iMovie: Basics
Terms to know:
- Project: When working on video editing, you will
be in the video editing project phase. The video will be referred to
as a project because it is in editing format, instead of a final
viewing format like QuickTime or RealMedia. The project phase also
means that you may be working with multiple video files which you can
combine into a single final file, or you may take a single large file
and cut that file into multiple smaller files. Your final result will
need to be exported from the editing format to the final viewing
format in order to make the file smaller and to put the file in a
format that more computers can access.
- File format: File format refers to the form in
which a file exists. For instance, if you're working with a file in
Adobe Photoshop, the file is in .PSD form. If you wanted to put that
image on the web, you would want to change the image to a more
web-friendly format, like .PNG or .JPG (.GIF is also used, but
CompuServe owns .GIF, so .PNG is the publically owned available
form). when working with a file, your file in iMovie it will be in a
format specific to iMove and you will need to change this to the final
format you want when you are done editing your video. You should keep
your previous file if you expect to do more editing, or if you can,
but video files are often too large to keep unused copies available
for long.
- Rendering: Rendering is the process by
which a program fits the pieces of a file together and displays
them. For instance, when an image is loading on your computer from the
internet, your web browser and computer are "rendering," or preparing
that image for viewing. Time for rendering is directly proportionate
to image size. Thus, video rendering, which is the rendering of
multiple images, takes longer than single image rendering.
- Crop: Cropping means to cut away. If you crop
part of your video, you would be removing that section of your
video.
- Transitions: Transitions can be made using the
transitions menu. Transitions allow for greater clarity and less
`choppiness' in the final video. Transitions do need to be
rendered.
- Titles: Titles in iMovies allows you to
easily add text to stills, clips, and over balck screens. The title
option thus allows for the easy addition of a title screen (over the
video, or on black), credits, closing screen ("The End"), and so
on.
- Stills: Stills are still images which can
be put into your video. Stills last for 5 seconds by default, but this
can be edited. Stills are often used for title screens and framing
images at the end or beginning of a video.
Points to Note:
- iMovie does not support clips larger than 2GB, which is about 9
minutes.
- Save your files frequently! Saving frequently
protects you from lost data - you should always save frequently,
especially when dealing with labor and time intensive projects.
- When using iMovie, you can undo up to ten actions until you save
or quit the program. iMovie will not have you previous actions after
you save or quit and iMovie will not be able to undo more than ten
actions reagrdless of saves.
- The final format that you'll keep will be QuickTime. Other formats
will be too big to Fetch to other machines. QuickTime files are
.mov
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