Edit in iMovie on iPhone or iPad
After you add video clips and photos to the timeline of your project, you can make a clip longer or shorter, change the sequence of clips, or split a clip into two separate clips.
Audio enhancements: audio is an integral part of most video clips. By adding audio, you can set a scene, create suspense and drama, and make your video more memorable. With iMovie, you can enhance the audio and reduce background noise for a more polished final product, as seen in the image below. Aug 02, 2011 No you don't need a bazillion dollars, a Ferrari Testarossa and Hollywood actors to make a music video. All you need is a Mac, iMovie, a song, and some videos or pictures. Video search engines like YouTube have become one of the most significant ways for music fans to discover new music.
Learn how to arrange your video clips then add titles, music, and transitions as we make a simple film.
Make a clip shorter or longer
You can trim a video clip or a photo so it appears for a shorter or longer period of time in your project.
- With your project open, tap the video clip or photo in the timeline. A yellow highlight appears around the selected clip.
- To zoom in on the clip, pinch open in the center of the timeline. When you zoom in, you can see more detail in the clip, which can make it easier to edit.
- Drag the beginning or end of the clip to make the clip shorter or longer:
- To make the clip longer, drag the edge of the clip away from the center of the clip.
- To make the clip shorter, drag the edge of the clip towards the center of the clip.
If you can't drag the edge of the clip, there might not be additional video at the beginning or end of that clip. For example, if you added a video clip that's 20 seconds long, you can't make it longer than 20 seconds. It might also mean the clip is at the shortest length allowed by iMovie, which is 0.3 seconds. If you still want to change the duration of a clip, you can try slowing down or speeding up the clip.
Change the sequence of clips
You can change the sequence of clips in the timeline to change when a particular clip appears in your movie. With your project open, touch and hold the video clip or photo in the timeline until it rises off the timeline, then drag and release where you'd like the clip to appear in your project.
Split a clip into two separate clips
When you split a clip, you can adjust the duration of each section, remove unwanted sections, or add different titles to each section.
- Scroll in the timeline to position the playhead (the white line) where you want to split the clip.
- If necessary, pinch open in the center of the timeline to zoom in on the clip.
- Tap the clip, tap the actions button , then tap Split. Or tap the clip, then swipe down over the playhead on the clip, as if you were slicing through the clip with your finger.
iMovie places a None transition (also known as a cut) between the two newly created clips. You can change this transition to a cross-dissolve or other transition. Program to view pdf files.
Edit in iMovie on Mac
After you add video clips and photos to the timeline of your project, you can make a clip longer or shorter, change the sequence of clips, or split a clip into two separate clips.
Make a clip shorter or longer
You can trim a video clip or a photo so it appears for a shorter or longer period of time in your movie.
- With your project open, scroll the timeline to locate the clip you want to trim.
- To zoom in on the clip, choose View > Zoom In, or press Command–Plus sign (+) or pinch the trackpad. When you zoom in, you can see more detail in the clip, which can make it easier to edit.
- In the timeline, hover your pointer over the beginning or end of the clip that you want to trim until your pointer becomes the clip trim tool . The arrows indicate which directions you can trim the clip:
- To make the clip longer, drag the edge of the clip away from the center of the clip.
- To make the clip shorter, drag the edge of the clip toward the center of the clip.
If you can't drag the edge of the clip, it means there is no additional video at the beginning or end of that clip. For example, if you added a video clip that's 20 seconds long, you can't make it longer than 20 seconds. It might also mean the clip is at the shortest length allowed by iMovie, which is 0.1 seconds. If you still want to change the duration of a clip, try slowing down or speeding up the clip
Add or remove frames with the clip trimmer
For more precise editing, you can use the clip trimmer to add or remove individual frames from a video clip. You can also see how much of your clip is being used in your movie.
- In the timeline, select the clip you want to trim.
- Choose Window > Show Clip Trimmer. The selected clip appears in the clip trimmer, above the timeline. The part of the clip that is visible in your movie appears between the two white lines, and the parts of your clip that don't appear in your movie are dimmed and outside the white lines.
- Hover your pointer over the line at the beginning or end of the clip until the clip trim tool appears, then make the clip longer or shorter:
- To make the clip longer by adding frames, drag away from the center of the clip.
- To make the clip shorter by removing frames, drag toward the center of the clip.
You can use a different portion of the same clip while maintaining its length in the project:
- In the clip trimmer, hover your pointer over the clip until the clip trimmer tool appears.
- Drag the selected portion of the clip left or right.
- To close the clip trimmer, Press Return.
I Movie Making Video Youtube
Change the sequence of clips
You can change the sequence of clips in the timeline to change when a particular clip appears in your movie. With your project open, click the video clip or photo in the timeline, then drag the clip left or right depending on where you want the clip to appear in your movie:
- If you want the clip to appear earlier, drag the video clip to the left, then release.
- If you want the clip to appear later, drag the video clip to the right, then release.
You can also move multiple clips at once:
- Hold the Command key as you click each clip you want to select, drag a selection rectangle around the clips, or hold the Shift key as you click each clip.
