MacBook® All-in-One For Dummies®

Chapter 4. Making Magic with iMovie

In This Chapter

• Taking stock of the iMovie window

• Importing and adding media content

• Using transitions in your movie

• Putting text titles to work

• Sharing your movie with others

Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas, and Ridley Scott — those guys are amateurs! Welcome to the exciting world of moviemaking on your MacBook, where you call the shots. With iMovie, you can try your hand at all aspects of the movie-creating process, including editing and special effects. Built with ease-of-use in mind, iMovie lets you perform full-blown movie production on your Macintosh with a minimum of effort.

Don't let iMovie's fancy buttons and flashing lights fool you: This application is a feature-packed tool for serious movie production. The iMovie controls work the same as many top-notch, movie-editing tools that professionals use. From basic editing to audio and video effects, iMovie has everything that you need to get started creating high-quality movies.

The iMovie Window

If you've ever tried a professional-level video editing application, you probably felt as though you were suddenly dropped in the cockpit of a jumbo jet. In iMovie, though, all the controls you need are easy to use and logically placed.

Note

Video editing takes up quite a bit of desktop space. In fact, you can't run iMovie at resolutions of less than 1024 × 768, nor would you want to.

To launch iMovie, click the iMovie icon in the Dock. (It looks like a star from the Hollywood Walk of Fame.) ...