This chapter focuses on working with video, from importing video clips to moving them around within iMovie. You’ll learn the way that a camcorder can be connected to your Mac and the process of capturing video through that connection. (Capturing video, simply put, is the process of importing digital video footage from a camcorder into a computer.) You’ll also learn some basics of video editing and working with film clips.
Later in the chapter, we’ll get into the process of actually capturing video from your camcorder into your Mac using iMovie. But for now, let’s import a file that has already been captured into iMovie. To do so, follow these steps:
Open iMovie and choose File, Import from the menu bar. The Import File sheet window appears from the top of the iMovie window.
Click the pop-up menu at the top of the sheet window and navigate to a movie file.
Select the movie file and click Open (see Figure 25.1). iMovie opens the clip, and when it is finished, you’ll see it in both the Monitor and the shelf, as shown in Figure 25.2.
Did you Know?
iMovie is designed primarily to work with video captured directly from a camcorder on a Mac, but it is possible to take video from a PC and use it in iMovie. One way to do this is simply to ask whoever is giving you the video from a PC to save it in DV format (NTSC, PAL, or SECAM, depending on what country you live in) to a portable FireWire hard drive, and to import it from there.
Today, virtually every video camera that you can purchase in a store includes a FireWire connection, which you may remember from Chapter 19, “Adding Peripheral Devices.” FireWire is the magic behind being able to make your own digital movie and DVD projects.
When you want to connect your digital camcorder to your Mac, you must use a FireWire cable. A camcorder often comes with such a cable, but you can also purchase it separately.
The cable that you need to use has two different kinds of connectors: a smaller end that’s known as a 4-pin connector and a larger one on the other side that’s known as a 6-pin connector. The smaller, 4-pin connector is the kind most often found on camcorders, and the larger 6-pin connector is most often found on computers.
After you connect the FireWire cable to your computer, you can connect the other, smaller end into the camcorder. The location of the FireWire port on a camcorder varies, but it’s usually behind some kind of protective cover. Figure 25.3 shows the smaller 4-pin end of a FireWire cable and the corresponding port on a digital camcorder.
This section takes you through the process of setting up iMovie and connecting a camcorder so that you can capture video.
Turn on the camera, and insert the smaller (4-pin) end into the FireWire connector on the camcorder. (Insert a tape that you’ve recorded video on into the camcorder if you haven’t already.)
Insert the larger (6-pin) end into the FireWire connection on your Mac.
Open iMovie and choose File, New Project to create a new project.
Click the Camera/Edit Mode switch in iMovie to switch to the camera (DV) mode (see Figure 25.4).
By the Way
When you plug in most cameras on your Mac, iMovie automatically switches to Camera mode, but you can always use the switch mentioned previously if it doesn’t happen.
After you’ve connected your camera, iMovie displays a message in the monitor window confirming that your camera is connected, as shown in Figure 25.5.
In addition to capturing video from a camcorder, iMovie can be used with Apple’s iSight camera, discussed in Chapter 16, “Using iChat AV,” to record video directly. iMovie converts the footage to the DV format as it is stored so you can work with it just like other video.
To use your iSight to record directly to iMovie, first attach your iSight and open the privacy shutter. Then, launch iMovie and switch to Camera mode, and click the small arrow immediately to the left of the Camera mode icon to select iSight from the pop-up menu. Click the button labeled Record with iSight to begin recording, and click again to stop recording. (iMovie will stop recording on its own when the length of a clip reaches 9.5 minutes.) The clips recorded will appear in the Clips shelf just like those imported from a camcorder.
If you’re new to working with digital video on your Mac, all you really need to keep in mind is that you’re using your camera and your computer as if they were a TV and a VCR.
In essence, iMovie becomes your computer VCR but instead of recording a program from the television, iMovie records video from your camcorder. That’s what capturing video is all about.
When working with video on your Mac, you use familiar controls to capture and access your video, such as play, stop, fast forward, and rewind.
When you want to capture video, you need to find a spot in your video where you want to start capturing, and that’s where cueing comes into play. Depending on where you left off in the tape, when you use your camcorder to record your video, you might need to play, rewind, and so on to position and review your footage.
