Transferring Clips to Other Projects

As you'll learn in the next chapter, non-linear editing means you don't have to stick to the chronology of the camcorder's tape. What if you want to insert your great bear sighting that you took days earlier? Moving clips is easy, though a little rough around the edges.

To transfer a clip to another project:

1. Open the project that contains the clip you want.

2. Identify the clip's media file by double-clicking the clip and noting its name.

3. Switch from iMovie to the Finder and locate that media file in your project's Media folder.

4. Drag and drop the file to your destination project's Media folder (Figure 7.18).

   Figure 7.18. Perform a little quick-change act to move clips between projects iMovie figures it out.

   

5. Open the destination project. A dialog box tells you that iMovie has found clips that weren't originally there (Figure 7.19). Click Move Files To Clips Pane.

   Figure 7.19. iMovie notices the new media file and builds a thumbnail for the clip.

   

6. Save your project, then open the other project where the clip originated. iMovie displays a dialog box telling you that the clip's media file could not be found and was skipped (Figure 7.20). Click OK.

   Figure 7.20. When you open a project, iMovie scans the Media folder to see if there have been any changes. If a file goes missing, you get this message.

   

7. Open the destination project again, where the clip now appears on the Shelf.

Tips

• Unfortunately, if you've moved several clips, you must confirm a dialog box in the original project for each missing media file.

• Use this technique to split larger project folders into smaller ones when copying to smaller-capacity hard disks.