Apple iMovie at a Glance User Manual
iMovie at a Glance
Tutorial
“iMovie at a Glance” introduces you to the controls in the iMovie window. You use these controls
to create your own movies. Take a look at these pages even if you don’t plan to do the tutorial,
because you’ll need to know the names of the iMovie controls to follow instructions in
iMovie Help.
The pages that follow introduce you to the main iMovie window, the timeline and clip viewers,
and the different panes you use to add professional polish to your movie.
1
iMovie Window
A
B
C
A
iMovie monitor: Watch your clips play in this window. You can play clips that are in the Clips pane or the
clip viewer.
B
Scrubber bar: Drag the playhead along the scrubber bar to move through a clip frame by frame. The number
near the playhead indicates how far (minutes:seconds:frames) the selected frame is into the movie.
C
Mode switch: Click to switch between camera mode and edit mode. Use camera mode to choose an input
device and transfer your raw video into the computer. Use edit mode to work on your movie.
D
Playback controls: Use these controls to skip to the beginning of a selected clip, play the clip in the iMovie
monitor, or play the clip full screen on your computer’s monitor.
E
Volume slider: Slide this control to change the volume of the computer’s speaker while you work in iMovie.
This won’t change the volume levels in your video or audio clips.
F
Pane buttons: Click these buttons to see the different panes of the iMovie window. See a description of each
pane later in this document.
G
Trash: Drag unwanted clips to the Trash icon to delete them. You can restore cropped video and audio from
the iMovie Trash if you haven’t emptied it.
H
Disk space indicator: Monitor your free disk space as you work. You should always have about 2 GB free disk
space for optimal performance of iMovie. When this bar turns yellow, you are starting to run low on disk
space. When it turns red, you must free up some space to continue working on your movie.
D
E F
G H
2 iMovie at a Glance
Clip Viewer
Use the clip viewer, shown below, to add clips to your movie and arrange them in the order you
want them to appear in your movie. When you create titles and transitions, or add photographs
from your iPhoto library, drag them to the clip viewer.
A
C
B
A
Clip viewer button: Click the clip viewer button to switch from the timeline viewer.
B
Clip: Each section of video footage and any still images you import are called clips.
C
Transition marker: Transition markers indicate that two clips are linked by a transition.
Timeline Viewer
Use the timeline viewer, shown below, to work with audio clips, synchronize your audio with
video, and to adjust the timing of your movie.
A
B
C
D
A
Timeline viewer button: Click the timeline viewer button to switch from the clip viewer.
B
Video track: Select clips in this track to add motion effects.
C
Audio tracks: Place and arrange audio clips in these tracks to synchronize audio and video clips. Deselecting
the checkbox to the right of the track mutes all the audio clips in that track.
D
Zoom slider: Move the slider to make clips appear larger or smaller in the timeline.
E
Clip speed slider: Select a video clip and drag this slider to make the clip play faster or slower.
F
Edit Volume: Select this checkbox to see the volume level bar for all clips. Move the slider to raise or lower
the volume of a selected clip or clip segment.
G
Volume level bar: Click this bar to add markers, then drag the markers to adjust the volume for sections of
audio clips. You can use this to make audio fade in or fade out.
H
Audio waveforms: Representations of audio intensity. Use audio waveforms to align video to audio events
such as a certain drumbeat or the exact beginning or end of the audio.
I
Audio checkboxes: Select a checkbox to hear the audio in its track. Deselect it to mute the track.
E
G
H
F
I
iMovie at a Glance
3
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