This positioning can be done with the camera itself, by looking at its miniature screen. But one of the most enjoyable things about working with digital video through FireWire is that you can control your camera using buttons in the iMovie screen. So, when you connect your camera, you don’t necessarily have to use the buttons on the camera itself. When connected through FireWire, iMovie can actually control the camera, so you can use the Play/Fast Forward/Rewind buttons (see Figure 25.6) right in iMovie to go through your tape.
Assuming that you performed the task “Connecting Your Camcorder” earlier in the chapter, follow these steps:
Click the Rewind button to rewind the tape (see Figure 25.7).
Click the Play button (see Figure 25.8) to begin playing your video.
While the video is playing, try clicking the Fast Forward button (see Figure 25.9) to fast forward through the video while you’re watching it. Click again to stop the tape.
If your video is still playing, click the Stop button (see Figure 25.10), and then click either the Fast Forward or Rewind button. This method of moving through a tape is faster, but you can’t see the video moving by.
Using the play controls, find a spot in your videotape where you want to start capturing.
There’s no official term for fast-forwarding or rewinding from a complete stop. But if you’re new to video, you could think of it as step starting, where the tape isn’t moving and you have to take a step in a particular direction (backward or forward) to get things going. Step starting is the fastest way to get to a certain point on your tape. In contrast, watching footage going by when you’re fast-forwarding or rewinding could be thought of as play previewing. In other words, you press the Play button and then press Fast Forward or Rewind. The disadvantage is that things go slower, but you can see exactly what’s going on.
When you capture video, one nice thing that iMovie can do is separate your clips for you. If you set your iMovie preference to automatically start a new clip at scene breaks, iMovie separates the clips automatically wherever you pressed Stop and then started shooting a new clip.
After you’ve completed the two previous tasks (connecting your camcorder and finding a spot in your tape to start recording), follow these steps:
Open iMovie and start a new project.
Switch the Camera/Edit Mode switch to the Camera position (DV) (see Figure 25.11).
Click the Import button to start importing footage (refer to Figure 25.5).
When you’ve captured your video, click the Stop button.
Now click the Camera/Edit Mode switch (see Figure 25.12) and drag it to the right to switch back to Movie mode so that you can begin to work with your clips.
By the Way
When capturing video, keep in mind that you must keep an eye on the amount of space available on your hard drive. Remember that if you’re planning to export your iMovies to use in an iDVD project (see Chapter 29, “Exporting iMovies”) is that when you export the file, you need just as much space as your project is taking up—in other words, when you export for iDVD, you need more space.
One of the most enjoyable parts about playing with footage in iMovie is the way that you can easily move around in a clip in the same way that you might use the remote control on your VCR or DVD player to find a spot in a movie. In iMovie, as you’re editing your creation, you’ll often want to move through various parts of individual clips or the overall movie as it takes shape. Instead of playing through the entire movie, you can quickly get to the spot that you want, with a control called the playhead, which is located at the bottom of the Monitor window (see Figure 25.13).
To prepare for this task, if you don’t already have the clip from the previous task open, open it so that you can have something to work with.
To go to a specific spot in a clip:
Click on the playhead, and hold down the mouse button.
Drag the playhead horizontally to the left or right to find the spot that you want. Notice how the number of minutes and seconds are displayed next to the playhead as you drag it, indicating how far into the clip you are. Try dragging the playhead to a precise time, such as 5:00 (5 seconds).
After you’ve captured video, the first thing that you must do is to acquaint yourself with the clips you’ve captured to get an idea of what you have to work with. Playing with clips in the Shelf is a good way to accomplish this.
Select a clip in the Shelf by clicking it; the selected clip turns blue.
Move the mouse over the text in the clip and click. The area behind the text turns white, and you can type a new name in for the clip (see Figure 25.14).
To get a better taste of how the iMovie interface gives you the power of video editing, we’ll take a look at how to make a basic edit using a combination of the shelf, the Monitor, and the Timeline Viewer.
This section goes through the process of making an adjustment to a clip, but first we need to drag the clip into the Timeline Viewer. To prepare the clip, click on it in the shelf and drag it down and to the uppermost row of Timeline Viewer, which is where you put video clips. When your mouse cursor—which is normally an arrow—changes to an arrow with a “+” next to it, release your mouse button (see Figure 25.15).
After you drag the clip, the Video Monitor looks the same, but the clip now appears on the Timeline Viewer rather than the Shelf, as illustrated in Figure 25.16.
Now that we have a clip ready to go, we can make an adjustment to it. In our scenario, the adjustment we want to make is to delete some extra footage at the end of the clip.
