Hardware and Software Requirements
1. Record a Digital Video Movie
Use the Canon ZR-10 or another digital video camera to record some video. Footage is recorded on a digital mini-cassette tape and can be exported to the computer as a large data file or to a standard VHS (non-digital) videotape.
2. Connect your camera to the computer
a. Connect a FireWire cable from the computer to the camera.b. Turn the camera on and set it to playback mode.
c. Choose File/New Project... and give the project a name.
d. Set iMovie to Camera Mode.
(slide the blue button to the left)
3. Scan your footage for clips
a. Your movie is displayed on screen in the upper left window called the "monitor".b. Camera Playback controls under the monitor are: A: Rewind, B: Pause, C: Play, D: Stop, E: Fast Forward.
c. Click the Import button to start or stop capturing a video clip. Captured clips are saved to the hard drive and show up in the "shelf" (a window in the upper right).
d. Keep an eye on your available disk space. It fills up fast!
4. Arrange the clips
a. Switch to iMovie's Edit Mode.(slide the blue button to the right).
b. Movie Editing Controls under the monitor: A: Rewind, B: Home, C: Play, D: Full Screen, E: Fast Forward.
c. To make a clip part of your movie, drag it to the Clip Viewer window at the bottom of the screen. Arrange clips in the clip viewer in the order you want them to be played. The entire series of clips from start to finish is called the movie's "track."
5. Edit the track
a. Use the Timeline Viewer to see the movie's video and audio tracks. Here you can fine tune the clips and splice out artifacts or excess footage. The white triangle is called the "playhead" and it moves over the blue "scrubber bar" as your movie plays. Elapsed time is shown to the hundredth of a second.
b. Cropping excess video footage is done by dragging the pointer along the tick marks just below the scrubber bar in the monitor. A pair of triangles demark the area to be cropped (shown in yellow). Hit the delete key and the selected area disappears.
c. You can add up to two sound tracks in addition to the audio/video that came from the camera. For example, you could have a voiceover track and a music track. Adjust the volume of a clip by selecting the clip and then dragging the slider control at the bottom of the timeline viewer. Make sure your foreground track plays louder than your background tracks, and verify that each desired audio track is checked.
d. To record your voice, click the Audio button in the shelf and then click Record Voice. If the microphone is properly connected and sound input is properly set, you should see a green level indicator bar while speaking into the microphone.
e. You can drag a built-in iMovie sound clip such as "Crowd Clapping" from the shelf to the timeline viewer to include it in your movie.
f. Music can be added directly from a CD or from an MP3 or AIFF file. In the shelf's audio section, extract an entire track from a CD by dragging it to the timeline viewer, or select just the part you want by clicking the Record Music button while it plays. Import an MP3 or AIFF sound file by choosing File/Import File.
6. Add Transitions, Titles and Effects
In the shelf, click on the buttons for Titles, Transitions and Effects. Add these items to the timeline viewer or clip viewer in between your video clips. Experiment! There are lots of cool things here but none are essential to making a movie.
7. Save your movie
a. Choose File/Save periodically while working on your project. iMovie saves its movies in a proprietary format. To allow others to view them, you should export the movie to Quicktime.b. Choose File/Export Movie...
c. Select the quality and size of the movie, remembering that high quality movies take up lots of disk space.
