glass. You can then move it around in your video frame to locate the color you want to use. Click on the color, and it will be selected in the Colors window.

Using the Color Sliders 1. Click on the Color box, if it isn’t already selected. The Colors window will appear.

2. Click on the Color Slider icon. A pop-up menu and Brightness sliding scale will appear.

3. Click on the up-and-down arrows to the right of the popup menu. A selection of sliders will appear.

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4. Click on a slider. The option will be selected, and its appropriate sliders will appear. 5. Press and hold the mouse button on a slider and drag it to the left or right until you find the shade you like. The color will appear in the bar at the top of the window, next to the magnifying glass. 6. Release the mouse button.

7. Click on the close button. Your color (or brightness, saturation, etc.) will be selected.

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Using the Color Palettes 1. Click on the Color box, if it isn’t already selected. The Colors window will appear.

2. Click on the Color Palette icon. A List pop-up menu will appear.

3. Click on the up-and-down arrows to the right of the popup menu box. A selection of palettes will appear.

4. Click on a palette. The palette will be selected, and the colors associated with that palette will appear.

NOTE The Web Safe Colors palette, within the List pop-up menu, is an important palette if you plan to broadcast your movie on a Web page. This palette ensures that the color you select for your text will appear correctly in the finished product on the Web page.

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5. Click on a color. The color will be selected. 6. Click on the close button.

Using the Image Palette 1. Click on the Color box, if it isn’t already selected. The Colors window will appear. 2. Click on the Image Palette icon. The spectrum will appear. 3. Click anywhere in the spectrum on the approximate color you want. The color will be selected.

4. Click on the close button. The window will close.

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Using the Crayons 1. Click on the Color box, if it isn’t already selected. The Colors window will appear.

2. Click on the Crayons icon. The Crayons palette will appear.

3. Click on a crayon color. The color will be selected.

4. Click on the close button. The window will close.

Saving a Font Color If you want to save a font color that you selected from, say, the Color Wheel, you can do so. Because there are so many different colors within that spectrum, this is a great tool to retrieve the exact color you selected previously.

1. After you select the color of your choice, press and hold the mouse button on the rectangular color box near the top of the Colors window and to the right of the magnifying glass icon. A small box will appear in the larger, rectangular color box.

2. Drag the box down to the small white boxes at the bottom of the Colors window.

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3. Release the mouse button. The color will be saved in the Colors window. Now whenever you want to use that same color, you just click on the small box at the bottom of the window for the color you saved, and it will appear as your selected color.

Duplicating a Font Color Used Elsewhere in Your Movie Even if you haven’t saved a font color you used in another title elsewhere in your movie, finding that color again is a snap.

1. Select the clip that houses the title with the font color you want to duplicate. The clip will be selected, and the color of the font will appear in the Color box.

NOTE You can tell that a clip houses a title by looking at the clip in the Movie Timeline. The clip will have a “T” in a gray box at the top of the thumbnail, and the title will appear at the bottom of the thumbnail clip.

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2. Click on the Color box. The Colors window will appear, and the font color for that title will be selected, ready for you to use elsewhere.

Selecting a Font Size It is also important to select an appropriate font size for your text. Again, you want to ensure that people can read the text you put in your iMovie.

1. Press and hold the mouse button on the font size slider and drag the slider left to reduce the font size or right to enlarge it. Your title will get smaller or larger in the preview window as you drag the slider.

2. Release the mouse button. The font size will be set.

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NOTE iMovie’s titles are safe for rebroadcast on your TV screen. There is no threat of a title being chopped off because it’s too close to the edges of the TV screen. But what if you don’t plan to show your movie on TV, and you want to extend the title to the edges of the frame? For example, what if you plan to show your epic only as a QuickTime movie? In QuickTime, there is no danger of losing titles that are close to the edges of the frame. If you plan to show your movie as a QuickTime production, you should check the QT Margins check box. (See Chapter 11, “Compressing and Exporting Your Movies,” for more information on QuickTime.)

Adjusting the Duration and Pause of Your Title With most of the title styles, you can adjust the duration and the pause following the title. Two slider bars in the Titles Pane allow you to set the speed at which your title effect does its trick and the length of the pause after the effect is finished. Unless you want your title or credits to roll over more than one video clip, your title duration must be less than the duration of the clip on which you want the title to appear.

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1. Make sure you have selected a title that has Speed and Pause settings. The title will be selected.

2. Press and hold the mouse button on the Speed slider bar and drag it left to decrease the duration or right to increase the duration. The title’s duration will change accordingly.

3. Release the mouse button. The duration will be set.

NOTE The minimum and maximum durations of the title styles in iMovie are not all the same. As you click on title names in the titles style window, you’ll notice that the numbers on the left and right ends of the slider bar change.

4. Press and hold the mouse button on the Pause slider bar and drag it left to decrease the length of the pause or right to increase the length of the pause.

5. Release the mouse button. The pause will be set.

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NOTE Notice in the lower-right corner of the small preview window that the times you set by moving the Speed and Pause sliders are added together to give you a grand total for your title’s duration. Remember that the first number represents seconds and the second number represents frames. For example, 01:29 means that the total duration of your title is 1 second, 29 frames.

Positioning Your Title There will be times when you want to position your title at a certain place and a certain point in time in your clip. However, certain title styles won’t allow you to align text exactly where you want it. If you need to align your title in an area other than the center of a clip, make sure you choose a title style that allows you to do this. You will know if you can alter the alignment or scrolling direction of a certain title if the alignment and scrolling dial becomes active when you select the title style.

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Specifying Alignment and Scrolling Direction With some title styles, you can specify the alignment or scrolling direction.

1. Click on a title style in the title styles box. If the dial just to the left of the preview window becomes active, you can adjust the alignment or scrolling direction of that particular style. If the dial remains grayed out, it means you cannot align or scroll with that title style. 2. Click on the up, down, left, or right arrow of the dial. The alignment or scrolling direction of your selection will be adjusted accordingly.

Setting the Exact Placement of Titles within a Clip What if you want the title to appear at a specific point during a clip — for example, exactly 10 seconds into the clip? Because iMovie only allows you to add a title to the beginning of a clip, you need to make your desired spot in the clip the beginning. You achieve this by splitting the clip in two.

1. Click on the clip in which you want your title to appear. The clip will be selected.

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2. Press and hold the mouse button on the playhead in the Monitor window and drag it to the time at which you want the title to appear. 3. Release the mouse button. The playhead will be set where you released the mouse button.

4. Click on Edit. The Edit menu will appear. 5. Click on Split Video Clip at Playhead.

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The clip will split into two clips, which will both appear in the Movie Timeline. The second clip is the exact point at which your title will begin, once you add it. You will learn how to add your title in the following section.

Adding the Title After you have defined all of the specs for your titles and credits, you just need to add the title to your production.

1. Press and hold the mouse button on your title selection in the title styles window and drag it to the clip in the Movie Timeline to which you want to attach it. The clip will move slightly to the right.

2. Release the mouse button. The clip to which you attached the title will split into two. The portion of the clip with the title will become a new clip and will have a “T” in the upper-right corner to signify that it is a title clip.

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TIP You can add more than one text element to a clip. After adding the Centered Large title to a clip, for example, you can add subtitle text to the same clip, varying the font color, style, and duration for a different effect.

Creating Black Space Maybe you want your film to “fade to black,” as they say, and have your credits roll over a black background. Earlier in this chapter you learned that you can add text over a black screen, but iMovie will not allow you to add the black screen to the end of your movie. You have to create a black clip, so to speak. This is also a cool effect when you want to fade in and out of certain scenes — not just at the end of your film.

1. Click on the Clock icon. The Movie Timeline will switch to the Timeline view. 2. Click on a clip. The clip will be selected.

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3. Click and hold the mouse button on the clip and drag it to the right. Black space will appear as you drag.

4. Release the mouse button.

5. Click on the Filmstrip icon. The Movie Timeline will switch to the Clips view. You will see the black clip you created.

6. Move the black clip to the end of the Movie Timeline.

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7. Add the title to the black clip. The title will be added.

Changing Your Title Perhaps you have created a title for your video and, after looking at it, you decide you don’t like what you see. Changing a title is a simple process.

1. Click on the clip that contains the title. The clip will be selected. 2. Make any changes to the font style or color, title style or duration, and so on, following the steps described in this chapter. 3. Click on the Update button. Your changes will take effect.

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Deleting Your Title Suppose that after viewing your movie with its new title, you decide that the title really isn’t necessary and you want to get rid of it completely. You can just throw it in the trash.

1. Press and hold the mouse button on the clip that contains the title you want to discard, and drag the title to the trash can.

2. Release the mouse button. Your title will be deleted, and the clip will be restored.

8

Soundtracks and Audio Effects

Musical scores or soundtracks set the mood for your movies. Adding sound effects and narration also enhances your epic. The best movies have well-balanced audio effects to complement the visuals. Think of how different movies like GoodFellas and Taxi Driver would be without the voice-over narration, or Top Gun and Pulp Fiction without the musical soundtracks, or Star Wars without sound effects. Effective audio can change the whole complexion of your movies. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to: Record music from iTunes Add sound effects Add narration Crop, delete, and move audio tracks Lock and extract audio Adjust audio levels

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CHAPTER 8: SOUNDTRACKS AND AUDIO EFFECTS

Touring the Timeline Viewer and Audio Pane The Timeline Viewer is located at the bottom of the screen. You access it by clicking on the clock symbol, located in the top-left portion of the viewer. (In earlier chapters, you’ve worked with the Clip Viewer, which is in the same section but is accessed by clicking on the film symbol.) The Timeline Viewer is the workspace in which you edit your iMovie’s audio. The Audio Pane shows the various songs on a CD and allows you to play, record, and add individual songs. You also can access your library of music in iTunes, which houses a number of sound effects and allows you to record narration.

1. Click on the Clock icon. The Timeline Viewer will appear.

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The Timeline Viewer has three tracks:

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Video track. The top track houses the clips and sounds from your video footage.

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Audio track 1. The middle track houses extracted audio from your video clips.

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Audio track 2. The bottom track houses your music, narration, and sound effects.

Other items in the Timeline Viewer, about which you’ll learn more as you read this chapter, are

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Playhead. The inverted triangle with the line dropping through each track.

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Video clip with corresponding sound. An individual audio clip from your camcorder, and its location in your movie.

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Narration clip. An individual narration clip that you add, and its location in your movie.

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Extracted audio clip. Audio that is extracted from a video clip. It can be moved around or “locked” in place, as you will learn later.

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Pushpin. Indicates that audio is locked to the video clip above it.

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Music clip. An individual music clip that you add, and its location in your movie.

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Sound effect clip. An individual sound effect clip that you add, and its location in your movie.

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Edit Volume slider. Enables you to determine the volume level of clips.

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Enable/Disable Track check boxes. Allow you to enable or mute the video camera soundtrack, narration track, or music track.

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Clip Zoom level. Allows you to view more or fewer thumbnail video clips in the top track.

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Motion slider. Allows you to speed up or slow down your clips.

2. Click on Audio in the Design Pane. The Audio Pane will appear. The Audio Pane has the following features:

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A pop-up window with three lists:

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An iTunes Library list box, which lists all of the individual songs in your iTunes library

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A Sound Effects list box, which lists the sound effects available to you

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An Audio CD list box, which lists the songs on the CD in the drive

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Play/Stop button. Plays or stops the selected song or songs.

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Search box. Searches for your song in iTunes.

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Place at Playhead button. Imports your selections to the Timeline Viewer.

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Microphone button. Enables you to record your voice for a narration effect.

Adjusting the Size of Thumbnails in the Timeline Viewer You can adjust the size of the thumbnail images of your video and audio clips in the Timeline Viewer, allowing you to see tiny images of all of your individual video and audio clips in the Timeline Viewer at once.