To delete extra footage:
Drag the playhead in the Monitor to somewhere close to the end of the clip—to the point just before the clip switches to another scene.
Choose Edit, Split Video Clip at Playhead to mark the spot so that iMovie knows where one clip ends and the next begins. In essence, you’ve just created two separate clips from one original clip (see Figure 25.17).
In the Timeline Viewer, click the unwanted clip and choose Edit, Clear from the menu. The extra footage is removed, and the desired footage remains.
You don’t have to move clips to the Timeline to split them. You can choose a clip in the Shelf and preview it in the Monitor window; then place the playhead and split the clip as described in step 3.
Besides splitting a clip at the playhead, which results in two clips, you can also edit with direct trimming right in iMovie’s Timeline. Direct trimming doesn’t produce “leftovers” the way splitting a clip does, because the trimmed footage is hidden but still part of the original clip until you empty the trash.
To trim a clip, first drag it to the Timeline and select it. Then, place your mouse cursor over the right or left edge of the clip so the cursor changes to a double-sided arrow. Next, click and drag the cursor toward the center of the clip, as shown in Figure 25.18, as you watch the video in the Monitor. (For additional information about where you are in the clip, the time code for the amount you’ve trimmed will appear next to the playhead above the Timeline as you drag.) When you get to the part of the clip you want to use in your movie, let up on the mouse and the trimmed clip will slide into place.
Did you Know?
You can tell which ends of a clip have been trimmed because they will appear as straight edges in the Timeline instead of retaining rounded corners.
In addition to trimming a single clip, you can also click and drag a selected clip’s edge to overwrite an adjacent clip by holding down the Control key. This means you can reposition a clip and edit the adjacent clip in one motion.
If you discover you’ve trimmed too much, place your cursor on the opposite edge, and drag away from the center of the clip to restore what you want to keep. Remember, however, that you can restore trimmed video after you’ve emptied the trash.
One of the more common tasks in basic video editing is deleting unwanted video footage. Doing so is easy in iMovie:
Click on a clip in the Shelf to select it.
Either drag the clip into the Trash until the Trash well darkens or select Edit, Clear from the menu.
You’ll probably want to get into the habit of emptying the Trash after you’ve deleted a clip, or at regular intervals, so that you can keep the maximum amount of hard drive space available to work on your movie.
Choose File, Empty Trash to empty the Trash.
Click OK in the Confirm dialog box that comes up. Then see how much space you have freed up by checking the free space indicator at bottom-right of the iMovie window.
No video editor is perfect, and sooner or later you’ll decide that you want to start over again when adjusting clips. One way to back up is to go through a repeated series of undo steps by pressing Ctrl-Z on your keyboard or choosing Edit, Undo.
Another way is to use the Restore Clip option, which enables you to start over again by bringing clips back to their original state.
Watch Out!
If you edit clips, you can only restore clips to the condition they were in up until the last time you emptied the trash, so be careful to clean up only after you’re happy with your edits.
Click one of the clips in the Timeline that you made by splitting the original clip.
Choose Advanced, Restore Clip as shown in Figure 25.19.
Click OK in the dialog box that appears to restore the original clip (see Figure 25.20).
Just about the time you start getting hooked on iMovie, you might realize that your Mac doesn’t have an endless amount of storage space on the hard drive, and you need to think a bit more about how much space your projects are taking up.
Chances are that you’ll have enough space on your hard drive to work on a few projects at the same time, unless you’re working on full-length movies from day one. When you’re finished and have exported your iMovies to tape or iDVD, you can burn the raw files in your iDVD project folder to CD or DVD or move them to an external hard drive.
Whichever way you go, it can be helpful to know how much space your project is taking up. It’s good to keep an eye on things so that you can decide when you have to delete your collection of accumulated media files.
Double-click the icon on your hard drive to launch a Finder window.
Locate the folder with your iMovies—when you created a new iMovie project, you named it something.
Select the folder and choose Get Info from the Action pop-up menu. An Info window appears, as shown in Figure 25.21.
The Get Info window gives you a variety of information, including the size of your folder.
In this chapter, you learned how to get video into your Mac through the process of capturing it using the FireWire interface. You also learned about some introductory, basic video editing tasks, such as adding clips to the Timeline, making adjustments, and deciding to do it all over again to make it perfect.