I was at Macworld Expo when Apple introduced the first version of iMovie, and seeing it in person was a bona fide "a-ha" moment for me and most of the people in attendance. Video editing, a skill that people spend years mastering in specialized schools, had arrived on the average user's Mac. Of course this was going to work. When Steve Jobs presented a short video of two children playing, I knew the days of long, choppy, unedited videotape recordings were coming to a close. Not only can you easilylet me repeat that: easily capture video footage and transfer it to your computer, you can now edit out all the bad shots, the awkward moments, and those times when the camera was inadvertently left recording while dangling at your side. Now, in 2006, Apple has helped redefine the whole notion of home movies. With built-in support for the high-definition HDV video format (as well as widescreen digital video and native MPEG-4 formats), iMovie HD 6 gives you the chops to make your own independent feature film without appearing as if you made it in your basementeven if that's exactly what you did. And when you're done editing the movie, send it to iDVD 6 to create a professional-looking DVD that can play on most home DVD players. Your friends and family will be the ones saying, "A-ha!" Who Should Read this BookiMovie HD 6 & iDVD 6 for Mac OS X: Visual QuickStart Guide is aimed at the beginning or intermediate videographer who wants to know how to quickly and easily edit movies in iMovie and create DVDs using iDVD. Perhaps you've just purchased your first camcorder and want to turn your home movies into little masterpieces, but don't have the time or money to invest in a professional video editing application. Or maybe you're an old hand at shooting video but new to editing the footage on a computer. Then again, maybe you're a budding Spielberg with scripts in your head and a passion for telling stories on filmthe movie business is a tough one to crack, but it's entirely possible that your iMovie-edited film could be the springboard for a career in Hollywood. (In fact, one of the official entries at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival was edited in iMovie.) Or you could also be the owner of a new Macintosh, and want to know why Apple is going to the trouble of giving you a powerful video editing application for free. Since iMovie's introduction, we've seen a boom in digital video editing. Sure, it was possible before, using much more complicated and expensive programs such as Final Cut Pro or Adobe After Effects (and you can still take that route). But with iMovie and iDVD, anyone can make a movie and burn it to a disc that can be played in nearly any consumer DVD player. What's New in this EditionThe book has been updated to cover the changes in iMovie HD 6 and iDVD 6, including iMovie's new Themes and iDVD's Magic iDVD feature. I've also created a new chapter on scoring your movie in GarageBand, revamped the Web-related material to account for iWeb and making video podcasts, and added new tips throughout. An iMovie and iDVD ToolboxA full-size movie crew can be unbelievably large and take up a city block. You probably won't require that much gear, but a few items are necessary to use iMovie and iDVD.
The Moviemaking ProcesCreating a movie can be a huge spectrum of experience, but for our purposes I'm going to distill it as follows.
The DVD Creation ProcessiDVD provides a clear path to customizing the appearance of your DVD, adding more content, and burning the DVD disc.
This Book's Companion Web SiteI maintain a frequently-updated iMovie blog that includes additional tips, pointers to software, examples from the book, and other iLife-related information. Check often at http://www.jeffcarlson.com/imovievqs/. What You Can Accomplish by the End of this BookTo say, "Prepare your acceptance speech" would be exaggerating a bit, but the truth is, you can theoretically use iMovie to create a feature film, award-winning documentary, or even just the best darn vacation video you've ever seen. As you delve deeper into digital video and nonlinear editing (NLE), you'll realize that more options and more control can be had with more sophisticated (and pricey) systems, such as Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro. But nothing says you can't do what you want with iMovie. Stepping out of the clouds, you should easily (there's that word again) be able to shoot, edit, and distribute your movie. In the process, you'll find a new respect for film and videoyou can't help it. After using iMovie for a few hours, you'll start watching television with a new eye that picks up aspects like pacing, framing, transitions, and audio that you may never have noticed before. That's been my experience, and now look at me: I've written five editions of this book. And assembled some of the best darn vacation movies you've ever seen. |