iLife with iMovie 11

iLife 11 

My friend Marta just purchased iLife and told me about the new features in iMovie.  I was immediately impressed with the inclusion of original copy-right free movie scores from the London Philharmonic.  Another feature I like was being able to see the audio waves on the clip and the music track on the timeline.  This is really helpful when your working on a video with poor sound or dialogue sound quality.


The new trailer templates are entertaining. I saw a demo of one trailer and I thought it was a little too much for home movies.  On the flip side... your family and friends would get a big kick from the templates... especially if they were in it or their kids were featured.


iMovie 11 now comes with more options for sharing your movies.  Which gives you a little more control over quality and speed for sharing... and that's a good thing.


If you plan on editing and uploading a lot of your video it's worth the $49 upgrade.  It's cheaper than Final Cut Express ($99) and Final Cut X doesn't have beautifully orchestrated sound tracks or trailer templates. 


I don't have any current information on Windows MovieMaker but send me a question or comment and I'll post on it next time.


Happy movie making and remember to use what you have. =D

High Country Sci-Fi: A fast movie on iMovie with 'not so perfect' video

I put together this movie from some footage I took this summer at my friend's cabin. I put together a stupid story from the video I captured. I did all the editing in iMovie (I haven't used it in a while) because a friend asked me some questions about footage that has poor light and sound quality.

My Problems:
1- I took the footage during different times of the day... some at night... some in daylight.
2- sound was inconsistent.

Solutions:
1- To compensate for different lighting, I applied a SCI-FI filter to each clip. Because some clips were captured during the day and some at night, I used the Video Clip Adjustment feature and tweaked the Exposure, Brightness and Contrast elements until I reached a consistent look.
Drawback: I lost some clarity... but it's sci-fi with an ad hoc storyline... so I'm okay with it.

2- Because the sound was crazy I decided to eliminate it completely and added a musical track. I added Chopin's Polonaise Op 53. I'm sure there's a better background track but I didn't want to spend a lot of time on this exercise.

My Goal:
To show that you can use footage even if it's not a consistent capture.

HAVE FUN WITH YOUR FOOTAGE: Create a movie with what you have captured!!