Cool iMovie effects: 1-3
With iMovie, Apple created an editing program that's highly versatile – so much so in fact that it was the inspiration for the newlook Final Cut Pro released earlier this year. With iMovie, you can create a short film in minutes, if not seconds (depending on how complex you want it to be) and share it with friends and family over the web.
But this simplicity is just the tip of the iceberg. If you have the time and the inclination, you can create advanced effects and editing styles just like all those Hollywood movies you see at the cinema or rent with iTunes.
Obviously, the one thing that stands in your way is your budget – or lack thereof: you can't hope to replicate the same quality of effect as a major motion picture, but you'd be surprised how close you can actually get. So let's roll up our sleeves and have a look at what you can achieve with a consumer program that comes free with every new Mac, or which can be purchased for only £10.49 from the Mac App Store.
Most of the effects we'll be showing you over the course of this article can be achieved straight from within iMovie, but we'll also give you a few tips on what you can do during the shoot itself to give your clips the best possible chance of looking and sounding their best. That way they'll be ready to dazzle your audience as part of your latest low-budget blockbuster home movie.
1. Working with green or blue screens
You don't need to go to exotic locations – you can do it all from home!
Being able to fly, walk on an alien world or survive a spectacular accident is par for the course in most blockbuster Hollywood movies. But obviously none of it is real – it's all done with smoke and mirrors, or more precisely, chroma keying.
The idea behind the process is that it's easy to cut out a single colour, rendering it transparent and allowing you to put something else in its place. Green or blue are used because both colours are the furthest away from all human skin tones.
One of iMovie's advanced tools is the ability to automatically remove a green or blue background from a clip. But how do you get such a background in the first place?
Low budget
That's where it gets a little complicated, but it's perfectly achievable and the results are very effective, even on a low budget. Then you'll be able to be anywhere in the world. You'll need to get yourself some equipment, none of which is optional if you want the effect to work properly.
The first one is a backdrop. If you already have a green or blue sheet, or even a wall of the appropriate colour, you could experiment with it and see if it works as expected. Otherwise, eBay has a lot of resellers offering affordable chroma key backdrops.
What's more important is the lighting. You need to evenly light your backdrop; then you'll need to light your subject separately. This way, it'll be much easier to find the edges around the subject to avoid a potential halo around it when the backdrop is cut.
Since you're on a budget, you need to find workarounds to expensive modern professional lights. Twin 500W halogen work lights on a tripod will do an excellent job. Get two sets – one for either side of the screen.
Using the same lighting system for your subject would completely wash it out. Getting redheads is probably your best bet as it's not the most recent technology, so you can get them cheaper. Again: eBay. Make sure you get at least two to light your subject evenly.
Lastly, you need to make sure your camera will remain static for the whole duration of the shoot, so either place it on a shelf or stool, or invest in a tripod. Since the purpose is to keep the camera motionless, the most basic tripod will do. You won't be able to do tracking shots or follow the subject as they walk around; you'd have to match the movement with the background exactly and this can only be done with motion-tracking cameras.
Light placing
Next, you'll have to experiment to make sure the lighting is in the right place for the effect to work, and then import the footage into iMovie.
Then you need to make sure the program's Advanced Tools are turned on (done from the Preferences window). Then, add your backdrop onto your project and drag your green/blue screen clip on top of it.
Select the appropriate pop-up option and the background clip should appear behind your subject.
2. Get a dolly zoom effect
This effect is usually done during the shoot but can be recreated in iMovie
The dolly zoom effect is very recognisable: the subject in the foreground stays motionless, but the background appears to change and zoom out so you can see more of it.
To achieve this, you need to move the camera back as you zoom into your subject. The speed of the trackback and the zooming in must be the same for the subject's size to remain the same. The effect works very well, but is very difficult to replicate with a consumer camera since the zoom controls on such devices are far from precise.
You can, however, cheat the whole thing by using a green screen backdrop. You don't even need to zoom out of your background clip while you're shooting: all of it can be done from within iMovie. Just make sure both the background and the subject were shot using a static camera – ideally on a tripod.
You could also use a photograph for the background if you prefer, since images are usually taken at resolutions that are much higher than high-definition video, eliminating the possibility of pixellating the backdrop if you zoom into it too much.
How to create a dolly zoom effect
1. Get Advanced
In order to work with a blue or green screen clip you need to turn on the Advanced Tools. Go to iMovie > Preferences (or use the Command + , keyboard shortcut).
Make sure the General tab is selected (first on the left) and tick the Show Advanced Tools box to give you more editing and organising options.