1. Click and hold the mouse button on the Zoom slider and drag it left to show more, smaller thumbnails of your clips on the Timeline or right to show fewer, larger thumbnails of your clips.

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2. Release the mouse button when you see the size you want. The thumbnail image size will be adjusted.

Adding Music from an Audio CD One of the simplest ways to include your favorite song in your movie is to pop in a CD and import the song into the Timeline Viewer. You can add entire songs or edit portions of your favorite hits.

1. Click on the Timeline Viewer button, if you haven’t already done so. The Timeline Viewer will appear. 2. Click on Audio in the Design Pane. The Audio Pane will appear.

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3. Insert your CD into the CD-ROM drive. 4. Click on the up-and-down arrows to the right of the list box at the top of the Audio Pane. A list of options will appear, including the title of the CD you inserted—or simply “Audio CD.”

5. Click on the CD. The list of tracks will appear.

NOTE iMovie doesn’t reveal the actual names of the songs on your CD. If you can’t figure out which song is which, just double-click on a track number. The track will play, and you will know what song it is.

6. Click on a track. The track will be selected.

7. Press and hold the mouse button on the playhead and drag it to where you want your song to begin.

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8. Release the mouse button. The location will be selected. 9. Click on the Place at Playhead button. The song will import to the spot you selected in the Timeline. NOTE There are copyright law issues to keep in mind when recording audio from CDs. As long as you are not selling or commercially releasing your movie and you are just showing it to your family and friends, you are safe to use audio without permissions. You can also pick up some royalty-free music, or buyout music, by searching for royalty-free music or buyout music in your browser. You’ll be directed to some Web sites where you can pay a one-time fee for tunes and not have to worry about getting into trouble for using others’ copyrighted music.

10. Click on the clip to which you added the song in the Timeline. The clip will be selected.

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11. Click on the Play button. The clip and the song you added will play. You’ll learn what to do with your imported audio, such as cropping, adjusting audio levels, and so on, later in the chapter. Right now I want to stick to getting the audio into iMovie.

NOTE iMovie accepts AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format), WAV, and MP3 sound files. If you have an audio file in any other format, you need to convert the file to one that iMovie supports.

Adding Music from Your iTunes Library iMovie 3 functions seamlessly with its iLife partner to allow you to access your library of audio in iTunes. So all of the MP3s you’ve ripped (legally, of course) are available to add to your features with one click of the mouse.

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1. Click on the Timeline Viewer button, if you haven’t already done so. The Timeline Viewer will appear. 2. Click on Audio. The Audio Pane will appear.

3. Click on the up-and-down arrows to the right of the list box at the top of the Audio Pane. A list of options will appear, including iTunes and your assorted libraries within iTunes. 4. Click on the library you want. The list of tracks in that library will appear.

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5. Click on a song. The song will be selected.

6. Press and hold the mouse button on the playhead and drag it to where you want your song to begin.

7. Release the mouse button. The location will be selected.

8. Click on the Place at Playhead button. The song will import to the spot you selected in the Timeline.

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9. Click on the clip to which you added the song in the Timeline. The clip will be selected. 10. Click on the Play button. The clip and the song you added will play. Again, you’ll learn what to do with your imported audio, such as cropping, adjusting audio levels, and so on, later in the chapter. Next I’m going to show you how to add sound effects to your movies.

Adding Sound Effects iMovie contains a slew of sound effects in the Audio Pane. You can become the post-production sound effect artist for your movie by introducing footsteps, broken glass, rain falling, and other sounds.

1. Click on Audio in the Design Pane, if you haven’t already done so. The Audio Pane will appear.

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2. Click on the up-and-down arrows to the right of the list box at the top of the Audio Pane. A list of options will appear.

3. Click on iMovie Sound Effects. The list of effects will appear.

4. Double-click on a sound effect to hear what the effect sounds like. A sampling of the sound effect will play.

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5. Press and hold the mouse button on the effect and drag it to the desired location on either Track 2 or Track 3 in the Timeline. 6. Release the mouse button. The sound effect will appear as an audio clip in the audio track you chose.

7. Click and hold the mouse button on the sound effect clip and drag it left or right to the position where you want the effect to go. The playhead, its vertical line, and the time counter will appear as you drag. 8. Release the mouse button. The sound effect will be positioned where you want it.

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Adding Voice-Over or Narration Narrate or add voice-over to tell the story of your movie or to reveal behind-the-scenes information to your audience. iMacs, eMacs, and iBooks have built-in microphones, which you’ll need to record your voice. Ever wonder what that little oval hole at the top of your iMac computer screen is? That’s an internal microphone. You can also use an external microphone to accomplish this task. Power Macs come with an external microphone. This section will focus on using the internal mike.

1. Click on the Apple icon. The Apple menu will appear.

2. Click on System Preferences. The System Preferences dialog box will open.

3. Click on Sound. The Sound dialog box will open.

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4. Click on the Input tab. The Input page will appear. 5. Click on Internal microphone in the Choose a device for sound input list. The option will be selected. 6. Close the Sound dialog box. The dialog box will close.

7. If you haven’t already done so, open iMovie and open the movie project to which you want to add your voice. The project will open. 8. Drag the playhead to the point in the Timeline Viewer where you want your narration to begin. The playhead will be positioned. 9. Click on the Record/Stop button to the right of Microphone and speak into the microphone. Your narration will be recorded.

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10. Click on the Stop button when you are finished recording.

Editing Audio Clips Now that you have some songs, effects, or narration in iMovie, it is time to adjust, manipulate, and edit the audio.

Cropping Audio If you want to position a song to play over a certain portion of your movie, you can crop the music exactly at the desired location.

1. Click on an audio clip in the Timeline Viewer. The clip will be selected. 2. Press and hold the mouse button on the left crop marker (triangle) at the left end of the clip and drag the triangle in to the desired location.

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3. Release the mouse button. The crop marker will be positioned. 4. Repeat Steps 2 and 3 with the right crop marker (triangle). TIP For more precise cropping, click on the beginning or end triangle (crop marker) to select it, and press the left or right arrow keys to move a single frame at a time.

You can leave the markers where they are in the clip, and the audio outside of the crop markers will not be played in your final movie. You have essentially cropped or muted the ends of the audio clip, while still preserving the entire original clip for later editing. Or, if you want to crop out the unwanted material for good. . . .

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6. Click on Crop. The audio clip will be cropped where you indicated.

Notice the ends of the selected clip disappear.

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Splitting an Audio Clip If you want an audio clip to play at one place in your movie, stop, and then start again later, you can “split” the clip in two, the same way you can with video clips.

1. Select the audio clip that you want to split in two. The clip will be selected. 2. Drag the playhead to the position in the audio clip where you want it to be split. 3. Release the mouse button. The position will be set.

4. Click on Edit. The Edit menu will appear. 5. Click on Split Selected Audio Clip at Playhead. The audio clip will split in two.

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Notice the two clips next to each other. In the next section, you’ll learn how to reposition these clips, and in later sections, you’ll learn how to adjust audio levels in the clips.

Positioning an Audio Clip You can move narration, music, and sound effect clips to different places in the Timeline Viewer. These audio clips can even overlap, and iMovie will play the sounds simultaneously.

1. Press and hold the mouse button on an audio clip you want to move and drag it to the desired position. The playhead and time counter will appear as you drag, and the video frames will play in the Monitor window.

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2. Release the mouse button. The audio clip will be placed in its new position. TIP Remember, you can use the left and right arrow keys on the keyboard for more precise positioning.

Accessing Audio Clip Information and Renaming an Audio Clip By double-clicking on an audio clip, you can access its vital information, just as you did with video clips. In the Clip Info box, you can see the type of file and the size, and you can give your audio clips distinguishable names so you can easily tell what they are. You can also fade the clip’s audio in and out from the Clip Info box; I will discuss this feature later in this chapter.

1. Double-click on an audio clip you want to rename. The Clip Info box will open.

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2. Type a new name for the clip in the Name text box. The new name will appear in the text box.

3. Click on OK. The clip will be renamed.

Deleting an Audio Track Getting rid of an audio track altogether is a simple task.

1. Click on the music track, sound effect, or narration clip in the Timeline Viewer. The audio track for that item will be selected.

2. Press the Delete key.

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The audio track will be deleted.

Adjusting Audio Levels You can adjust the levels of sound in your video footage to a mere hum of background noise while your musical soundtrack plays, or you can reduce your musical soundtrack to a low harmony while the sound from your video footage dominates the scene. You can also mute the sound from your video footage altogether, and even fade your musical score in and out.

Muting Audio Tracks You can get rid of your video footage’s background sounds altogether. You can also completely mute your recordings in the narration track or music track, or both.

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1. Click on one or more of the following check boxes to remove the check mark:

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Removing the check mark in the check box to the right of the video camera soundtrack will mute the video camera’s sound.

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Removing the check mark in the check box to the right of either audio track 1 or 2 will mute the music, narration, or sound effect clips in that track.

Adjusting the Volume of a Clip or Clips You can adjust the volume of individual video camera sound clips, music clips, or narration sound clips using the Edit Volume slider.

1. Click on an audio clip or series of audio clips in the Timeline Viewer. The clip or clips will be selected.

TIP Press and hold the Shift key as you click to select multiple clips.


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2. Click on the Edit Volume check box to insert a check mark. 3. Press and hold the mouse button on the Edit Volume slider and drag the slider left to decrease the volume or right to increase the volume. A line will move up or down in the clip’s thumbnail as you increase or decrease the volume.

TIP

TIP

Drag the slider all the way to the left to mute the sound of your selected audio clip(s). You might want to do this to a video clip that has some bad sound, and then turn up the volume on a music track to give the video clip some sort of audio.

To hear immediate results, you can adjust the volume levels of a clip as you are playing it. Make sure Edit Volume is enabled, select your clip, click on Play, and move the slider back and forth until you hear the level you want. The clip will pause, and each time you release the mouse button after using the slider, the clip will automatically resume playing again.

Adjusting the Volume Levels in a Single Clip Is there an annoying sound within a single clip that you want to reduce? Do you want the clip to fade in and out? Or do you want to drop the audio out completely in portions of the clip? iMovie 3 has a new feature that allows you to vary the level of sound within a clip.

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1. Click on the video or audio thumbnail whose volume you want to adjust. The clip will be selected.

2. Click on the Edit Volume check box, if it isn’t already selected.


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3. Click on the volume line at the point in the clip where you want the volume to begin increasing or decreasing. A volume marker will appear. 4. Press and hold the mouse button on the marker and drag it up to increase the volume or down to decrease the volume from that point. 5. Release the mouse button. The volume level adjustment will move up or down, and a small orange box will remain at the starting point of your adjustment. You can leave these adjustments the way they are if you want to abruptly increase or decrease the volume in a clip, perhaps to get rid of an annoying background sound. Or you can increase or decrease the volume more gradually.

6. Press and hold the mouse button on the small orange box and drag it left or right to create a slope in the sound. 7. Release the mouse button. The audio levels will be set.

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NOTE A “selected” volume marker is yellow and has the little box that trails to the left of it. A deselected marker is orange or purple (depending on which audio track it is in). To select a marker that you’ve already set, just click on it again; the marker will turn yellow again, and the small trailing box will appear, ready for you to make any further adjustments.

8. Continue to click to create markers and drag the trailing boxes on the line within the clip. This allows you to create precisely the audio level you want.

TIP Delete a volume marker by selecting it and pressing Delete.

9. Click on the Edit Volume check box. The volume control will be deselected.

Extracting Audio from Video Clips Got a great sound bite in one video clip that you want to use in another video clip? Suppose you have the best man’s speech in one long video clip that you want to play over a different scene of the newlyweds. You can extract that audio from the first clip and attach it to the clip of the newlyweds.

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1. Click on the video clip that contains the audio you want to extract. The clip will be selected.

