Learn iMovie Basics By Example

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Learn the basics of using iMovie on your Mac by following along with me in this example. 

Sometimes the best way to learn how to use an app is by following along with an example. So I want you to get some things ready. Get three to five video clips in any standard format. Maybe something that you shot on your iPhone. Save them as files so you have them in an Examples Folder in the Finder. Then also maybe gather a few images and optionally a music file in any sound format. So, for instance, here I've got a folder that has 4 MP4 files, an MOV file, there's a sample little music file, and two images. I'm going to use this as the contents to create a video in iMovie. So as I demonstrate how to use iMovie use your own files to create your own project. Follow this video as much as you need or even go back a few seconds here and there to follow along so you can learn all the little skills I'm going to teach you. 

The first thing I need to do is launch iMovie. I'll use Spotlight to do that and you may see the Project Page here maybe with other projects you've started. If you're already in a project, like I'll go down to this project here, and click on the Projects Button at the top left to go back to the Projects Level. Whenever you're working on something that isn't related to previous projects it is a good idea to put that in a new library so that you've got a completely separate file that contains all of it. So I'm going to go to File and then going to Open Library and then create a new one. I'll just call this Example 1 and I'll Save it. Nothing is going to change here because it is showing you All Projects right now. Instead I'm going to switch to just have it show Example 1. That one library there, and I haven't created anything in it yet so, of course, it's empty. I'll just have it Create New. I can click there or go to File and then New Movie  and it will prompt me which Library do I want to create it in. So I want to put it in this new one I created. 

Now I've got a completely blank project. I can start brining in my media. On the left here you're going to see all your libraries. I've got that Example1 here. Then I've got under it different folders or they are just called Events where you can put different pieces of media. I'm going to put this over a bit here and I'm going to grab the five video files here and drag them into this space where it says Import Media. Then it is going to place those five video files here. If I want I can rename this. Now I've got these five here but I haven't actually started building anything yet. I've just gathered together five video clips. The actual project itself is shown in this Timeline here at the bottom and it is empty right now. In other to add something to it I can select one of these clips, let's start with this one, and notice the two yellow handles on either side. I can trim off some from the beginning and some from the end of this clip to get just the portion I want. I can use this Preview Area here to help me get to the right start and end spots. Then I can drag that yellow area into this Timeline here and drop it in. So now I have a short segment of this clip in here. I can also click the Plus Button and add the entire clip to the end. 

The Timeline is getting pretty long. I can scroll back and forth between it. I can also zoom out a bit so I can see each of these clips. I can select this next clip here and I can simply drag the entire thing in without trimming either from the beginning or the end. So I drag that in there. Now I've got three clips in here. I don't have to always put them in order. If I want this clip to come after the first one I can drag it into the spot between them. You can see how it places it there. Then I can, say, drag this one all the way to the beginning, like that. Even after I have dragged it in I can still trim from the beginning and end by simply grabbing the left side, like that, and drag it to the right. Drag the right side to the left. I can also add more by pulling out, like that. So you have completed control there. 

Another thing you can do is you can split a clip in the middle. So say I want to use the first part of this clip somewhere else. I can get to a portion that I want, say right there, click and notice it is going to leave a line behind there. I can now go to Modify and split clip or Command B and it will split this into two pieces. I can grab one of these pieces and drag it to another location, like that. So I'm using this clip in two spots like this. I could have done the same thing by grabbing a portion of it, like that, and dragging it in. Then grabbing another portion, like that, and dragging that in. I can use the clip as many times as I want. 

Now I have already done quite a bit here, because I have taken five different videos and combined them into this one timeline. Let's add some more. In between these clips there is nothing. It goes from one clip and jumps directly to the next. But you can have a different kind of transition by clicking on Transitions here. You have all these different transitions you can try. For instance this simple one is Cross Dissolve. If I grab Cross Dissolve and I drag it to a space between two clips, like here. now you can see it indicates that instead of just a jump cut there's a Cross Dissolve there. I can play it from that point and you can see how it dissolves from one into another. I can double click on this and I can expand the duration. Make it last for one second instead of a half second. But note that you do have to pay attention to how much time you've got on either clip. A lot of times people find that they can't apply a transition. It's simply because one clip or the other doesn't have enough length to it to support a transition. 

You can select any one of these, so you can do something kind of fancy, like this. Just drag it in and Replace. Now you can see it is going to slide like that. So you can use any one of these transitions. You can also select a clip and then just double click on one of these to add that transition to either end. As a matter of fact you can select a clip, do Command A for All, and just double click and it will apply that transition throughout your entire movie. 

