Section 14.9. Playing the Movie Track

14.9. Playing the Movie Track

The Monitor isn't limited to playing clips; it can also play the Movie Track. That's handy, because one of iMovie's best features is its ability to show your movie-in-progress whenever you like (without having to compile or render anything, as you do in some more expensive editing programs).

14.9.1. Playing the Whole Movie

To play back your entire Movie Track, press the Home key on your keyboard, which in iMovie means "Rewind to beginning." As a timesaving bonus, the Home key also deselects all clips.

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Tip: On recent desktop Macs, the Home key is above the number keypad, or stationed together with a separate block of keys like Help, Delete, Page Up, and Page Down. On recent laptop Macs, you simulate the Home key by holding down the Fn key (in the lower-left corner of the keyboard) and tapping the left-arrow key.

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Alternatively, you can click the Home button , which is beneath the Monitor just to the left of the Play button. Once again, iMovie deselects all clips in the process of rewinding.

When you tap the Space bar, iMovie plays your movie starting from the location of the Playhead in the Scrubber bar; if you've pressed Home, that's the beginning of the movie. iMovie plays one clip after another, seamlessly, from left to right as they appear in the Movie Track.

Playing your movie back is the best way to get a feeling for how your clips are working together. You may discover that, in the context of the whole movie, some are too long, too short, in the wrong order, and so on.

14.9.2. While the Movie is Playing

As the Movie Track plays, the Playhead slides along the subdivided-looking Scrubber bar; if the Timeline Viewer is visible, a duplicate Playhead slides along it ; and if the Clip Viewer is visible, a bright red, inverted T cursor slides along the faces of the clips themselves (Figure 14-10).

Figure 14-10. Because every clip icon is the same size but not every clip is the same length, the T indicator speeds up or slows down as it arrives at the left edge of each clip. (You can see it in the center clip here, approaching the right side of the frame.)

While the movie is playing, you can take control in several ways:

• Use the playback controls beneath the Monitor (or their keystroke equivalents) to pause, stop, rewind, and so on.

• Navigate the movie by clicking in the Scrubber bar or dragging the Playhead.

• Deselect the highlighted clips by clicking on any "brushed metal" spot in the iMovie window.

• Adjust the volume by pressing the up-arrow or down-arrow key.

• Add a bookmark by pressing -B, or a DVD chapter marker by pressing Shift- -M.

• Stop the playback by pressing the Space bar.

• Stop the playback and rewind to the beginning by pressing the Home key.