2. Click on Advanced. The Advanced menu will appear. 3. Click on Extract Audio. The audio will be extracted from the video clip and inserted on the middle audio track (audio track 1) in the Timeline Viewer. You’ll notice that the volume line in that clip will drop down to the bottom, indicating there is no longer any sound.

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By extracting the video clip’s audio, iMovie is actually copying the audio, placing it on the audio track, and muting the audio from that video clip. Notice the pushpins in the video track and the extracted audio track. Those pushpins show that the audio is locked in that position with that video clip. If you want to move the extracted audio to a different location than its original video clip, you must “unlock” it, which you’ll learn how to do in the next section.

Locking and Unlocking Audio and Video Clips Locking an audio clip with a video clip means that the audio clip stays in sync with the video clip. If you want to keep these two together, locking them is an important task. When you are sliding clips around in the Timeline Viewer or cutting and pasting new video clips here and there, audio and video clips are shifted all around. If you lock the audio and video, they will always stay in sync, no matter how much shifting goes on in the Timeline Viewer. On the other hand, there are times (like in the hypothetical situation discussed in the previous section) when you want to unlock the audio from the video and move it to be in sync with another area of your production.

Unlocking Audio from Video Clips You should still have “locked” video and audio after doing the extracting exercise from the “Extracting Audio from Video Clips” section. If you don’t, go ahead and extract some audio from a video clip, as described in that section. Remember, locked clips are represented by pushpins.

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1. Click on the audio clip that you want to unlock from the video clip. The clip will be selected.

2. Click on Advanced. The Advanced menu will appear. 3. Click on Unlock Audio Clip. The pushpins will disappear, and the audio clip will be available to move independently from the video clip. TIP When you move this unlocked, extracted audio clip to its new location, make sure you turn down the volume of the video clip that now corresponds to this new audio; otherwise, you will hear the audio of both jumbled together.

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Locking Audio to Video Clips On the flip side, suppose you have an audio clip that you want to remain at a particular position in your video. This is when you lock the audio.

1. Click on the audio clip that you want to lock to video. The clip will be selected.

2. Press and hold the mouse button on the clip and drag it to where you want the beginning of the audio clip to lock with the video clip.

3. Click on Advanced. The Advanced menu will appear.

4. Click on Lock Audio Clip at Playhead.

Pushpins will appear, and the video and audio will be locked together, so they cannot be separated accidentally while you continue to make edits to your production in the Timeline.

9

Special Effects

iMovie 3 allows you to add some interesting touches to your footage. Make Junior’s home-run trot more dramatic with slowmotion effects. Or speed it up for that 1920s Babe Ruth look. Give your films a noir feel with black-and-white or sepia tones. Improve bad lighting in your footage by adjusting the brightness. Or add some crazy mirror images or ghost trails to your horror flick. Although most of the effects in iMovie 3 can really enhance your projects, others are just for fun and should probably be used sparingly. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to: Use slow motion and fast motion Play video clips backward Distort video images Alter color, brightness, and hue Add Hollywood-film effects

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CHAPTER 9: SPECIAL EFFECTS

Creating Slow-Motion and Fast-Motion Effects Two of the more effective techniques used by many filmmakers are slow-motion and fast-motion montages. Think of the slowmotion opening credits scene of Reservoir Dogs or the fastmotion used in Martin Scorsese films such as Bringing Out the Dead. Or, as in Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, a combination of slow- and fastmotion, if you can believe it.

1. Move your clips to the Movie Timeline, if you haven’t already done so.

2. Click on the Clock icon. The Timeline view will appear.

3. Click on the clip you want to enhance with slow- or fastmotion. The clip will be selected.

4. Press and hold the mouse button on the motion slider and drag it left (toward the rabbit icon) to cause the video clip to go faster or right (toward the turtle icon) to go slower.

5. Release the mouse button. The motion speed will be set.

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6. Click on the Play button to see your effect in action.

Playing Video Clips Backward iMovie can take your clips and reverse them. That’s right; Junior can make his homerun trot backward. This might sound like just a fun effect that will add some silliness to your productions, but it can actually be useful. If you only have a zoom-out or pan-left shot, but you need a zoom-in or pan-right shot, the reverse-clip trick can come in handy.

1. Click on the clip you want to run backward. The clip will be selected. 2. Click on Advanced. The Advanced menu will appear. 3. Click on Reverse Clip Direction. The clip will be reversed.

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4. Click on the Play button. You will see your clip run in reverse.

Distorting Video Clips in the Effects Pane A number of special effects in the Effects Pane will help you warp your video footage.

1. Click on the clip to which you want to apply a special effect. The clip will be selected.

2. Click on Effects in the Design Pane. The Effects Pane will appear.

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3. Click on Earthquake. The Earthquake effect details will appear, and a quick preview of the effect will appear in the small preview window. The Earthquake effect adds shakiness to your video clip. Notice the following items in the Effects Pane: •

Effect In/Effect Out. Drag these sliders to determine how much time will elapse in the clip before the effect is fully visible, and when the effect will no longer be visible.

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Sideways. Drag this slider to determine how shaky you want your clip to be from side to side.

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Vertical. Drag this slider to determine how shaky you want your clip to be from top to bottom.

NOTE The sliders that enhance a particular effect will differ depending on the effect you select.

4. Click on Apply. Your effect will be rendered in the Timeline.

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Some other effects that distort your video are

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Ghost Trails. This adds a psychedelic blurring-andtrailing effect to your subjects as they move.

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Mirror. This gives your subject a funhouse-mirror effect.

NOTE Remember, if you decide you don’t like an effect after you apply it, you can get rid of it by selecting Edit, Undo. But make sure you undo an effect before you apply another one, because adding a new effect does not override the previous effect. (Unless, of course, you want to apply multiple effects to the same clip.)

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N-Square. This breaks up your video into several small squares, almost as though you were looking through a fly’s eyes.

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Soft Focus. This adds a blurry, glowing effect to your video.

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Flash. This adds bright flashes of light, like camera flashbulbs.

Altering Color, Brightness, Contrast, and Hue Other effects in the Effects Pane deal with color, brightness, contrast, and hue.

1. Click on the clip to which you want to add the special effect. The clip will be selected.

2. Click on Effects, if you haven’t already selected it. The Effects Pane will appear.

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3. Click on Adjust Colors. The Adjust Colors details will appear, and a quick preview will play in the small preview window in the Effects Pane. Adjust Colors allows you to do just that — adjust the colors in your footage.

Notice the following items in the Effects Pane:

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Effect In/Effect Out. Drag these sliders to determine how much time will elapse in your video clip before the effect is fully visible, and when the effect will no longer be visible.

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Hue Shift. Drag the slider to adjust the hue in your footage.

•

Color. Drag the slider to adjust the color in your footage.

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Lightness. Drag the slider to adjust the brightness of your footage.

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4. Click on Apply. Your effects will be rendered and applied to your video clip.

Other effects that adjust color, brightness, contrast, and hue are

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Brightness & Contrast. This controls the brightness and contrast of your footage.

CREATING HOLLYWOOD-FILM LOOKS

•

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Sharpen. This sharpens or dulls the colors of your images.

Again, most of these effects have slightly different details for how to adjust them for your particular needs. Just toy with whatever slider bars appear to create the effect you desire.

Creating Hollywood-Film Looks Some effects allow your movies to have the look you see in films made by the pros.

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Letterbox. This gives the widescreen ratio to your movie. It does not stretch your movie; instead, it cuts off the top and bottom of your clips.

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Aged Film. This gives the look of an old, scratchy film.

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Black & White. This, obviously, makes your clips black and white. You can make your epics in the style many independent filmmakers prefer — like the film age before color.

JUST PLAIN WEIRD EFFECTS

•

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Sepia Tone. This gives your video clips a sepia filter effect.

Just Plain Weird Effects Some of the distorting and warping effects discussed earlier are sort of strange, but that’s nothing compared to a few effects that iMovie 3 has added. You can use your imagination for how to put these effects to good use.

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Fairy Dust. This shoots a stream of “fairy dust” across the screen. Maybe a Disneylike opening credits scene?

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•

Rain. Wanna make it rain in your living room? I guess if you had a sunny outdoor scene that you wanted to turn dreary. It still looks kinda fake to me, though.

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Electricity. Add some electricity to that scene . . . literally. This adds an odd lightning-bolt effect.

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Using Special Effects to Your Advantage Experiment with the different effects to create a mood for your production. For example, open your masterpiece in black and white and gradually fade to color. Or start out with the Soft Focus effect to blur your beginning scene, and then bring your players into focus as your movie rolls on.

1. Click on the opening clip of your movie. The clip will be selected. 2. Click on Effects, if it isn’t already selected. The Effects Pane will appear.

3. Click on Soft Focus. The Soft Focus effect will be selected.

4. Drag the Softness, Amount, and Glow sliders all the way to the Lots/High end. This will blur the beginning of your clip to its maximum amount.

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5. Adjust the Effect In/Effect Out sliders to set the effect to start at the beginning of the clip and end midway through the clip.

6. Click on Apply. The effect will be set.

Your movie will begin with a cool fuzzy montage and gradually come into focus to introduce your setting and characters. Try out some of the other effects to see if you can animate your movies this way.

10

Still Image Effects

Adding a still shot or series of still shots to your movie can add documentary-style impact. Another great feature of iMovie is the capability to create a slide show or storyboard by using a series of still images, or to juxtapose stationary shots with your video clips to create an interesting montage of movement and still life. iMovie takes advantage of another free Apple iLife program, iPhoto, to add still image effects. Within the iPhoto viewing area, iMovie mimics the dramatic panning and zooming effects that documentarian Ken Burns applies to still images in his films. Use his effects to create your own Baseball, Civil War, or Jazz. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to: Extract a still image from your video Create a still image in your movie Add a still image to your movie Use the Ken Burns documentary effect

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CHAPTER 10: STILL IMAGE EFFECTS

Extracting Still Images from Your Videos There are many ways to obtain still images to import into your movies. If you have existing photographs, you can scan them and save them in a number of different formats, such as PICT, GIF, JPEG, BMP, or Photoshop files. You might already have stills on your hard drive in these formats. With iMovie, you can even create your own stills by pulling them from scenes in your videos.

1. Click on the video clip from which you want to extract the still image. The clip will appear in the Monitor window.

2. Press and hold the mouse button on the playhead and drag it left or right to locate the frame you want to extract. The clip’s footage will appear in the Monitor window as you drag.

TIP To move one frame at a time, use the right and left arrow keys on your keyboard. This will make it easier for you to find exactly the frame you want.

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3. Release the mouse button. The frame to extract will appear in the Monitor window. 4. Click on File. The File menu will appear. 5. Click on Save Frame As. The Save Frame As Image dialog box will open.

6. Click on the Where pop-up menu to select a folder in which to save the image. The folder will be selected. 7. Type a name for the still image in the Save as text box.

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8. Click on the Format pop-up menu to select an image format. Two image format choices will appear.

9a. Click on jpeg if you plan to e-mail this image to friends. The format will be selected. OR

9b. Click on pict if you plan to use the still in an iMovie. The format will be selected.

10. Click on Save. The image will be saved in the folder you designated.

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NOTE You might notice that your extracted stills sometimes have a grainy or jagged effect to them. iMovie will not produce the same high-quality digital stills as the new digital still cameras do. They should be good enough to include in movies and as e-mail attachments — they just might not be suitable for printing and framing.

Creating a Still Image within Your iMovie Project In iMovie, you can create a still image from your footage while you are working on your video production. If you want to create a quick still to use as a background or as a stop-action effect in your movie, this is the technique to use. If you want to extract a still frame from your movie to save, print, or send as an e-mail attachment, you should use the technique explained in “Extracting Still Images from Your Videos.”

1. Click on the clip from which you want to create a still image. The clip will be selected.

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2. Press and hold the mouse button on the playhead and drag it to locate the frame from which you want to create a still image. The clip’s footage will appear in the Monitor window as you drag. (See the Tip in the previous section regarding using the arrow keys for frame-byframe playback.)