2. Stack up your clips
Choose your backdrop from an event or from your photo library, and add it to your project. Next, find your subject and drag it over the backdrop. You'll be given a series of options. Select either Green Screen or Blue Screen – depending, of course, on the colour of your backdrop.3. Apply Ken Burns
Select the backdrop clip (to give it a yellow highlight around it), then click on the Crop tool in the tool bar (or simply hit the c key on your keyboard). This tool offers you three choices at the top-left of the main preview window: Fit, Crop and Ken Burns. Make sure the latter is selected.
4. Zoom Out
Now you should see two rectangles, one green and one red. Make sure the green one (your starting frame) is smaller and inside the red one (the clip's last frame). This will give viewers the illusion of the background zooming out over time. Now click the play button to preview it.
5. Fine-tune the Look
Click Done to set the effect. Be sure to check what it looks like with your subject over it. The effect may work best if either the top or bottom of the frame stays the same (right where the green and red rectangles meet) so go back and tweak your zoom until you're happy with the result.
6. Zoom In
You may also find that zooming in on your subject over time can improve the effect. You can apply a Ken Burns effect to your chroma keyed clip too, only make the change more subtle and make sure the end frame is smaller than the start frame. Your dolly zoom effect should then be complete.
3. The steadycam effect
Stabilise your shots to smooth the motion for that professional touch
The Shining is probably the best example of the use of steadycams, as the camera glides through the hotel's corridors and its maze.
Usually, to get a steady moving shot, you'd put your camera on a dolly – essentially a set of tracks – but there's obviously huge limitations to this technique: one is that you mustn't show the ground otherwise you reveal the tracks; another is the difficulty in going up or down stairs.
With a steadycam, you can follow your subject wherever they may go. Proper steadycams cost an absolute fortune, but the Smoothee for iPhone is relatively cheap at £170 and if you're a handy DIY person, Johnny Chung Lee very kindly posted an article on how to build your very own steadycam for little more than US$14 (£9) in parts. The instructions are at www.littlegreatideas.com/stabilizer/diy.
Using a steadycam requires quite a bit of practice, but once you've perfected your moves, you can create incredibly smooth motion as you walk, no matter what you follow. Sadly, not all of us are handy with a screwdriver and until the cheapest steadycam in the world becomes available for sale you may have to do your best.
But Apple hasn't left you high and dry: iMovie has a tool for stabilising your clip's motion. It can't work miracles and an overly shaky shot won't be fixed (instead, you'll see a red squiggly line over the problem segments in its Event), but it can be highly effective on most clips.
How to smooth out those shaky shots
1. Analyse in an Event
You can analyse your clips even before you add them to a project. To do this, select a clip (or multiple ones) and open the Inspector by clicking on the toolbar's 'i' button. Make sure that window's Clip tab is selected and click on Analyse Entire Clip. The process may take a while.
2. Choose the right part
By default, an analysed clip will have its motion smoothed automatically as soon as you insert it into your project – as long as you don't select any part of the clip that had those red squiggly lines. If you do, the stabilisation process will not occur, so make sure you only add a section that will work.
3. Stabilisation control
Play that clip back and you should see an improvement over the original. Unlike the green screen effect, you have some control over the process: double-click the clip to open the Inspector. The stabilisation section has a slider. Drag it to the left to lower the amount of stabilisation applied to your clip.
Cool iMovie effects: 4-6
4. Use external microphones
If your movie sounds great it will make your screen images look even better
There's one element that makes it obvious you're watching an amateur movie as opposed to a professional one: the audio. Although nearly all camcorders or video recording devices capture sound as well as images, the quality is often very poor. Even HD camcorders that produce vibrant, high-quality clips are often let down by the low quality of the on-board mic.
It's a well-known fact that audio is crucial to the appreciation of your film. Poor sound makes your audience feel that the video was actually of poorer quality than it actually is. Good-quality audio enhances the whole experience. So get yourself a device whose sole purpose is recording sound and you will greatly increase your production value for very little money indeed.
Small recorder
Take the Samson Zoom H1, for instance. It's a tiny audio recording device that records very high-quality sound in stereo. You can choose various formats, but since we're going for quality, you should select an uncompressed one: WAV. This means that the files will take up more space, but this is a small price to pay for higher quality.
If you're going to go for this device (which is available via www.amazon.co.uk) make sure you also budget for its Accessory Pack, which includes a tripod and a windscreen foam cover, designed to cut out unwanted sound (which often gets captured, especially when shooting outdoors). In total, this should cost you something in the region of £100.
If your camcorder is capable of taking in audio input – with a line in stereo jack, for instance – then you could connect it to your microphone. That way you wouldn't have to worry about syncing the sound with the video later on in the editing process. But having an external mic can offer you advantages that those tethered to the camera cannot match: you could have a long shot and still hear the people you're recording perfectly because the mic is hidden near them and a long cable would be hard to conceal from view.