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Now another thing you may want to do is to add titles. You've got a Title Section here. Titles can be used in two different ways. They can take over the entire video, like opening titles and closing titles. So for instance I can go down here on the list and choose something like the. I can drag this to the beginning and now I've got some opening titles here. So you can see if I were to scrub over this to see what it looks like. With this selected I can also use this preview area, double click in it and I can edit the text. Not just what the text is but other things like font, bold, color, and all of that. With this now taking its place in the main timeline it is a title all to itself. But you can also apply titles over existing video. So for instance I can drag this one called lower third right here and you can see how it appears over the video. I actually drag it and leave it over the video there. I can have this be whatever I want. I can even center it like that, change the font, and everything. So I've got two different types of titles here. 

You also can add backgrounds. So I can say take something like this one and I can drag that in here and it is just this background that's going to fill this space. But by using a background like that I can take title, drag this up onto it. So the title is now on top of a background. This is how you can have something more interesting than just a black background with a title. 

Now let's work with some of these clips here. I select a clip and I look at the preview area and there's a lot of things here I can change. Some of these have to do with color and the light. For instance I can deeply saturated this one or desaturate it with the slider right here under colors. I can go to Cropping and I can change from Fit which will just show the entire clip to Crop to Fill and then I can grab one of these corners here and crop in. Now if I were to accept this, by clicking the checkmark here, you can see how it crops it to it. If I were to go back to cropping I can expand this or just go to Fit, like that, to show the entire thing. Cropping is sometimes necessary if the clip isn't the same width and height as your video. You can also go here to Special Effects and add a clip filter, like that. You can see in the Preview Area these different filters applied. Some of these are extreme like this one and this one. While others are basically just playing around with the color. 

Now, in addition to having video clips in your movie you also can insert Photos. So I'm going to go back to my media here. I've got those five clips. But remember I have those two images here. I'm going to select those two and drag them in as well. So now you can see I have two pictures in there. I can drag one of these pictures in just like a piece of video. When I insert it in there it is going to be a certain length. I can expand it. It doesn't matter how long or short it is, it just remains the same. I can select it and I can use the same cropping tools to crop it. In this case the photo is taller than the video frame here. So I might want to adjust what part of the image I'm showing or even shrink it down to center it on something else. I can also use Fit. But in this case since it is a taller photo you'll just see black bars on the left and right since there is no image to include there. That's why cropping is usually the best option. But you can also choose Ken Burns to add some movement. Named after the documentary film maker this allows you to add a Start Cropping and an End Cropping. You can see the two there. So now if I look over the length of this clip you can see it go from the start cropping to the end cropping which creates a nice movement effect even though the image is a still image. Another thing about using your own images is you can use them instead of the backgrounds for things like titles. So I can bring this still image here and I can bring this title onto it. I'll select this background and press the Delete Key to delete it. Now my titles are over my own custom image. This can be a photo or a graphic I made in the Graphics App. 

You can also play with sound. This clip here has sound and probably all of your clips do.  You can use the dots here on the left and right to have the sound fade in or fade out. You can also grab the line and go up or go down to increase or decrease the volume. But sometimes you want to add audio like music that isn't part of any clip. That's why I've got this audio file here. Go back to Media, drag in this audio clip, and you can see it adds it right here. So now I can drag that in and I can place it just below a clip here or all the way at the bottom where there is a special section for music. Either one will allow you to adjust this so you get it to start where you want. Use those same dots there to fade out at the end or in at the beginning and the line to adjust the volume as well. 

So now to review your project you can just go and click at the beginning to place the line there and then just play it. This just plays in iMovie. If you want somebody else to see it or you want to view it outside of iMovie you want to export it. To do that go to File and then Share. Then choose File. Then you can make some choices here and then Next. This allows you to save a file that is you project. You can see here I've got the finished video. I can double click on it to open it up in Quick Time Player and there's my project. When you're done Click on Projects here. If this is the first time exiting the project it is going to ask you to name it. So come up with a name for it. There you'll see it and actually be able to go back into it anytime you want to continue to work with it. The nice thing about putting it in some Library File is you can just switch to another library and when you're done with that project you know it is completely contained inside of the library you've created. So you can Archive this somewhere to save drive space.

So hopefully following along with me through this tutorial you've learned the basics of how to use iMovie on your Mac. Thanks for watching.