3. Release the mouse button. The frame you want will appear in the Monitor window.

4. Click on Edit. The Edit menu will appear. 5. Click on Create Still Frame.

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A still clip will be created. It will appear on the Clips Pane with the name “Still x” (x being the sequential creation number of the still). You can add this still to your movie by dragging it down to the Movie Timeline.

Adding a Still Image Inserting stills in your movies adds an interesting effect. Whether you want to create an entire slide show of stills or just intersperse them here and there within your video clips to create stop-action effects, you need to know how to import the stills into your iMovie project. If you have created a still from the project you’re working on (as described in the previous section, “Creating a Still Image within Your iMovie Project”), then you’re already in business. All you have to do is drag the still from the Clips Pane to the Movie Timeline to add it to your movie. If you want to use an image that currently exists outside of your project, you have to import that image into iMovie first. You can import a still image from any of your folders using the File menu, or, if you have Apple’s iPhoto program installed, you can easily import from your iPhoto library.

Importing an Image from the File Menu If you do not have iPhoto, or if you have an image that is in a folder outside of the iPhoto program, use this technique to import a still image into your movie.

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2. Click on Import. The Import dialog box will open.

3. Click on the folder that contains the still image you want to import. The folder will open, revealing the images it contains. 4. Click on the file name of the still image you want to import. The image will be selected.

5. Click on Open.

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The image will be imported into your project, and it will appear on the Clips Pane and in the Monitor window.

6. Press and hold the mouse button on the still in the Clips Pane and drag it to the Movie Timeline. The still will be added to your movie.

NOTE When you add a still image this way, iMovie automatically applies the current Ken Burns effect settings to the imported image. You will learn about the Ken Burns effects a little later in this chapter, and you will learn how to either alter the effect or get rid of it altogether. Right now the important thing is to get the image into your project.

Importing an Image from iPhoto iMovie works hand-in-hand with iPhoto 2, a still image program that is included with all Macintosh computers now. It is also available as a free download from Apple, at http://www.apple.com/iphoto. If you need help downloading this program, see the appendix, “Installing or Upgrading iMovie 3,” and follow the same procedure for iPhoto 2 that you do for iMovie. Also, for more information on using iPhoto 2, pick up a copy of iPhoto 2 Fast & Easy (Premier Press, 2003). With a simple click on the Photos Pane in iMovie, you have access to your entire library of still pictures in iPhoto 2.

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1. Click on the Photos button in the Effects Pane. The Photos Pane will appear, and your iPhoto library will be shown in the preview area.

2. Click on the pop-up menu to select a specific photo album, if you have one. The album will be selected.

3. Click on an image that you want to import. The image will appear in the preview window.

NOTE Again, the image will have the default Ken Burns effect applied to it. You’ll learn more about this effect in the “Using the Ken Burns Effect” section of this chapter. It is best to add and alter this effect before you import the images, so once you understand how this importing works, you should add/alter the Ken Burns effects first. Don’t worry, you’ll be a pro at it soon enough.

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4. Press and hold the mouse button on the image and drag it down to the area in the Movie Timeline at which you want it to appear. 5. Release the mouse button. The image will render and appear in the Movie Timeline.

Using the Ken Burns Effect Ken Burns basically made documentaries cool by applying pan and zoom effects across still images, making them appear “alive.” You can add these effects to your images in iMovie and make your film into the next great PBS documentary.

Applying the Ken Burns Effect The first thing you need to do is apply the effect to a clip or clips and set the desired specifications. Later in this chapter, you’ll learn more about enhancing and altering the effect to suit your film.

1. Click on an image in the Photos Pane. The image will be selected.

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2. Click on the Start button at the top of the Ken Burns Effect area. This will set the effect on the first “frame” of the image sequence. 3. Click and hold the mouse button on the Duration slider and drag it to your desired duration.

4. Release the mouse button. The effect will preview in the preview window, and your duration will be set.

5. Click on the Start button again, if it isn’t already selected.

6. Click and hold the mouse button on the Zoom slider and drag it to the zoom at which you want the image to start.

NOTE A zoom setting of 1.0 displays the entire image on the screen.

7. Release the mouse button. The effect will preview in the preview window, and your zoom will be set.


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8. Move the mouse pointer to the preview window. The pointer will change to a hand. 9. Click and hold the mouse button on the image and drag it up, down, left, or right. 10. Release the mouse button. This will set the image exactly where you want the effect to start; it defines the beginning frame of the image sequence.

11. Click on the Finish button. This will set the effect at the last frame of the image sequence. 12. Click and hold the mouse button on the Zoom slider and drag it to the zoom at which you want the image to finish.

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13. Release the mouse button. The effect will preview in the preview window, and your zoom will be set.

TIP You can get really creative when you’re moving the image around. . . . For example, you can create a “flying” effect by starting the image completely outside of the preview window on one side, and then finishing it completely outside of the preview window on the other side. Play with the zoom also, and the image will really glide and grow in and out of the frame.

14. Move the mouse pointer up to the preview window. The pointer will change to a hand.

15. Click and hold the mouse button on the image and drag it up, down, left, or right.

16. Release the mouse button. This will set the image exactly where you want the effect to finish; it defines the last frame of the image sequence.


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17. Click on the Preview button. Your effect will play in the preview window. TIP Click on the Reverse button if you want to reverse the effect you created. For example, if you created the effect to zoom in, and you decide you want it to zoom out with the same duration, you can do this using the Reverse button.

18a. Click on Apply. iMovie will apply the effect and add the image to the end of your movie in the Movie Timeline. OR

18b. Drag the photo from the Photos Pane to the area in the Movie Timeline where you want the image and release the mouse button. The effect will be added, and the image will be inserted into the Movie Timeline.

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Altering the Ken Burns Effect If you’ve added an image and effect to your movie and you decide you want to change it, or if the image you imported contained a default effect and you want to alter it, the solution is simple.

1. Click on the image you want to change. The image will be selected.

2. Make any changes to the Ken Burns Effect settings. The changes will be set.

3. Click on Apply. iMovie will apply the changes to the effect.

NOTE Be careful not to zoom in too close to lowerresolution images, or the shots could end up a little blurry.


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Deleting the Ken Burns Effect If you want a still image to have no effect at all (just a static image with no pan or zoom effects), you can accomplish this, even though at first it seems as if iMovie forces you to use Mr. Burns.

1. Click on an image in the Photos pane. The image will be selected. 2. Set the Duration slider for how long you want the image clip to be. 3. Press and hold the mouse button on the image and drag it to the Movie Timeline.

4. Release the mouse button. The effect will begin rendering.

5. As the clip is rendering, press the Apple key and the period (.) key. The effect will be deleted from the clip.

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TIP The Apple key plus period (.) key technique also works when you are importing an image from the File menu, as you learned earlier in this chapter. You simply press the Apple key and the period (.) key at the same time, immediately after selecting your image and clicking on Open in the Import window, and the default Ken Burns effect will not be applied to that image.

Varying the Ken Burns Effect There are a few extra things you can do to get the exact effect you want out of Mr. Burns. In this section, you’ll learn how to freeze a frame before, during, or after the effect. You’ll also learn how to apply two different effects to the same still image.

Freezing a Frame 1. Select an image in the Movie Timeline. The image will be selected.

2. Drag the playhead to the end of the clip.


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3. Click on File. The file menu will appear. 4. Click on Save Frame As. The Save dialog box will open.

5. Click on the Where pop-up menu to select a destination folder. The folder will be selected. 6. Type a name for the still frame in the Save as text box. 7. Click on the Format pop-up menu to select the pict image format. The file format will be selected.

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8. Click on Save. The image will be saved in the folder you selected.




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11. Click on the image you just created. The image will be selected. 12. Click on Open. The still will import to the Clips Pane. 13. Press the Apple key and the period (.) key as the image is rendering in the pane. The Ken Burns Effect will be deleted from the clip.

14. Drag the clip down to the right of the clip from which you extracted the image. 15. Crop the clip to the desired length. Now, when you play the two clips together, it appears as if there is just one clip with a pause at the end of the effect.

TIP You can also create this same freeze effect at the beginning of the clip. Just repeat these steps, but save the first frame of the clip instead of the last, and then add the saved frame to the beginning of the clip with the effect.

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To get really fancy and add a freeze frame to the middle of an effect, follow these steps:

1. Select the image in the Movie Timeline. The image will be selected.

2. Drag the playhead to the point in the clip where you want the pause to occur.


4. Click on Split Video Clip at Playhead. The clip will split in two, and the second clip will appear in the Movie Timeline to the right of the first clip.


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5. Click on the second clip. The clip will be selected. 6. Make sure the playhead is at the very beginning of the clip. 7. Click on File. The File menu will appear.

8. Click on Save Frame As. The Save dialog box will open.

9. Click on the Where pop-up menu to select a destination folder. The folder will be selected.

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10. Type a name for the still frame in the Save as text box.

11. Click on the Format popup menu to select the pict image format. The format will be selected.

12. Click on Save. The image will be saved in the folder you selected.




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15. Click on the image you just created. The image will be selected. 16. Click on Open. The still will import to the Clips Pane. 17. Press the Apple key and the period (.) key as the image is rendering in the pane. The Ken Burns Effect will be deleted from the clip.

18. Drag the clip down to the left of the clip from which you extracted the image. 19. Crop the clip to the desired length. Now, when you play the three clips together, it will appear as if there is just one clip with a pause in the middle.

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Applying Two Effects to One Image 1. Select an image and select the first Ken Burns “move” you want the clip to have.

2. Move the clip to the Movie Timeline. The effect will be applied.

3. Deselect the image by clicking on another image in the Photos Pane. The image will be deselected.

4. Reselect the image you selected in Step 1. The image will be selected.


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5. Click on the Reverse button. The effect you set up in Step 1 will reverse, and the end point will become the starting point.

6. Select a second “move.” 7. Drag the image down to the right of the first “move” in the Movie Timeline. Now, when you play the two clips together, it will appear as if there is just one clip with two different Ken Burns effects.

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PART III REVIEW QUESTIONS

Part III Review Questions 1. How do you establish the length of a transition? See Setting Transition Speed in Chapter 6

2. What is rendering? See Adding the Transition in Chapter 6 3. How can you add a title over a black background instead of over video? See Selecting a Title Background in Chapter 7

4. How can you make a title scroll or align in a certain direction? See Specifying Alignment and Scrolling Direction in Chapter 7

5. How do you add a song from your iTunes library to your movie? See Adding Music from your iTunes Library in Chapter 8

6. How do you position a song to play over a certain portion of your movie? See Editing Audio Clips in Chapter 8

7. How do you separate audio from a video clip? See Extracting Audio from Video Clips in Chapter 8

8. How do you add slow-motion effects to your clips? See Creating Slow-Motion and Fast-Motion Effects in Chapter 9

9. How do you save a moment from your video as a still shot? See Creating a Still Image within Your iMovie Project in Chapter 10

10. How can you use the Ken Burns effect to your advantage? See Varying the Ken Burns Effect in Chapter 10

P A R T

I V

Distribution

Chapter 11 Compressing and Exporting Your Movies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Chapter 12 Internet Cinema . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

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11

Compressing and Exporting Your Movies

Now that you’ve finished your masterpiece, you need to prepare it for presentation. Perhaps you want to display it on videotape, send it as an e-mail attachment, place it on a Web site, or burn it onto a DVD. To use these formats, you must know how to compress and export your movies. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to: Save your iMovie Make a copy of your iMovie Export your movie to a camera Make a copy on a VHS tape Export your movie to QuickTime Use the QuickTime Player Import QuickTime clips into your iMovies

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CHAPTER 11: COMPRESSING AND EXPORTING YOUR MOVIES

Saving Your iMovie Before you export your movie, you need to save it. You wouldn’t want to lose any of your hard work if a problem were to occur during the exporting process.

