The Mac Authority: Become an Indie Film Director with iMovie 2

Ron Wilder

Application: iMovie 2
Operating system: Mac OS 9.0.4 or later

Apple Computer is recognized worldwide as an innovator in the industry. After all, they pretty much single-handedly brought the graphic user interface, the mouse and the CD-ROM to the marketplace. But over the last few years they’ve been quietly finishing three pieces of the puzzle that will make the Mac again the platform of choice for the creative professional–QuickTime, FireWire and iMovie 2. With this trio in place, you can quickly, and most importantly inexpensively, edit high-quality video rivaling results that would have cost over $100,000 just a couple of years ago. And as broadband Internet connections continue to grow, it’s safe to bet that you’ll soon see more video on the Web. And maybe your boring Uncle Ralph will get himself a video camera and one of those snazzy iMac DVs and stop making you sit through those awful slideshows of his travels to Indiana. So just in case you need to answer any questions for boring Uncle Ralph, we’ll take you through a standard editing process in iMovie 2 and show you how ridiculously easy it is to create a great video.

Casting Call
When you first launch iMovie 2 you might think you’re working in the Mac OS X, and while the program does have the look and feel of the Aqua interface, it’s unfortunately just a regular application. You’ll also notice that for such a powerful application, the program lacks the multitude of complex controls you might expect. In fact, the application is quite sparse of controls. Figure A displays the desktop tools and features.

To begin capturing the clips from your video camera, simply slide the Camera/Edit mode switch to Camera and turn on your camera. When you do, the Monitor window shows that the camera is connected and you’re ready to go. Now all you need to do is click the Import button at the bottom of the Monitor window and press the [spacebar]. From there, iMovie takes over and amazingly so.

Normally when you log clips from a video camera, you have to insert your own breaks in the clips. That is, you have to sit there and watch every second of the video and stop and start the playhead to insert Mark In and Mark Out points. iMovie on the other hand assumes (correctly in most cases) that you want each place where you paused or stopped the camera to be the end of a clip. After all, if it wasn’t where you wanted to end the clip, you surely wouldn’t have stopped your camera. Once the program has imported the clip, it times it, names it and stores it on the Clip Shelf for you to use in a moment. This feature alone will save you a tremendous amount of time compared to other video-editing applications.

Why Do You Think They Call It Editing?
Once you have all your clips logged in, the next thing you need to do is review each clip and remove the portions of the video that you don’t want to include in the final production. To do this, just select the clip from the Clip Shelf to display the video in the Monitor window. From there, simply drag your mouse along the Scrubber Bar to pick the section of video you want, as shown in Figure B. This replaces having to open each video and assign precise Mark In and Mark Out points in the clip. Should you need to correct the points once you’ve assigned them, just drag the Crop Markers to a new point. Then, once you’re happy with the clip, choose Edit > Crop to remove the unneeded portions.

Now that you’ve gone through and disposed of your bad videography examples, you’re ready to begin compiling your first movie. Since you reviewed each of the clips as you cropped them down you probably have some idea in what order you want them to be. To build your movie, just begin dragging the clips in order from the Clip Shelf to the Timeline. Don’t worry about being precise; since you normally wouldn’t want blank spaces in your video, iMovie automatically snaps the clips together.

Notice that the Timeline contains a single video track and two audio tracks. The audio tracks are additional to the stereo tracks included with the video–these two tracks are more for background music and sound effects than anything else. You’ll also notice that you can display the video by the timeline segments or the individual clips, as shown in Figure C. Chances are, you’ll find yourself switching back and forth between the Timeline and Clip views since each has its own benefit. For instance, if you cropped your clips carefully, the Clip view should suffice for most cases. But when it comes to adding audio to specific points along the timeline, you’ll want the more precise Timeline view.

Once you’ve inserted your clips, it’s now time to add a little Hollywood magic to the video, and with iMovie this is a cinch. For instance, instead of the rough cuts between clips, you can add nice transitions. To do so, simply select two contiguous clips in the Timeline between which you wish to insert the transition and then click the Transitions button on the Clip Shelf. iMovie then displays several transitions along with their respective options. And if you want to see how the effect will look before you apply it, just select your transition of choice and then click the Preview button for a real-time, albeit smaller, preview in the window at the top of the Clip Shelf. In most cases the only options you have for modifying the transitions alter their speed and direction. While programs like Final Cut Pro include several other options and ways to manipulate transitions, we think you’ll find the options in iMovie adequate.

