Here are some awesome iMovie tips and tricks that are going to save you time when editing your iMovie clips. Follow this tutorial to get your iMovie clips on to a new level and blow your viewer’s minds!
Pop up Picture Effect
For our first trick, we are going to add an image to our video. We are going to use a thumbs-up image. Remember to always find transparent images. Drag and place it on your clip where you want it. Set the timeframe and then resize the image using the crop and fit functions. Once you select the picture-in-picture setting you will see a lot smaller thumbs up on your video. Move it around to where you want it and then add the sound effects. Use the settings on the picture-in-picture to make your image pop.
Slow Motion Speed Ramping
Select your clip and drag it to the editing frame. iMovie will automatically add a speed ramp for you as you can see. On your clip, you will see 2 markers, at the start and end of your clip. These are the time markers where it will slow down to 24 fps. When you watch the clip, you can see the slow-motion section. To change the timing of the slow-motion section, use the bottom market to change the time at which the slow-motion kicks in. the top marker changes the speed of the slow motion. Remember to not slow the clip down too much as it will seem choppy in the final clip. Check out the video for a Pro Tip on slowing down your footage.
Green Screen Effects
If you want to add an effect like an explosion or subscribe image, it’s very easy with a green screen. Start with your clip and select your green screen footage and drag it to your clip. When you select green/bluescreen on the top you will see that you already have a pretty good layout. Use the settings to clean up the image. Set the right timing for the explosion by dragging to the correct timestamp.
If you’re interested in learning iMovie, you are probably a beginner with video cameras as well. This helpful how to use a video camera for beginners tutorial might be exactly what you need now:
Audio Effects
Using your clip and the audio that you want, add to your video, you can create super cool effects in your videos. Just drag and drop the audio on the clip and you can use the time select to stretch or shrink the audio to the right spot on your audio. Use the effects menu to change the audio so that it sounds more like it comes from the phone.
J-Cuts and L-Cuts
This effect lets you detach the audio from your clips and stretch them across your video. First, you detach your audio from the clip and then stretch it to where you want it. To align the audio and video you need to drag the clip until the audio and video sections line up again. Mute the audio by just dragging the volume down as shown in the video. Remember to fade the audio clips so that you have a seamless transition. That is a J-cuts and an L-cut is just the opposite. The same process just backward as shown in the video.
Clone Yourself
Use this tip to clone yourself in your footage. always remember that your camera cannot move when you are filming, use manual focus and manual setting. Also, if you can film the entire clip in one go so that you have as little as possible movement on the camera. Select the sections that you want to work with, A-side. Using the crop function select the part of the frame that you are in (your A-side). Now drag the second part of the clip (B-side) and you will see that it overlays the videos and it’s all out of sync. Use the picture-in-picture menu to size the video footage to the right size. By adjusting the highlights and shadows you can then remove the tell-tale signs of the merge in your footage.
Picture-in-Picture Effects
As before, drag your image onto your video and fit it as we did in the first tip. Now you can frame in your shot to get a Sci-Fi scene in the sky. You can also use keyframe to get your picture in picture effects super fantastic. When you drag the image, you will see that iMovie adds a keyframe for you.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Here are the most common keyboard shortcuts to speed up your editing:
- Space Bar – Start and Stop your video
- Zoom – CMD – or CMD +
- Copy and Paste – CMD C and CMD V, using CMD OPTION C or V you can also speed up your editing
- Undo – CMD Z or CMD SHIFT Z to REDO your previous action
Time-Lapse Effect
We are going to use a 13, 5 min clip and we are going to create a time-lapse effect with iMovie. Select the clip and open the speed menu and change the speed from normal to fast. You can select the speed by clicking on the speed buttons next to the dropdown. Or you can use the custom option to change the speed to whatever you want it to be.
Export Settings
Use these settings to export your movie in the best possible format and quality when you are sharing your videos. Select Share from the main menu and then select file again. Firstly, always select the highest resolution for the best quality. Always export both video and audio. The quality selection gives you 5 options but there really is only one that will give you the best quality video, and that is best (ProRes).
But remember that this setting will increase the file size. The custom setting allows you to choose the file size to get the best quality video. The custom setting does get you the best-exported video. Always use better-quality compression settings.
These best iMovie editing tips should help you speed up your workflow and help creating better videos.