1. Click on File. The File menu will appear. 2. Click on Save Project. The movie will be saved.

NOTE You already gave your project a name and saved it to a particular folder, so you won’t be asked to rename your movie or save it to a folder again. You are simply making the final save of all the edits and special effects you have recently applied to your project. See the following section, “Making a Copy of Your iMovie,” to learn about saving another version of the same movie.

Making a Copy of Your iMovie Because iMovie does not have a traditional Save As command, you need to take a different approach to saving a copy of your movie project. If you want to make changes to a movie project while keeping a copy of the original version, make a copy of the project file on your hard drive, and then make your edits to the duplicate version of the movie.

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1. With iMovie closed, doubleclick on the folder in the Finder that contains the movie you want to copy. The folder will open.

2. Double-click on the movie you want to copy. The movie file and Media folder will appear.

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3. Click on the movie file. The movie file will be selected.


5. Click on Duplicate. Your movie files will begin to duplicate.

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After the duplication process is complete, a copy of the movie will appear next to the original movie file.

6. Click on the name of the copy. The name will be highlighted. 7. Type a new name for the copied version.

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Exporting Your Movie to Camera You are now ready to export your finished product. One venue of exportation is your DV tape. This allows you to create a library of your edited movies on tape. iMovies take up a tremendous amount of hard drive space, so this is a great way to collect your masterpieces without soaking up your computer’s precious space.

1. Turn on your video camera, connect it to your computer via the FireWire port, and set your camcorder to VTR/VCR mode.

TIP Make sure your DV tape is cued to where you want your finished movie to be located. Using a tape dedicated only to your finished iMovies is a nice touch.

2. Click on File. The File menu will appear. 3. Click on Export. The iMovie Export dialog box will open.

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4. Click on the Export pop-up menu. Three export options will appear. 5. Click on To Camera, if it isn’t already selected. The export option will be set. 6. Type the duration of black space (in seconds) you want added to the beginning and end of your movie. This gives you a buffer so your movies don’t begin abruptly when played or end abruptly when finished.

7. Type the amount of time (in seconds) you want to allow for your camera to get ready for the export. This will give your camera the time it needs to be ready before iMovie starts exporting your movie. 8. Click on Export.

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The movie will play in the Monitor window as it exports to your camera.

NOTE The footage might appear grainy as it plays in the Monitor window during exportation. It will not appear this way on your DV tape.

9. Rewind the tape in your video camera and play back your masterpiece.

Copying Your Movie onto VHS Tape Many of your friends or relatives might not have entered the digital video age yet. For these folks, you might need to copy your movies onto a traditional VHS tape. Unfortunately, you cannot export your iMovie from your Mac straight to a VHS tape. However, you can export your iMovie to DV tape and then copy the DV tape to VHS tape. Make sure the DV tape with your finished iMovie is cued up in your camcorder and you have a blank VHS tape in your VCR. Connect your camcorder to your VCR with A/V connecting cables. These cables usually come with your camcorder.

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Make sure you connect the A/V cable to the LINE IN input on your VCR. Check with your camcorder manual if you have trouble connecting your camcorder to your VCR.

Set the VCR/TV selector to VCR. Press the Play button on your camcorder, and at the same time, press the Record button on your VCR. When you are finished copying the movie, press the Stop button on your VCR to stop recording.

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Exporting Your Movie to QuickTime The QuickTime setting allows you to export your video to the QuickTime player, which compresses the iMovie file to ready it for e-mail, Web, or CDROM formats.


2. Click on Export. The iMovie Export dialog box will open.

3. Click on the Export pop-up menu. The pop-up menu will appear.

4. Click on To QuickTime. The QuickTime settings will appear in the lower half of the dialog box.

5. Click on the Formats pop-up menu. The pop-up menu will appear.

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6. Click on a QuickTime movie format: •

Email. Select this option if you plan to send your movie as an e-mail attachment. Your iMovie will be compressed into a relatively compact QuickTime movie.

•

Web. Select this option if you plan to post your movie on a Web page. The size of the QuickTime movie is larger and the frame rate is higher than with the Email option, and therefore it provides better quality for the viewer. You still might want to use the Email option for posting your movie on the Web because large movies may be difficult for people to download unless they have high-speed Internet connections.

•

Web Streaming. Select this option to prepare your movie for posting on a QuickTime streaming Web server.

•

CD-ROM. Select this option if you plan to record your movie onto a CD-ROM or if you plan to create a QuickTime movie to store and play on your hard drive.

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•

Full Quality DV. You will probably never use this option. This setting results in a massive file size, so skip this option unless you’re a pro.

•

Expert Settings. The Expert settings are reserved for when you become a seasoned video compression guru. The iMovie creators designed this software with all the compression settings the casual user should ever need, so you should not have to change them. Using the Expert settings is beyond the scope of this book.

NOTE The video for a small QuickTime movie that you would attach to an e-mail message compresses from 30 to 10 frames per second. You definitely will lose a bit of playback quality in the QuickTime viewer, but it is necessary in order to compress your movie to a size that is viable for sending over the Internet or posting on a Web page.

NOTE There are a few things to consider when choosing to send a QuickTime movie in an e-mail message. Even though iMovie compresses the file size, it is still a big file to send over the Internet as an e-mail attachment. For example, even a small two- to three-minute movie with several titles, transitions, and audio may compress to approximately a 3MB file, which is still fairly large. With that in mind, you need to make sure that the recipient of the file knows that you are sending it and can clear several minutes or more for the download.


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7. Click on the Export button. A Save dialog box will open.

8. Click on the Where pop-up menu and select a folder in which to save your movie. The folder will be selected. 9. Type a title for your QuickTime movie in the Save as text box.

10. Click on Save. iMovie will begin to export your movie to a QuickTime file.

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The Progress Bar will show your movie exporting to QuickTime. Depending on the size of your movie, this could take several minutes.

11. Click on the folder where you saved the QuickTime file. The folder will open.

12. Double-click on the QuickTime movie file. The QuickTime Player will open with your movie in it.


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13. Click on the Play button. The QuickTime movie will play and the Play button will become a Pause button.

NOTE iMovie 3 automatically makes QuickTime movies out of your creations when you save them. If you look in the movie file for your project, the QuickTime .mov file is there. However, it is a QuickTime file used mainly for importing into other iMovie projects, and is probably unsuitable for Web and e-mail delivery.

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Understanding the QuickTime Player iMovie compresses and exports your movies to the QuickTime Player, in which you can play back your movie, adjust sound levels, and so on. The QuickTime Player has the following features:

•

Volume slider. Press and hold the mouse button on this slider and drag it right or left to control the volume.

•

Play/Pause button. Click on this button to play the movie. Click on it again to pause the movie.

•

Fast-Forward/Rewind buttons. Press and hold these buttons to quickly search forward and backward through your movie, respectively.

•

End/Home buttons. Click on these buttons to go immediately to the beginning or end of the QuickTime video.

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•

Resize handle. Press and hold the mouse button on these slanted grooves and drag down and to the right to expand the Player, or up and to the left to shrink the Player. Be warned, though, that if you created a small e-mail movie, resizing the QuickTime player to a larger size will result in a much poorer video playback.

•

Info button. Click on this button to reveal information about QuickTime.

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Importing QuickTime Clips into Your iMovies If you have footage from a QuickTime movie file that you want to add to an iMovie, or if you want to add footage of the wedding scene from the Godfather (in a QuickTime movie trailer) into your sister’s wedding footage, iMovie and QuickTime Pro can handle the job. (This technique requires that you obtain the QuickTime Pro version, which is a $30 upgrade to the basic QuickTime version. The upgrade is available at Apple’s Web site, at http://www.apple.com.) Just remember the laws that govern redistribution of copyrighted material. Make sure if you use that Godfather footage, you keep it for your own personal use. Otherwise, you’ll sleep with the fishes.

1. Open the QuickTime movie that you want to insert into iMovie.


3. Click on Export. The Save exported file as dialog box will open.

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4. Click on the folder for the iMovie into which you want to add the QuickTime clip. 5. Click on the Media folder for the iMovie. This is where you want to save the converted QuickTime clip. 6. Click on the Export pop-up menu. The menu will appear.

7. Click on Movie to DV Stream. Notice that the clip changes from a .mov file to a .dv file.

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8. Type a new name for your clip in the Save As text box, if you want.

9. Click on Save. The clip will convert to a file that is compatible with your iMovie files and export to your iMovie.

10. Open iMovie. 11. Open the iMovie project that contains the QuickTime clip you just exported. A Stray Files dialog box will open, asking you what you want to do with the stray file you just imported.

12. Click on the Move Files To Clips Pane button.

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The QuickTime clip will appear on the Clips Pane, where you can edit it just as you would any other clip that you captured yourself.

Preparing Files and Exporting to iDVD iMovie 3 features a seamless tie-in to another Apple program— iDVD 3. iDVD enables you to create DVDs for your movie projects. Please note that to take full advantage of iDVD’s capabilities from within iMovie 3, you must have iDVD 3 installed on an Apple machine that has an internal DVD-burning drive. This section will show you how to get your movie ready and export it into iDVD. Using the iDVD program is beyond the scope of this book because not all iMovie 3 users have the newest Apple machines with DVD burners and iDVD 3. For an in-depth look at iDVD 3, check out iDVD 3 Fast & Easy by Brad Miser. When you make a movie ready for DVD, you should add chapter markers to it. These markers allow viewers to use the DVD controls to jump to specific points in the movie.

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1. Click on the iDVD button in the Design Pane. The chapter marker tools will appear.

2. Press and hold the mouse button on the playhead and drag it to the point where you want to place the first chapter marker. 3. Release the mouse button. The playhead will be in position.

TIP You should usually include a chapter marker at the start of the movie.

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4. Click on Add Chapter. The new marker will appear at the top of the iDVD pane. For each marker, you will see the first frame, the chapter title, and the timecode at which the chapter starts. The chapter title will be highlighted. (If it isn’t, you can double-click on the default chapter title to select it.)

5. Type a new chapter title. TIP You can add chapter markers from either the Clip Viewer or the Timeline Viewer. When you are working in the Clip Viewer, you can select a clip to place a chapter marker at the start of it.

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6. Repeat Steps 2 through 5 for each chapter you want to create.

7. Click on the clock icon. The Timeline Viewer will appear. Notice that there are small yellow diamonds at the top of the tracks. These indicate where you have added chapter markers.

8. Click on any chapter that you want to remove in the iDVD pane. The chapter will be selected.

9. Click on the Remove Chapter button. The chapter will be deleted.

10. Click on the Create iDVD Project button when you are done adding chapters. iDVD will open, a new iDVD project will be created, and you will be prompted to import your chapter markers. You now have an iDVD project ready to write to a DVD. iDVD 3 has a number of incredible formatting options to create impressive movies on DVD. As I mentioned earlier, make sure you check out iDVD 3 Fast & Easy for a more detailed explanation of how to use iDVD 3.

12

Internet Cinema

A great way to premiere your movie is to post it on a Web site. This way, family and friends can go to your Web site and view your movie at their leisure. You don’t clog their e-mail boxes with a huge attachment, and you don’t spend time and money on videotapes and postage to send Junior’s homerun to everyone. Apple provides a nifty service especially for iMovie makers: You can create your own Web site and add a page to it to showcase your iMovies. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to: Set up a .Mac account Access your iDisk Create and edit your home page Add your movie to your home page

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CHAPTER 12: INTERNET CINEMA

Setting Up a .Mac Account The first step in creating a Web page to showcase your iMovies is to sign up for a trial Apple .Mac account. .Mac is an Internet service provided by Apple for Macintosh users. It allows you to create an e-mail address, make Internet surfing safer for your kids, store files on Apple’s Internet server, and create your own personal Web site. The trial is 60 days, and an official account is $99.95 per year, or $8.33 per month.