- Drag the clips to a new location in the timeline.
Split a clip into two separate clips
When you split a clip, you can adjust the duration of each section, remove unwanted sections, or add different titles to each section.
- Scroll in the timeline to position the playhead (the white line) where you want to split the clip.
- If necessary, choose View > Zoom In or press Command–Plus sign (+) to zoom in on the clip.
- To split the clip, choose Modify > Split Clip or press Command–B .
After you split the clip, add a transition like a cross-dissolve between the clips.
Learn more
When it comes to video creation, editing is probably the hardest part. To properly edit a video, you need to be proficient with a good video editing software and have a great knack for video storytelling.
Looking for a best iMovie Alternative? Check out Movavi Video Editor.
iMovie places a None transition (also known as a cut) between the two newly created clips. You can change this transition to a cross-dissolve or other transition. Program to view pdf files.
Edit in iMovie on Mac
After you add video clips and photos to the timeline of your project, you can make a clip longer or shorter, change the sequence of clips, or split a clip into two separate clips.
Make a clip shorter or longer
You can trim a video clip or a photo so it appears for a shorter or longer period of time in your movie.
- With your project open, scroll the timeline to locate the clip you want to trim.
- To zoom in on the clip, choose View > Zoom In, or press Command–Plus sign (+) or pinch the trackpad. When you zoom in, you can see more detail in the clip, which can make it easier to edit.
- In the timeline, hover your pointer over the beginning or end of the clip that you want to trim until your pointer becomes the clip trim tool . The arrows indicate which directions you can trim the clip:
- To make the clip longer, drag the edge of the clip away from the center of the clip.
- To make the clip shorter, drag the edge of the clip toward the center of the clip.
If you can't drag the edge of the clip, it means there is no additional video at the beginning or end of that clip. For example, if you added a video clip that's 20 seconds long, you can't make it longer than 20 seconds. It might also mean the clip is at the shortest length allowed by iMovie, which is 0.1 seconds. If you still want to change the duration of a clip, try slowing down or speeding up the clip
Add or remove frames with the clip trimmer
For more precise editing, you can use the clip trimmer to add or remove individual frames from a video clip. You can also see how much of your clip is being used in your movie.
- In the timeline, select the clip you want to trim.
- Choose Window > Show Clip Trimmer. The selected clip appears in the clip trimmer, above the timeline. The part of the clip that is visible in your movie appears between the two white lines, and the parts of your clip that don't appear in your movie are dimmed and outside the white lines.
- Hover your pointer over the line at the beginning or end of the clip until the clip trim tool appears, then make the clip longer or shorter:
- To make the clip longer by adding frames, drag away from the center of the clip.
- To make the clip shorter by removing frames, drag toward the center of the clip.
You can use a different portion of the same clip while maintaining its length in the project:
- In the clip trimmer, hover your pointer over the clip until the clip trimmer tool appears.
- Drag the selected portion of the clip left or right.
- To close the clip trimmer, Press Return.
I Movie Making Video Youtube
Change the sequence of clips
You can change the sequence of clips in the timeline to change when a particular clip appears in your movie. With your project open, click the video clip or photo in the timeline, then drag the clip left or right depending on where you want the clip to appear in your movie:
- If you want the clip to appear earlier, drag the video clip to the left, then release.
- If you want the clip to appear later, drag the video clip to the right, then release.
You can also move multiple clips at once:
- Hold the Command key as you click each clip you want to select, drag a selection rectangle around the clips, or hold the Shift key as you click each clip.
- Drag the clips to a new location in the timeline.
Split a clip into two separate clips
When you split a clip, you can adjust the duration of each section, remove unwanted sections, or add different titles to each section.
- Scroll in the timeline to position the playhead (the white line) where you want to split the clip.
- If necessary, choose View > Zoom In or press Command–Plus sign (+) to zoom in on the clip.
- To split the clip, choose Modify > Split Clip or press Command–B .
After you split the clip, add a transition like a cross-dissolve between the clips.
Learn more
When it comes to video creation, editing is probably the hardest part. To properly edit a video, you need to be proficient with a good video editing software and have a great knack for video storytelling.
Looking for a best iMovie Alternative? Check out Movavi Video Editor.
However, there is a myriad of video editing software out there. So, it begs the question, which video editing software should you use? Well, if you are Mac user, you can easily turn to the default iMovie that comes preinstalled on your computer.
iMovie is often overlooked by many as a good video editing software. Most people think it's primitive and so it's not up to the task of making a great and well-edited video. Well, is it?
In my over 4 years' experience as a video creator, I can confidently say that making a professional looking video has more to do with your technique and less to do with the tools you use.
Regardless, there are certain professional features that I judge every video editing software I come across by. Let's put iMovie to the test and see how well it performs.
1. Color Correction
Color correction is one feature that I immediately check any video editing software for. These tools enable you to fix any color problems you may have in your video arising from various lighting conditions or white imbalance that may have been present during recording.
iMovie features a default color correction tools that enable you to tweak the brightness, color saturation and contrast of your video.
There is also a color temperature shift control that comes in handy when you are trying to fix a white balance in your recording.
