Introduction


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 Book

iMovie 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 Edition

The 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 Toolbox

A 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.

  • Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later. iMovie HD 6 and iDVD 6 run under Apple's now and future operating system, Mac OS X, version 10.3.9 or later, though version 10.4.4 and later is recommended. You also need a Mac with a PowerPC G4, PowerPC G5, or Intel Core processor running at 733 MHz or faster.

  • iMovie HD 6 and iDVD 6. If you've purchased a Mac sometime after January 2006, you probably have iMovie HD and iDVD alreadylook in the folder named Applications. The programs are also available as part of the $80 iLife '06 package, which includes iTunes 6, iPhoto 6, GarageBand 3, and iWeb.

  • A digital camcorder. This handy and compact device records the raw footage that you will edit in iMovie. If you own a camcorder that's not digital, you can still import video into iMovie using a third-party analog-to-digital converter. That said, I can't stress how much easier it is to work when you have a digital camcorder. See Chapter 7 for details.

  • Lots of hard disk space. Storage is getting cheaper by the day, which is a good thing. You'll need lots. I don't mean a few hundred megabytes tucked away in a corner of your drive. Realistically, if you don't have at least 10 GB (gigabytes) of storage (on the low side) to use for iMovie and iDVD, shop for a bigger hard drive. See Chapter 7.

The Moviemaking Proces

Creating a movie can be a huge spectrum of experience, but for our purposes I'm going to distill it as follows.

  1. Preproduction. If you're filming a scripted movie (with actors, sets, dialogue, etc.), be sure you hire the actors, build the sets, write the script, and otherwise prepare to shoot a film. See Appendix B for some resources on where to learn more about the process of getting a movie before the cameras. On the other hand, if you're shooting an event or vacation, preproduction may entail making sure you have a camcorder (see Chapter 1), its batteries are charged, and that you have enough tape available.

  2. Capture footage. With preproduction out of the way, it's time to actually film your movie. The shooting part is when this book starts to come in handy. Chapters 2 through 5 discuss methods of composing your shots, lighting the scenes, and capturing audio.

  3. Import footage into iMovie. Your tape is full of raw video waiting to be sculpted by your keen eye and innate sense of drama. The next step is importing it onto your computer and into iMovie. See Chapter 7.

  4. Edit your footage in iMovie. Before iMovie, average folks had no simple way to edit their footage. The result was endless hours of suffering as relatives were forced to watch every outtake, flubbed shot, and those 10 minutes of walking when you thought the camera was turned off. iMovie changes all that. See Chapters 8 through 13 to learn how to edit your video and audio, plus add elements such as transitions, titles, and special effects.

  5. Export video. The movie is complete, and it's a gem. Now you need to share it with the world. Using the information found in Chapters 14 through 18, you can record the movie onto a videotape, export it to a QuickTime movie for downloading from the Web, email it to another person, or transfer it to a device (such as a cellular phone) using Bluetooth networking; or onto a DVD (using iDVD).

The DVD Creation Process

iDVD provides a clear path to customizing the appearance of your DVD, adding more content, and burning the DVD disc.

  1. Choose a theme. iDVD's professionally designed themes provide a menu system that your viewers interact with to watch your movie. Chapter 20 shows you how to expand the menu's organization by adding submenus and AutoPlay movies.

  2. Customize themes and add more content. With the bare bones in place, change the theme's settings to personalize the menus. Learn how to change buttons, replace background images, modify text formatting, build slideshows, and more in Chapters 21 and 22.

  3. Burn, baby, burn! Choose an encoding method and burn your disc, or create a project archive that can be moved to another computer for burning there (such as a faster Mac). The smoke rises over Chapter 23.

This Book's Companion Web Site

I 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 Book

To 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.




iMovie HD 6 & iDVD 6 for Mac OS X (Visual QuickStart Guide Series)
iMovie HD 6 and iDVD 6 for Mac OS X
ISBN: 0321423275
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 197
Authors: Jeff Carlson

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