iMovie help for the extreme beginner

Hi, I'm totally lost and have some basic questions that I can't seem to find answers to on the net. I've looked around, but everything I find seems to assume I already know what they're talking about, or ends up being about how to create a movie masterpiece given 100 clips. I also found out a lot of stuff is for older versions. I have iMove 10.1.1

My situation: I copied all the little movies I had on my other "getting rid of Windows" computers to my mac book pro (250GB SS drive). I didn't think it was a whole lot as I'm not a movie nut... just family christmas clips, some vacation clips, etc. I also started doing some guitar playing at places and recorded some of the songs. I have a solid state HD Sony videocam (and I'm still figuring out AVCHD). I have about 20GB of music on the MBP, and some files, and that's about it. Not even a bunch of apps. No games.

And a few days ago my MBP said it was full and can't any more. Checking the file sizes, I realized these little movies are monsters. So for some of the largest ones, I got into iMovie, figured out and did the 'create movie' thing, which created a project, and I rendered?/shared them to .mp4 files that are in the 50 to 200MB range rather than the original 400MB to 1GB range. I played one on the big TV and it looked fine, so I'm happy with the iMovie settings I used. I've since moved all the movies to a separate drive, delete them from the MBP, including the iMovie library which was created with me not knowing what I was doing. I want to bring them over, one by one, make them smaller and create a library of movies that's organized. I am not a 'movie maker' nor a "movie enthusiast". I don't need all kinds of special effects - I just want to reduce my overall movie footprint on the MBP drive and organize all my little movies. So for me, it begs some very basic questions about iMovie. I'm not even sure what questions to ask.. each one seems like going down an endless hole when I did net searches for answers.

I've yet to comprehend the difference between 'media', 'projects', and 'theater'.

So, what is Theater? Do I need it? I suppose we'll watch these movies on the TV at family gatherings, not on the MBP.

What's the process? Create a movie - import the movie clip - go to projects - yank it down to the timeline - share it to a file using the smallest settings - then what? Is it in my library? Does it then become a 'media' ? I'm not sure, once I create the smaller .mp4

I plan on heading to a couple of places today to see if there's an Idiots Guide or For Dummies guide to iMove... are they any good? Is there a better book that's for the basic beginner?

Thanks for any help offered - I don't want to start doing all this until I fully understand what I'm doing, how I'm going to do it, and what I'm going to end up with.

Pete Derkowski

I've yet to comprehend the difference between 'media', 'projects', and 'theater'.

Click to expand...

Media is/are all your video/movie files/clips. When you import some video/movie files/clips into iMovie, they will show up here. You use this Media to create a:

Project. Here you select various clips from your Media and drag/insert the into the Project Timeline. You can edit(get rid of unwanted footage, slow down or speed up clips, apply various effects, adjust audio volumes etc) these clips, add some music or do a voice over narration, add Titles, insert transitions between clips and so on.

When you are happy with your Project you can then Export/Share it. One of the options is to send it to Theatre. This is just a way of storing your finished Projects within iMovie. However, to play them, you have to run iMovie and play them from in their.

Personally, I Share to File as I then have easier access to them. Plus I often make DVDs as well, for which you need the File copy.

What's the process? Create a movie - import the movie clip - go to projects - yank it down to the timeline - share it to a file using the smallest settings - then what? Is it in my library? Does it then become a 'media' ? I'm not sure, once I create the smaller .mp4

Click to expand...

The process would be:
Run iMovie
Import clips
Create a Project
Share to File.

Don't necessarily use the smallest settings as your movie will look poor when blown up on a TV screen. Use at least the same resolution as the original for decent quality.

Here's a link to David Pogue's iMovie Missing Manual book. There have been a couple of iMovie updates since the book was written so their are some minor differences.

http://droppdf.com/v/Ax631

Thank MightyGem! It looks like I'm doing the process right... I need to see what my videocam settings are, if there are any. I don't know what it records the originals at - it's an HD recorder, but thats all I know about what it's doing, so far. This is where I get lost, because if I use at least the same resolution as the original (say a 900MB movie) when exporting/sharing it to a file, wouldn't it end up just as huge? I copied one I made smaller to a pendrive, popped it into our Roku, brought up their media player, and played the movie on our 47inch screen - it actually looked great to us. I guess compared to the original we would see a difference, but we didn't notice any drop outs or fuzzyness. I'll experiment with different export/share settings, and see how they look on the TV before I start slogging through them all... once I make them all smaller I plan to delete the originals.

A great summary of the complexities of iMovie, MightyGem. I can't give you a thumbs up because I've done it for you too recently.

Ian

IWT said:

A great summary of the complexities of iMovie, MightyGem. I can't give you a thumbs up because I've done it for you too recently.

Ian

Click to expand...

Taking care of that now. It's definitely thumb worthy. Is that a thing?

I'll experiment with different export/share settings

Click to expand...

Yes, you can adjust the resolution and the quality. I have a clip where the original clip is 400mb and the Shared File copy at the original resolution ranges from 33 to 700mb.

I can't give you a thumbs up because I've done it for you too recently.

Click to expand...

Taking care of that now. It's definitely thumb worthy. Is that a thing?

Click to expand...

Ahh, come on guys. You're making me blush. :Blushing: