Roll through your material in the order you shot it, in search of bits to use.
Use Command-T to chop up your raw material into usable bits.
Click shots in the Clip pane or the timeline to change labels to readily identifiable names.
Alternate views of your workspace from Clip view to Timeline view while working: moving shots around, dragging shots out, playing, and trimming.
Build structure first. Use cutaways after you've set up the structure.
Don't use every shot. In a first pass through your material, it might be okay to start by including everything you shot in your sequence, but you'll want to quickly become discerning and remove unnecessary angles as well as material that runs long.
In general, the sound recorded with the video is difficult to hear. Don't try to use it or follow the conversations too closely. It's good ambient sound, but it's less useful as the driving force of the video.
There's no need for special effects. The strength of the video is in the action and dynamics onscreen. There's no need for transition effects either, except in the opening and closing moments.
Add background music from iTunes to match the duration of the video.
Use the volume controller at the bottom of the window to adjust the mix of the music track to the sound recorded with the pictures.
Use Share to create a high-quality digital archive of your video back to your camcorder. If you have a .Mac account, you can also quickly share your video to the Web.
