PE02_iMovie

iMovie – The Goodies

So, let us move on to what I call the goodies.  Thus far, we have learned to import our assets, organize clips, and prepare to begin creating a project.  I cover three topics today that deal with sections five through seven in the Lynda tutorials, editing, effects, and working with audio.  It seems that both software packages I am using (iMovie and Final Cut Pro X, FCP), have similar editing features.  I like to compare and look back at my tutorial on FCP.  It is in this area where you see the most viewed items marked.  It is these features that turn your raw family home footage into a professional-looking polished presentation-quality product. 

Editing

These tutorials began very simply with creating your project and then moved on to more advanced features.  I found the trimming, slip edit, and splitting clips very useful.  However, the most awesome feature I learned to use was under cropping and rotating.  It is a little feature named the Ken Burns effect.  

                                                Screenshot - Burns Effect

Now, I have worked in the video retail industry all of my life.  At age sixteen I began working in a video store and have been involved in the industry ever since.   I’m very familiar with most of his DVD sets.  He makes incredible historical documentaries.  I own several of the sets and have shared clips with the classroom.  I wondered if the effect was related.  I had to Wikipedia it to find out and the actual effect is named after his effect in the documentaries.  He is known to add life to inanimate pictures.  I began to try out the effect.  The only thing is that it is much more difficult to use the Ken Burns effect with video than with a still picture.  The results are a little more difficult to see.  Here are some samples:

                                                 Film Clip – Pic of Boy - Raw

                                                Film Clip – Pic of Boy – With Crop

As you can see, the Ken Burns cropping effect gives the effect of different camera angles and close-up work.  My edits here are not that great, but they are a work in progress.  At least with these types of cropping, the monotony of the single shot, home-video style is lost and your piece begins to look more professional.

Audio

But, what about the busy background noise?  I wanted to add Halloween music to the clip, but the overlapping music and background music was too much.  I figured out how to separate the audio from the video tracks in section seven, but some of the teacher’s comments I want to keep.  I found it works the way I want it to by adding music in section seven and splitting the actual clips before extracting the audio.  Here is the same clip of the boy, but with background music.

                                                 Film Clip  – Pic With Music

Effects

In the tutorials regarding effects, I learned quite a bit about iMovie.  I learned how to adjust and incorporate transitions and themes.  I had always thought the two were a package deal; you must pick a theme to add all the effects.  However, this is untrue.  You can pick and choose one type of opening and another for transitions.  I am not sure if I like more of a variety of transitions or a uniform look.  I will have to try a few different ways. 

                                                Screenshot – Themes Available

One of the coolest things in iMovie is the movie trailer.  I don’t think they have this feature in FCP.  Right now, I am in the middle of my project… However, when I finish training and the video, I will definitely create a trailer and post it to my next blog.   Stay tuned to this location for “Pumpkin Patch – An Odyssey”…