1. Go to Apple’s Web site (http://www.apple.com). The Apple home page will appear.

2. Click on the .Mac tab. The .Mac page will appear.

3. Scroll down the page and read what you can do with .Mac.

4. Click on the Free Trial button. The sign-up page will appear.

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5. Fill in your personal information, and create a user name and password for your account. 6. Click on the Continue button. The Print your information box will appear.

7. Print the page and click on the Continue button. The Thank You box will appear.

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The .Mac Thank You box briefly explains what you can do with .Mac — Mail, Backup, iDisk, and HomePage are mentioned. Now that you are a trial member, you can access all of these services.

8. Click on the Start Using .Mac button. The opening .Mac page will appear.

Click around and see what .Mac is all about.

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Accessing and Adding Your Movie to iDisk Before you create your Web site to premiere your iMovies, you need to open iDisk. iDisk creates 20 MB of storage space (100 MB for full members) for you on Apple’s Internet server. It basically works as a backup disk of free and secure storage. It is also the avenue through which you import your iMovies (compressed into QuickTime movies, of course) into your soon-to-be-created Web site. .Mac will not allow you to post an iMovie on your Web site without first importing it into iDisk.

1. On the .Mac opening page, click on the iDisk icon at the top of the page. The iDisk page will appear.

2. Click on Opening Your iDisk. The Opening Your iDisk page will appear, giving you information on how to access your iDisk . . . which you are going to do next.

3. Minimize your browser window.

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4. Click on your desktop. The Finder toolbar will appear.

5. On the Finder toolbar, click on Go. The Go menu will appear.

6. Click on iDisk. The Connect To iDisk dialog box will open.

7. Type your member name and password (which you created when you registered with .Mac).

8. Click on Connect. You will be connected to iDisk.

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219

Your iDisk folders will appear. Here, you can add items such as photos, music, movies, and documents on a “safe” Apple server. For now, you want to add your movie to the Movies folder.

NOTE An iDisk desktop icon will be created when you first access the account. From then on, you just have to double-click on the icon to access iDisk.

9. In a new Finder window, open the folder that houses your QuickTime, Web-ready movie. 10. Press and hold the mouse button on the QuickTime movie and drag it to the Movies folder in the iDisk window. NOTE Remember, you have to use the compressed QuickTime versions of your iMovies for posting on the Web. See Chapter 11, “Compressing and Exporting Your Movies.” The raw iMovie files are too big to put on a Web site.

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11. Release the mouse button. The movie will be transferred to the iDisk folder. Depending on the size of the movie, this could take several minutes.

Creating and Editing Your Home Page Now you are ready to create the online forum where you can showcase the iMovie that you spent hours filming, editing, and polishing. Apple makes it simple to create this iMovie theater on your Web site by providing templates that are designed especially for iMovie posting. After you create this Web page, feel free to use the other Web page templates that Apple offers (birth announcements and photo albums, for example) and add them to your site.

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1. Go back to the .Mac home page, if you are not already there. (If you are still on the iDisk page, click on Home under the .Mac tab or, if you minimized the home page, maximize the window by clicking on it in the Dock.) The .Mac home page will appear.

2. Click on the HomePage icon at the top of the page. The HomePage page will appear.

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3. Click on the iMovie tab on the left side of the page. A gallery of iMovie themes will appear.

4. Click on a theme for your movie. The theme will be selected, and the Edit your page screen will appear.

5. Click on Edit. Text boxes will appear for you to add a page title, movie title, and movie description, and there will be a button for you to choose your movie.


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6. Select the placeholder text and type the title for your page.

7. Scroll down to the bottom of the page.

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8. Select the placeholder text and type a title for the movie you plan to post.

9. Select the placeholder text and type a description for your movie.

10. Scroll up to the top of the page.

11. Click on Preview. A preview of the page as it will look when published will appear.


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12. Click on Edit to make any changes to the text you just entered and to add your QuickTime movie.

13. Click on Choose under the QuickTime icon. The Choose a file page will appear.

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14. Click on the movie that you added to your iDisk in the list box. The movie will be selected.

15. Click on the Choose button. The movie will be added to your home page.

NOTE This page refers to your movies as iMovies, but they actually mean your iMovies compressed into QuickTime movies. So again, make sure you are importing compressed QuickTime versions of your iMovies.

16. Click on Preview if you want to see a preview of your movie. The movie will load in the home page theme and begin playing.


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17. Click on Edit again if you want to make any changes to the text or movies. 18. Click on Publish if you are happy with the final results. A Congratulations page will appear, and a link will be created to your home page and posted movie.

19. Click on the link to go to your Web page. You will be taken to your page.

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20. Click on the Back button in your browser. You will return to the Congratulations page.

21. Optionally, you can click on the Announce your page to family and friends by sending an iCard button to send e-mail messages to friends announcing your new Web site.

22. Click on Return to HomePage to make changes to this page or to add more pages to your Web site. The page that you just created will appear in the list box on the left side of the screen.


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23. Click on the name of the page you just created in the Pages list box. The page will be selected. 24. Click on one of the following:

•

Add. This will allow you to add another page to your site.

•

Delete. This will delete the page you created.

•

Edit. This will allow you to edit the page you created, in case you want to change the text or something like that.

25. Click on Logout on the .Mac toolbar when you are finished working. You will return to the Apple home page. NOTE Click on Protect this site to learn how to safeguard your Web pages and documents. Or, click on Add another site to create a completely new site.

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PART IV REVIEW QUESTIONS

Part IV Review Questions 1. Why would you want to make a copy of your iMovie? See Making a Copy of Your iMovie in Chapter 11

2. What are the different ways to distribute your movie? See the introduction to Chapter 11

3. Why would you export your movie into QuickTime? See Exporting Your Movie to QuickTime in Chapter 11

4. How do you import a QuickTime clip into your iMovie? See Importing QuickTime Clips into Your iMovies in Chapter 11

5. How do you add chapter markers? See Preparing Files and Exporting to iDVD in Chapter 11

6. What are the benefits of a .Mac account? See Setting Up a .Mac Account in Chapter 12

7. What’s so special about iDisk? See Accessing and Adding Your Movie to iDisk in Chapter 12

8. What format does your iMovie need to be in to post it on your Web site? See Accessing and Adding Your Movie to iDisk in Chapter 12

9. How much free space do you have on your home page? See Accessing and Adding Your Movie to iDisk in Chapter 12

10. How do you create a home page to display your movies? See Creating and Editing Your Home Page in Chapter 12

P A R T

V

Appendixes

Appendix A Installing and Upgrading iMovie3. . . . . 233 Appendix B Expanding Your Sound Effects and Special Effects Libraries. . . . . . . . . 245

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A

Installing and Upgrading iMovie 3

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APPENDIX A: INSTALLING AND UPGRADING iMOVIE 3

1. Go to http://www.apple.com/ imovie.

2. Click on Download iMovie 3.0.2 (as of this writing). The Get iMovie 3 page will appear.

3. Fill in your e-mail address, first name, and last name.

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4. Scroll down the page and click on iMovie 3 Full-Installer. The option will be selected. 5. Click on Download iMovie. The program will download into the Download Manager.

6. Click on the yellow minus sign at the top-left corner of the screen to minimize your browser. The browser will be sent to the Dock.

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7. Double-click on the iMovie download icon that appears on your desktop (or wherever you have set your downloads to appear, such as the Downloads folder). An iMovie 3 icon will appear.

8. Double-click on the iMovie 3 icon. An iMovie 3 dialog box will open.


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9. Double-click on the Read Before You Install iMovie icon. A list of documents in different languages will appear.

10. Double-click on the English document (or whatever your preferred language may be). A Read Me document about iMovie will appear for your reading pleasure.

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11. Close the document after you read it.

12. Click on the Back button in the Read Before You Install iMovie dialog box. You will return to the iMovie 3 dialog box.

13. Double-click on the iMovie.pkg icon. The Welcome to the iMovie 3 Installer dialog box will open.


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NOTE You may get an Authenticate box that tells you that your password is required before you can install iMovie 3. Enter your password here.

14. Read the page, then click on Continue. The Read Me page will appear.

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15. Read the page, then click on Continue. The License page will appear.

16. Read the page, and then click on Continue. An agree/disagree prompt will appear.

17. Click on Agree. The Select Destination page will appear.


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18. Click on the Macintosh HD icon. The box will display the amount of space available on your hard drive, as well as the space required.

19. Click on Continue. The Installation Type page will appear.

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20. Click on Install. The program will be installed.

21. Click on Close. The iMovie 3 Installer dialog box will close.


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22. Double-click on the Macintosh HD icon. The Macintosh HD dialog box will open.

23. Double-click on the Applications folder.

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A list of your applications will appear; it should include your new iMovie application. Now you’re all set to start making movies.

NOTE If you have a previous version of iMovie on your machine, the installer will automatically update this to version 3. It will not install another separate iMovie program.

B

Expanding Your Sound Effects and Special Effects Libraries

Not too excited about the effects that are available in iMovie 3? Have a specific effect in mind to produce your vision? A number of companies have produced some sound effects and special effects that you can add to iMovie 3 for free or for a small fee.

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APPENDIX B: EXPANDING SOUND AND SPECIAL EFFECTS LIBRARIES

Extra Sound Effects The Hollywood Edge (http://www.hollywoodedge. com). This site includes a large collection of free .mp3 files that offer a taste of what is available in the Hollywood Edge libraries. For example, the Casino sound effect sounds like money. The site also has specialized sound effects, sampling music, and production music for sale.

Extra Special Effects Gee Three (http://www.geethree.com). This site includes a sampler of nine free, fully functional transitions (such as Barn Door Open, Barn Door Close, Burst, Drip, Heart Close, Heart Open, Radiator, and Sweep) and effects (such as Film Noise, Solarize, and X-Ray). For a fee, Gee Three offers four volumes of Slick transitions and effects.

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Virtix (http://www.virtix.com/ imovie). This site includes a free sampler of six effects (Flame, Extreme Black and White, Letterbox, Dream Border, Glint, and Virtix Soft Focus). For a fee, Virtix offers several packages of effects.

CSB-Digital (http://www. csb-digital.com/iplugins/ about/index.php). This site’s free iPlugins mini pack includes Spy Scope, Solarization, and Movie Mosaic. For a fee, two packs are available with eight to nine special effects.

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eZedia (http://www.ezedia. com/products/eZedia_plug-ins). This site includes demo versions of their iMovie enhancements, so you can try out the effects before you purchase them.

Stupendous Software (http://www.creativepro.com/ company/home/4004.html). This site includes many interesting effects, such as color effects, crops and zooms, levels and balances, scratch and dirt, time effects, and SplitScreen and PiP plugins. The site offers more than 100 plug-ins, and many are free.

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Jerry’s Keen Projects (http://www.cis.rit.edu/~jerry/ Software/iMovie). All free plugins include interesting effects such as Eric The Plugin, Ye Olde TV, Rhesus Pieces, Monkey Brewster, and Funky Monkey. Download these just for the names alone!

Adding an Effect to iMovie Now that you’ve found some exciting new effects to use in your movies, you need to add them to iMovie. Each Web site may differ in terms of how their products are downloaded, but most have some kind of link for you to click on, which will download the product to your designated download area. (In my case, my designated download area is my desktop. You might have a Downloads folder.) The effects also will differ in terms of how they are installed. The following steps provide an example of how to install an effect.

1. Click on the link to download or try the plug-in or effect. The product will download, or you will be taken to a download page. (If the product downloads immediately, move on to Step 3.)

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2. Click on the appropriate download if you are taken to a download page. You might be taken to a license agreement page, or the product might download to your machine. (If you are taken to a license agreement page, read the agreement and agree to it if you want to download the effect or plug-in. Then move on to the next step.)

3. Close or minimize your browser. 4. Double-click on the .img file that was downloaded. An installer dialog box will open

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5. Double-click on the installer. Pages of installation instructions will appear. 6. Click on Continue. A Software License Agreement page will appear.