Citizen Kane or My Favorite Sled?
Any big-time Hollywood director will tell you that a good title is as important as your story line. While iMovie won’t help you in figuring out the right name for your work, it can help you put the title up in lights, so to speak. First, click the Titles button on the Clip Shelf and enter the name of your work in the Title text field near the bottom of the window. Next, choose from the type of title effect you want to display. As you’ll notice in Figure D, not only can you control the effect, but you can also control the color, font, size and speed as well. You’ll also notice that the window allows you to preview your selection and effects. When you’re pleased with the title, simply drag it onto the appropriate place in the timeline. The results are surprisingly professional and help to make iMovie one of the best video-editing packages available for the consumer.

And while you’re at it, don’t forget to use the Titles section to add credits to your video. After all, even though you know that you’re the director, producer, actor, videographer, gaffer, key grip, foley artist and best boy doesn’t mean everyone else does.

FX a Little Limiting
When you think about Hollywood effects you probably think of all the wild things they do at places like Industrial Light and Magic–the people that constantly push the envelope in the Star Wars movies. Unfortunately, Apple thinks different. In fact, the only effects they include in iMovie are from the QuickTime repertoire. And they’re not even the good ones available in QuickTime. Currently, your choices are Adjust Color, Black And White, Brightness/Contrast, Sepia Tone, Sharpen, Soft Focus and Water Ripple. To apply one of the effects to a clip, select the clip and then choose the effect you wish to use. Once you’ve previewed the effect and are satisfied with it, click the Update button.

Add a Laugh Track
One of the most common mistakes people make when they edit a video is to forget the A in AV–audio adds a totally new and welcome dimension to your movie. Whether it’s something as simple as looping background music or some off-the-wall sound effects, inserting additional sounds to your video will make it seem more professional. As you can see in Figure E, the Audio button on the Clip Shelf allows you to add a number of whimsical and probably useful sound effects, along with the ability to record voiceovers. In addition, you can record music directly from a CD into an audio track for your video. You can then control the audio level, fading it in and out where appropriate.

It’s a Wrap
With your video complete you’re now ready to share it with the world; you know, film festivals like Cannes and Sundance are always looking for new work from up-and-coming directors. Fortunately, Apple provides a number of options to make getting your movie seen a reality. To begin, choose File > Export Movie and then decide whether you want to export the movie back to the camera or as a QuickTime movie. Selecting the Camera option sets the export to full-quality, digital video so there’s absolutely no generation loss in the quality of the tape after editing. Once you’ve turned your tape to VTR mode, just click the Export button and iMovie moves your finished work back to tape. Be sure not to tape over your original video, though–you might want to re-edit the video later–possibly a special director’s cut.

As you’ll notice in Figure F, choosing QuickTime for export gives you several options. For example, you can have iMovie compress and resize the video so it’s suitable to send as an email or create a full-size, digital quality QuickTime presentation. The beautiful thing about the QuickTime export is that since all the key components are already included in QuickTime, you don’t have to make a lot of trial-and-error exports before you get the right mix. All you have to do is select the manner in which you intend for the video to be viewed and press the Export button. If, however, you want to tweak the export a bit, you can always choose the Expert option. This command lets you choose the video and audio compressors, frame rate, picture size, sample rate and size and whether it should be set for streaming Internet viewing.

More Options
Obviously, for the money, iMovie is an impressive video-editing application. But you’ll quickly find that the available transitions, titles and effects may be a bit limiting for your creative likes. Not being one to stifle creativity, Apple designed the transition, title and effects as plug-ins. That means that you can add any third-party transition, title or effect by simply dropping the plug-in file into the Plugins folder. You can also add more sounds to the list in the Audio portion of the Clip Shelf by dropping them in the Sound Effects folder.

Requirements and Availability
To effectively run iMovie 2, you’ll need a Mac G3 or later with a 300-MHz or faster processor that’s running Mac OS 9.0.4 with QuickTime 4.1.2 or later and FireWire 4.1.2 or later. You’ll also need at least 64 MB of RAM and plenty of hard drive space–the program takes up 200 MB and each five minutes of digital video takes up 1 GB. Your monitor should support 800 x 600 resolution. Yes, it sounds like a lot of requirements but if you have a G3 or later machine, you’re probably already set to go.

If you’ve recently purchased a new Mac, iMac, PowerBook or iBook, chances are that your computer was bundled with iMovie. If not, you can purchase the software for $49 directly from the Apple Store at:

www.apple.com/store.

Is it Right for You?
If you have a digital video camera, you owe it to yourself to at least try iMovie 2. Yes, there are more powerful video-editing applications available, but for the price, the great quality of the results and the sheer simplicity of the program, iMovie can’t be beat.

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