2. Video Speed
Video speed control is another critical feature that I look for in any video editing software. Video speed control allows me to alter the speed of any video clip. Speeding up or slowing down a video clip is ideal for representing various scenes in a video.
iMovie allows you to either increase or reduce the pace of a video clip to illustrate multiple scenes in your video clip better.
3. Multiple Video Tracks
This feature is an absolute must. Having the ability to view multiple video tracks gives you an added flexibility and edge during video editing. This can come in handy if you ever need to add more video footage to your project. This is also called b-roll into your project.
Also, you can use this feature to add a green-screen, split screen and picture and picture.
iMovie does permit those features; however, you can only make do with only one extra video track. For very complex 4 or 5 layers composting effects, you are going to look further than iMovie.
Although, for most video editing projects, dual track multimodal editing system will do just fine.
4. Text and Titles
One other important feature to look for in any video editing software is the quality of the on-screen titles and texts.
Texts are important parts of a video, and they can be used to add text, captions and titles.
Your video editing software should be more than capable of adding quality on-screen texts. You really do not want to have a separate software for editing videos and adding titles and texts.
Which is why having a video editing software that edits video and is capable of adding text is a big plus. iMovie has a plethora of nice templates for titles, captions, credits and lower thirds.
Most of the templates are already pretty much animated, although you may choose to edit them to your liking. You can use a bunch of tools to tweak the color, sizes and fonts. However, you are a little restricted as you cannot change the location of the text on the screen.
But with a little technique and creativity, the default iMovie templates will come out right.
5. Picture overlays
How about when you need to show custom graphics or text in your video?
To achieve this, the video editing software has to be capable of importing graphics file from another source – the ability to use graphics overlay is another essential feature that I am keen about in any video editing software.
Basically, graphic overlays are custom animations, images or graphics that you create in other applications and then import them into your video project. But to use this feature, your video editing software must first be able to import graphics that contain transparency information or something known as an alpha channel. There is a limited amount of image format that is compatible with an alpha channel, with the most common ones being tiff and PNG.
iMovie can import either of TIFF and PNG including their alpha channels.
6. Key frame animation
This feature is one that you may not ascribe too much with a video editing software.
Key frame animation enables you to choose the position, appearance and size of objects on your screen. Having this feature in your video editing software is very useful as it saves you the hassle of having to work with other applications such as Adobe After Effects, even for some of the simplest animations.
iMovie has the key frame animation feature that can be found within its picture and picture feature. Although its pretty basic. But once you get a hang on it, you will find it very useful for creating simple animations.
7. Audio Editing Features
Audio is an essential part of any good video. People might bear a bad video quality, but nobody will put up with terrible audio quality. Poor audio can render even some of the best videos unwatchable, which is why I am very particular about the audio editing features of any video editing software I use.
1. Audio Meters
Audio meters help you gauge the sound of your audio and tell you if it's going to be too low or too loud for your audience.
They also help you to set a reference audio level for all your videos so that they all come out at a consistent audio level, which is great. You certainly don't want your audience either scrambling for the remote or adjusting their speakers each time they see a bunch of your videos.
In the case of iMovie, there is no traditional audio meter. Instead, there is a color-coding and waveform that helps you measure sound levels.
2. Audio Filters
Another crucial feature I always search for in any video editing software is the range of its audio filters. Audio filters are important for enhancing the sound elements in your videos.
In iMovie, you can find a bunch of basic audio filters, among which is an automatic optimized filter that helps you to even out and boost all the low-quality sound levels. It also contains several equalization and noise reduction filters to help you enhance the sound of your project.
3. Multiple audio tracks
In my opinion, multiple audio tracks is a crucial feature that any video editing software should have.
With multiple audio tracks, you can add sound effects, music and voiceovers to your project to make them more exciting and engaging.
iMovie allows you to create multiple tracks of audio that enables you to add several layers of voiceovers, sound effects and music to your project. However, they could all come out weird if you cannot possibly control the audio levels of each track.
iMovie allows you to adjust the individual sound levels of each of these tracks. This is a reasonably easy and effective way of controlling the sound levels.
Making Video Clips
4. Sound Mixing
In a process known as audio ducking, iMovie also features a sound mixing tool that automatically reduces the audio levels of other video clips on the timeline in relation to a chosen clip.
To Conclude
After walking you through those features, do I still think iMovie is a good enough video editing software?
Well, for most of the videos which we see today, I would say iMovie is more than capable. Sure, it's not the best software to use If you are creating lengthy videos or videos that contain lots of animations or effects.
Imovie Making Video Clips
Regardless, you can always create animations and other special graphics and effects on a separate application and then import them into your iMovie project.
Once you factor in the features, usability and price, iMovie becomes a decent competitor.
You may also like:
I Movie Making Video Free
Imovie Making Video Software
Hey, My name is Paul – nice to e-meet you 🙂 I'm a freelance video editor who has over 4 years experiences of making all types of videos. I founded this website to provide step-by-step and easy-to-follow instructions to first-time editors or beginners like you who want to start their journey in video editing.