7. Click on Agree. The program will install, and a message box will indicate if it was successful.

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8. Click on Quit. The installation will finish.

9. Open iMovie. 10. Click on the Effects Pane. The Effects Pane will open. You should see the new effects in the Effects Pane, ready to use in your masterpiece. Remember, this is just one example of how a third-party’s effects package downloads and installs. Other packages may differ, but the steps are pretty similar to what you just performed.

Glossary A AIFF audio file. Audio Interchange File Format. A digital audio file that can be used in iMovie. Alignment. The position of the text in your iMovie project. Analog video. Common video formats such as VHS, SVHS, 8mm, and Hi8.

B Browser. A program designed for viewing Web pages on the Internet.

C Clip. A media file that contains audio, video, or still images. Clipboard. Temporary storage containing the last item you copied in iMovie. Close-up shot. A zoomed-in, tight frame of an object or subject. Compression. Reducing the data size of a file.

Copy. A command that takes a video or audio clip and duplicates it on the Clipboard. Crop. A process that cuts the unwanted video or audio from the beginning and/or end of a clip. Cut. A command that takes a video or audio clip and moves it to the Clipboard, removing it from the iMovie project.

D Design Pane. The area at the top-right side of the iMovie screen. This is where clips, audio, still photos, titles, transitions, and effects are all housed for use. Download. To copy a file or application from the Internet. DV. Digital video format. DV stores video and audio information as data in a digital form.

E Edit. To assemble your movie by cutting, rearranging, altering, and refining your video and audio clips.

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GLOSSARY

Export. A command used to convert your iMovie files into another format, such as QuickTime or digital or analog videotape.

H

F

Help. A feature that gives you additional information and instructions about iMovie 3.

File. Information stored on a single disk under one name. File format. A generic term for describing the way a file is saved. JPEG, PICT, and AIFF are different types of graphic and audio file formats. Filter. Programs such as Photoshop and QuickTime Pro include image-editing filters to adjust contrast and brightness and add other types of special effects to improve your video images. FireWire. Apple Computer’s multimedia peripheral that allows you to import and export video and audio from your camcorder at tremendous speeds. Also known as iLink or IEEE 1394. Folder. An organizational tool used to store files. Font. A character set of a specific typeface, type style, and type size. Some fonts are installed with the operating system on your computer. Frame. A single image from a video clip. Frame rate. The number of frames per second displayed onscreen. Full shot. A video shot that gives the audience the setting of the scene and establishes how the subject of your movie fits in with the background or surroundings.

Hard disk. A hardware component on which you can store files and folders of data.

I Image. A bitmapped matrix of pixels that represents a picture. Import. A command used to convert digital video, still images, and audio files in iMovie 3.

J JPEG. Joint Photographic Experts Group. Compresses images into smaller file sizes. This format is mostly used in still image files sent as e-mail attachments or used on the Web.

K Kilobyte. Commonly referred to as KB. Equivalent to 1,024 bytes.

L Lock Audio. A feature that allows you to lock your audio clip to a video clip. When you move a clip in the Movie Timeline, the audio will move with it.

M Media. All of your files, including images, sounds, music, and stills.

GLOSSARY

Medium shot. A video shot that shows one to three players within a small area, including their gestures and expressions. Megabyte. Commonly referred to as MB. Equivalent to 1,048,576 bytes. Memory. Also known as RAM. Refers to the amount of physical memory in your computer. Virtual memory is the amount of memory or hard disk space allocated for use by the operating system and applications on a computer. In regard to iMovie, memory represents the amount of space required for the program to run. Menu. A user-interface element originating from the operating system, containing commands for an application. Mode switch. Buttons under the Monitor window that allow you to switch between Camera and Edit modes. Monitor window. The large preview area located in the top-left corner of your iMovie screen. Includes playback controls, volume control, and a Scrubber bar. Movie Timeline. The chronological viewer, located at the bottom of the screen. This is where you create your movie by arranging your clips, adding music and sound effects, and editing audio clips.

N Narration. Using your voice as a storytelling effect in your movies.

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P Pan. Rotating the video camera slowly and steadily along a horizontal line from right to left, or vice versa. Paste. The process of retrieving the information stored on the Clipboard and inserting it into your project. PICT. Macintosh picture file format. Doesn’t compress an image; therefore, the image maintains the same quality when it is copied. Play Full-Screen button. A button in the Monitor window, located next to the Play button, that allows you to view your movie on the entire computer screen. Playback controls. The Play, Fast-Forward, Rewind, Play Full-Screen, and Home controls under the Monitor window. Playhead. The small triangular icon in the Scrubber bar. Indicates the starting point of video or audio clip playback or recording. Preview. A feature in iMovie that enables you to see what a title, transition, frame, or completed movie will look like before you render or save it. Processor. The central processing unit of a computer. A faster processor will run iMovie faster than a slower processor.

R RAM. See Memory. Rendering. Adding elements together (for example, adding text to a clip or transitions between clips) to change the visual information on a frame of video.

256

GLOSSARY

Resolution. The number of horizontal and vertical pixels that make up a screen of information.

Trash can. Where you drag your unwanted clips to delete them from your movie and free up hard disk space on your computer.

Restore. Returns captured clips to their original length after you’ve made a crop.

U

S

Undo. A menu command that enables you to reverse a previous action you made in the document window.

Save. A command used to convert your iMovie projects stored in memory into files. Scroll bar. A set of window controls consisting of up and down or left and right arrows, a scroll button, and a scroll bar that can be used to navigate a document window. Scrubber bar. The bar used to position the playhead; it is located under the Monitor window and in the Timeline Viewer. Size. The file size of a document. iMovie files are very large, eating up several MBs of hard disk space on your computer. Submenu. Also known as a cascading menu. A secondary menu containing a list of menu commands.

T Transition. The effect of blending or smoothing out the cut between two separate video frames.

V Viewer. The timeline at the bottom of your iMovie screen. Includes the Clip Viewer for editing and viewing DV clips and the Timeline Viewer for editing music, narration, and sound effects.

W Web. The World Wide Web. A group of computers running Web server software, connected to an extended network around the world.

Z Zoom. To slowly move toward or away from the subject in your video.

Index . (period) key technique, 176, 179, 183 4-pin connectors, 6 6-pin connectors, 6

A accessing. See opening Add Chapter option, Design Pane, 211 adding movies to iDisk, 217–220 music from audio CDs, 115–118 from iTunes library, 118–121 text to titles, 85–86 titles, 104, 222–223 transitions, 75–76 Adjust Colors option, Effects Pane, 151 Advanced menu commands Extract Audio, 139 Lock Audio Clip at Playhead, 142 Restore Clip, 59 Reverse Clip Direction, 145 Unlock Audio Clip, 141 aged film effects, 154 agree/disagree prompt, iMovie installation, 238 AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format), 118

alignment and scrolling direction, 102 analog video, importing, 43–45 angelic images, 14 angles camera tricks and techniques, 17–18 high camera angles, 17 and lengths, varying, 13 low camera angles, 17 Apple Web site, 167 Ask a Question text box (iMovie Help dialog box), 34 attachments, e-mail, 163 audio. See also music; sound CDs, adding music from, 115–118 clips background sounds, removing, 137 Clip Info box, 131 cropping, 126–128 naming, 132 positioning, 130–131 splitting, 129–130 tracks, deleting, 132–133 volumes, 133–138 extracting from video clips, 138–140 locking to video clips, 142 unlocking from video clips, 140–141 Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF), 118

258

INDEX

Audio Pane components of, 113–114 iMovie Sound Effects, 121–123 Audio track 1 (Timeline Viewer), 111 Audio track 2 (Timeline Viewer), 111 Authenticate box, iMovie installation, 236 automatic scene detection feature, 42–43

B backgrounds, titles, 87 backward motion, 145–146 birth announcements, 220 black & white effects, 154 black space, 105–107 blue toggle switch, 38 blurred effects, 148–149 Brightness & Contrast option, Effects Pane, 152 buttons Create (New Folder box), 28 End (QuickTime Player), 204 Fast Forward Monitor window, 30 QuickTime Player, 204 Home Monitor window, 52 QuickTime Player, 204 Import (Monitor window), 39 Info (QuickTime Player), 205 Mode, 32 Pause Monitor window, 30 QuickTime Player, 204 Play Monitor window, 29 QuickTime Player, 204 Play Full-Screen (Monitor window), 52 Rewind Monitor window, 30 QuickTime Player, 204

Stop (Monitor window), 30 Update, 107

C camcorders. See also cameras connecting, 24–25 Digital8, 4 stabilization features, 15 tripods for, 15 Camera mode, accessing, 38 cameras. See also camcorders digital video, 4 tilting, 17 tricks and techniques, 17–18 videotapes, 4 CD-ROM option, QuickTime movie format, 199 chapter markers, 210–212 Clip Info box, audio clips, 131 Clip Viewer, chapter markers, 211 clips. See also audio clips copying, 62–63 cropping, 54–56 deselecting, 51 duration of, 53 importing, 39 automatic scene detection feature, 42–43 destination for, setting, 40–41 inserting where transitions exists, 80–82 media file information, 53 moving between clips, 65 from Clips Pane to Movie Timeline, 63–65 naming, 53 playing, 51–52 Redo feature, 57 restoring, 58–59 selecting, 50–51

INDEX

size of, 53 splitting, 60–61 trashing, 65–66 Undo feature, 57 Clips Pane, 31 Clock icon, 105, 110 close-up shots, 10, 13, 18 colors choices, list of, 90 Color Palette icon, 94–95 Color Slider icon, 92–93 Color Wheel icon, 91 Crayons palette, 96 duplicating, 97–98 Image palette icon, 95 magnifying class icon, 92 saving, 96–97 Web Safe Colors palette, 94 commands Advanced menu Extract Audio, 139 Lock Audio Clip at Playhead, 142 Restore Clip, 59 Reverse Clip Direction, 145 Unlock Audio Clip, 141 Edit menu Copy, 62 Create Still Frame, 164 Crop, 56, 128 Export Movie, 198 Paste, 62 Redo, 57–58 Split Video Clip at Playhead, 61, 103, 129, 180 Undo, 57–58, 148 File menu Duplicate, 192 Empty Trash, 66 Export, 194, 206

259

Import, 166, 178, 182 New Project, 27 Open Project, 47 Save Frame As, 161, 177, 181 Save Project, 46 Help menu iMovie Help, 33–35 iMovie Keyboard Shortcuts, 35 composition basics close-up shots, 10 establishing shot, 8 full shots, 8 medium shots, 9 Connect to iDisk dialog box, 218 Contents option (iMovie Help dialog box), 34 contrast options, Effects Pane, 152 Copy command (Edit menu), 62 copying clips, 62–63 movie projects, 190–193 Crayons palette, 96 Create button (New Folder box), 28 Create Project option (Welcome to iMovie box), 26 Create Still Frame command (Edit menu), 164 Crop command (Edit menu), 56, 128 cropping audio, 126–128 clips, 54–56 Cross Dissolve transition effects, 76

D deleting audio tracks, 132–133 Ken Burns effect, 175 titles, 108 transitions, 80

260

INDEX

Design Panes, overview, 31 dialog boxes Connect to iDisk, 218 Export, 194, 198 iMovie 3 Installer, 236 Import, 166, 178, 182 Macintosh HD, 240 Preferences, 41–42 Save, 177, 181 Save exported file as, 206 Save Frame As Image, 161 digital video cameras, 4 Digital8 camcorders, 4 disk space indicator, 32 distorted effects, 146–150 dolly shots, 16 dual effects, applying to one image, 184–185 Duplicate command (File menu), 192 duration of clips, 53 of titles, 99–101 of transitions, 74 DV tapes, exporting movies to, 194–196

E e-mail attachments, 163 QuickTime movie format, 199 earthquake effects, 147 Edit menu commands Copy, 62 Create Still Frame, 164 Crop, 56, 128 Paste, 62 Redo, 57–58 Split Video Clip at Playhead, 61, 103, 129, 180 Undo, 57–58, 148

Edit mode (scissors icon) accessing, 38 Home button, 52 Play Full-Screen button, 52 editing titles, 107 transitions, 78, 80 effects. See special effects; still images electricity effects, 156 Empty Trash command (File menu), 66 End button (QuickTime Player), 204 establishing shots, 8 exiting iMovie, 26 Expert Settings option, QuickTime movie format, 200 Export command (File menu), 194, 206 Export dialog box, 194, 198 Export Movie command (File menu), 198 exporting movies to DV tape, 194–196 to iDVD, 209–212 to QuickTime, 198–203 to VHS tape, 196–197 Extract Audio command (Advanced menu), 139

F Fade transition effects, 76 fairy dust effects, 155 Fast Forward button Monitor window, 30 QuickTime Player, 204 fast-motion effects, 144–145 file formats, 118, 160 File menu commands Duplicate, 192 Empty Trash, 66 Export, 194, 206 Export Movie, 198

INDEX

Import, 166, 178, 182 New Project, 27 Open Project, 47 Save Frame As, 161, 177, 181 Save Project, 46, 190 Filmstrip icon, 106 FireWire, 5–6, 24 flash bulb effects, 150 flying effects, 172 fonts colors of Color Palette icon, 94–95 Color Slider icon, 92–93 Color Wheel icon, 91 Crayons icon, 96 duplicating, 97–98 Image palette icon, 95 options, list of, 90 saving, 96–97 size of, selecting, 98 styles of, selecting, 88–89 four-pin connectors, 6 frames, freezing, 176–184 freezing frames, 176–184 Full Quality DV option, QuickTime movie format, 200 full shots, 8, 13 fuzzy effects, 157–158

G ghost trail effects, 148 glowing effects, 149 gradually focused effects, 157–158

H Help menu commands iMovie Help, 33–35 iMovie Keyboard Shortcuts, 35

261

Home button Monitor window, 52 QuickTime Player, 204 home pages, creating and editing, 220–229 hue shift option, Effects Pane, 151

I iDisk, accessing and adding movies to, 217–220 iDVD, preparing files and exporting to, 209–212 iDVD 3 Fast & Easy (Brad Miser), 209 Image palette icon, 95 images, adding dual effects to, 184–185. See also special effects; still images iMovie exiting, 26 installing agree/disagree prompt, 238 application lists, 241 Authenticate box, 236 Get iMovie 3 page, 232 iMovie 3 Full-Installer option, 233 iMovie 3 Installer dialog box, 236 Installation Type page, 239 language options, 235 License page, 237 Macintosh HD dialog box, 240 Read Before You Install iMovie icon, 234 Read Me page, 237 Select Destination page, 238 system requirements for, 5 opening, 25–26 iMovie 3 Installer dialog box, 236 iMovie Help dialog box, 33–35 iMovie Keyboard Shortcuts (Help menu), 35 iMovie Sound Effects option, 121–123

262

INDEX

iMovie Web site, 4 Import button (Monitor window), 39 Import command (File menu), 166, 178, 182 Import dialog box, 166, 178, 182 importing analog video, 43–45 clips, 39 automatic scene detection feature, 42–43 destination for, setting, 40–41 QuickTime clips to iMovies, 206–209 still images from File menu, 165–167 from iPhoto, 167–169 Info button (QuickTime Player), 205 Installation Type page, iMovie installation, 239 installing iMovie agree/disagree prompt, 238 application lists, 241 Authenticate box, 236 Get iMovie 3 page, 232 iMovie 3 Full-Installer option, 233 iMovie 3 Installer dialog box, 236 Installation Type page, 239 language options, 235 License page, 237 Macintosh HD dialog box, 240 Read Before You Install iMovie icon, 234 Read Me page, 237 Select Destination page, 238 system requirements, 5 iPhoto, importing still images from, 167–169 iPhoto 2 Fast & Easy, 167 iTunes, adding music from, 118–121

J jump cuts, 11

K Ken Burns effects altering, 174 applying, 169–172 deleting, 175 keyboard shortcuts, iMovie Keyboard Shortcuts option (Help menu), 35

L language options, iMovie installation, 235 lengths and angles, varying, 13 letterbox effects, 153 License page, iMovie installation, 237 lighting techniques, 14 lightness option, Effects Pane, 151 lightning bolt effects, 156 locking audio to video clips, 142

M .Mac account, setting up, 214–216 Macintosh HD dialog box, 240 magnified shots, 18 magnifying glass icon, 92 media file information, clips, 53 medium shots, 9, 13 menu bar, overview, 32 mirror effects, 148 Miser, Brad (iDVD 3 Fast & Easy), 209 Mode button, overview, 32 Monitor window Fast Forward button, 30 Import button, 39 overview, 31 Pause button, 30 Play button, 29 Rewind button, 30 Stop button, 30

INDEX

Movie Timeline. See Timeline movies. See also projects accessing and adding to iDisk, 217–220 copies of, 190–193 exporting to DV tape, 194–196 to iDVD, 209–212 to QuickTime, 198–203 to VHS tape, 196–197 importing QuickTime clips to, 206–209 saving, 190 themes, 222 titles, adding, 222–223 moving clips between clips, 65 from Clips Pane to Movie Timeline, 63–65 MP3 sound files, 118 music. See also audio; sound adding from audio CD, 115–118 adding from iTunes library, 118–121 muting audio tracks, 133–134

N n-square effects, 149 naming audio clips, 132 clips, 53–54 movie projects, 28 narration, 124–126 New Folder box, 28 New Project command (File menu), 27

O old film effects, 154 Open Existing Project option (Welcome to iMovie box), 26 Open Project command (File menu), 47

263

opening iMovie, 25–26 projects, existing, 47–48 Timeline Viewer, 110 Titles Pane, 84 Overview option (iMovie Help dialog box), 33

P panning, 12 Paste command (Edit menu), 62 Pause button Monitor window, 30 QuickTime Player, 204 pausing, duration of titles, 99–101 period (.) key technique, 176, 179, 183 photo albums, 220 Play button Monitor window, 29 QuickTime Player, 204 Play Full-Screen button (Monitor window), 52 playing clips, 51–52 ports, FireWire, 24 positioning audio clips, 130–131 titles, 101–104 Preferences dialog box, 41–42 previewing clips, 51–52 home pages, 224 video projects, 29–30 projects. See also movies creating new, 27–29 naming, 28 opening existing, 47–48 previewing, 29–30 saving, 29, 46 publishing home pages, 227 Push transition effects, 76

264

INDEX

Q QuickTime clips, importing to iMovies, 206–209 components of, 204–205 exporting movies to, 198–203 Quit option (Welcome to iMovie box), 26

R rain effects, 156 Read Before You Install iMovie icon, 234 Redo command (Edit menu), 57–58 rendering transitions, 75–76 Resize handle (QuickTime Player), 205 Restore Clip command (Advanced menu), 59 restoring clips, 58–59 Reverse Clip Direction command (Advanced menu), 145 Rewind button Monitor window, 30 QuickTime Player, 204

S Save dialog box, 177, 181 Save exported file as dialog box, 206 Save Frame As command (File menu), 161, 177, 181 Save Project command (File menu), 46, 190 saving font colors, 96–97 movie projects, 190 projects, 29, 46 scissors icon (Edit mode), 38, 52 scrolling direction and alignment, 102 scrubber bar, overview, 32 Select Destination page, iMovie installation, 238 selecting backgrounds, 87

font styles, 88–89 transitions, 72–73 sepia filter effects, 155 shadows, lighting techniques, 14 sharpen effects, Effects Pane, 153 shortcuts, iMovie Keyboard Shortcuts option (Help menu), 35 shots angles and lengths, varying, 13 camera tricks and techniques, 17–18 close-up, 10, 13, 18 dolly, 16 establishing, 8 full, 8, 13 magnified views, 18 medium, 9, 13 panning, 12 tracking, 16 zooming, 11 Sideways option, Effects Pane, 147 sites. See Web sites six-pin connectors, 6 size of clips, 53 of fonts, 98 of thumbnail images, 114–115 slow-motion effects, 144–145 soft focus effects, 149 songs. See music sound. See also audio; music MP3 sound files, 118 narration, 124–126 sound effects, adding, 121–123 voice-over, 124–126 WAV sound files, 118 special effects. See also still images aged film, 154 backward motion, 145–146 black & white, 154

INDEX

blurring, 148–149 distortion, 146–150 dual effects, applying to one image, 184–185 earthquakes, 147 electricity, 156 fairy dust, 155 fast-motion effects, 144–145 flash bulb, 150 flying, 172 fuzziness, 157–158 ghost trails, 148 glowing, 149 gradually focused, 157–158 letterbox, 153 lightning-bolts, 156 mirrored, 148 n-square, 149 old, scratchy film, 154 rain, 156 sepia filter, 155 slow-motion effects, 144–145 soft focus, 149 undoing, 148 speed. See duration Split Video Clip at Playhead command (Edit menu), 61, 103, 129, 180 splitting audio clips, 129–130 clips, 60–61 stabilization features, camcorders, 15 starting. See opening still images. See also special effects creating, 163–165 extracting from videos, 160–162 importing from File menu, 165–167 from iPhoto, 167–169

265

Ken Burns effect altering, 174 applying, 169–172 deleting, 175 Stop button (Monitor window), 30 styles of fonts, 88–89 titles, 85 system requirements, 5

T text, adding to titles, 85–86 themes, adding to movies, 222 thumbnail images, 114–115 time clock ticking, 10 Timeline moving clips to, 63–65 overview, 32 Timeline Viewer accessing, 110 components of, 111–113 thumbnail images, adjusting size of, 114–115 titles adding, 104, 222–223 alignment and scrolling direction, 102 backgrounds for, 87 black space, 105–107 deleting, 108 duration of, adjusting and pausing, 99–101 editing, 107 font styles, selecting, 88–89 positioning, 101–104 style of, selecting, 85 text, adding, 85–86 Titles Pane, opening, 84 tracking shots, 16

266

INDEX

transitions adding, 75–76 between clips, 80–82 Cross Dissolve, 76 deleting, 80 editing, 78, 80 Fade, 76 overusing, 78 Push, 76 rendering, 75–76 selecting, 72–73 speed of, setting, 74 Wash, 76 Trash (iMovie screen), 32, 65–66 tripods, camcorder stabilization features, 15 Tutorial option (iMovie Help dialog box), 33

U Undo command (Edit menu), 57–58, 148 Universal Serial Bus (USB), 5 Unlock Audio Clip command (Advanced menu), 141 unlocking audio from video clips, 140–141 Update button, 107 USB (Universal Serial Bus), 5

V Vertical option, Effects Pane, 147 VHS tape importing movies to, 196–197 importing to, 43–45 video clips extracting audio from, 138–140 still images from, 160–162 locking audio to, 142 unlocking audio from, 140–141

Video track (Timeline Viewer), 111 videos. See movies; projects videotapes, 4 viewing clips, 51–52 home pages, 224 video projects, 29–30 voice-over, 124–126 volume slider, QuickTime Player, 204 volumes, audio adjusting, 134–138 muting, 133–134

W Wash transition effects, 76 WAV sound files, 118 Web option, QuickTime movie format, 199 Web page preparation home pages, creating and editing, 220–229 iDisk, accessing and adding movies to, 217–220 .Mac account, setting up, 214–216 Web Safe Colors palette, 94 Web sites Apple, 167 iMovie, 4 Web Streaming option, QuickTime movie format, 199 Website option (iMovie Help dialog box), 34 Welcome to iMovie box, 25–26 What’s new option (iMovie Help dialog box), 33

Z zooming, 11

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