So if you've got your audio and video on separate files on your Mac, how do you go about connecting them together? This can be a little difficult to achieve in iMovie but it can work.
First of all, you need a clear point of reference to achieve the sync. This is where clapperboards come in, but why purchase one when a couple of hands clapping will work just as well? As long as your clap can be seen on screen and heard on the audio track, then you can add a marker on your project when the clap happens (markers are one of iMovie's many hidden advanced tools that you can reveal from the Preferences window).
Toggle the waveforms for your audio tracks to see the spike that represents the clap, and move it until that spike is under the marker. Mute the original audio and play your footage back. Drag the audio left or right until the sync is perfect. Once you've achieved this, you might not use your camcorder's built-in microphone ever again.
5. Working with effects
Change a clip's look progressively over time using iMovie's built-in effects
Modern camcorders can automatically focus, white balance and colour correct for you. As such, most of your clips will look fine and be ready to be included into a project the moment you import them. But machines being what they are, they do sometimes get it wrong, which is why iMovie's various video tools can come in so handy.
With them, you can alter the brightness, contrast and colour of any shot. You can obviously use them to also distort the image, giving it an unnatural appearance to simulate unusual weather conditions or to create that alien planet feel you were after.
Couple those changes with one of iMovie's 19 video filters and you have a broad palette to play with (you can also copy and paste those changes from one clip to others by using the Edit > Paste Adjustments commands in the menu bar; these can save you a lot of time if you want to create a special visual style for a large part of your project).
Unlike Final Cut Pro and other professional editing packages, there isn't an obvious way to gradually apply that change over time – it's a black and white clip, or it's a colour one, for instance; there's no in-between.
So what do you do if you want to play around with your image and slowly intensify the colour – like the effect in Limitless when a mind-enhancing tablet is taken? Thankfully, such an effect isn't out of the reach of iMovie. All you have to do is cut the clip in the right place, as shown below.
How to alter a clip progressively over time
1. Find and cut
Find the clip you want to alter over time and add it to your project. Skim over it with the mouse until you're over the part you'd like the change to occur. Without moving the cursor, press the Shift+Command+S keys to activate the Split Clip tool, which cuts the clip into two at that very point.
2. All change
Double-click on one part of the clip to bring up the Inspector window. Select the Video tab and make your changes. You can also make use of the Video Effect menu in the Inspector's Clip tab to add a single effect to your clip (only one can be used at a time). You can alter your modifications at any time.
03. Transition
Go to Window > Transitions to reveal the Transitions panel, bottom-right of the interface (or use the Command+4 keyboard shortcut). Locate Cross Dissolve and drag it onto the gap between the clips. To change its length, double-click on it in your project and type in a new value in the Duration field.
6. Create cutaway shots
Cut to another shot without ever losing the focus of your story
Look at any movie or television show, from any period, and you'll see that the editing never stays on the same shot for too long. In fact, you may feel that some do overstay their welcome and you long for the camera to let you see something else.
Changing shots doesn't mean changing scenes: when done right, cutting to different angles keeps the story interesting and the pace flowing. It also makes it easier to use a different take that had a better reaction. You can use it to cut to the scenery that is being described in the current shot, while still hearing the narrator talk about the location.
The official term for this is creating cutaways. As we saw earlier, although iMovie appears to only handle a single layer of video (meaning you can't stack clips on top of each other, as you can with Final Cut Pro for instance) there is support for an additional layer when the need arises, and when the Advanced Tools have been turned on.
Just like you could with the split screen effect, you can add a clip on top of another, but instead of seeing both at the same time, it's a straight cut: the clip above completely replaces the one below for its duration.
Why would you do this instead of cutting the clip and inserting the other in between? For flexibility: that way you can move the cutaway clip over the narrating one until you find the perfect spot. Also, the narrating clip's audio track is uninterrupted so you can see a shot and listen to another clip's audio at the same time.
How to create a cutaway effect
1. Make a cutaway
With iMovie's Advanced Tools turned on in the Preferences window, select a shot from one of your Events and drag it over a clip in your chosen project. A contextual menu will appear. Select Cutaway and the clip will be placed above the original, on a second layer.
2. Move and alter
As you drag the cutaway along, a shadow will appear on the clip beneath it to give you an idea of which part will be obstructed. Move the cursor to either one of the cutaway's edges to turn it into a resize tool. You can drag the edges inward or outward to decrease or increase duration.
3. Fades and opacity
Double-click on the cutaway to open the Inspector window. The middle section offers you a couple of options specifically for that type of clip: you can choose to add a cross-fade transition which will appear both at its start and end; or alter the opacity to see part of the lower clip through it.
Cool iMovie effects: 7-10
7. Perform a split edit
You can cut video to another shot, but how do you let audio carry on?
When you cut a clip and insert another in iMovie, its audio is cut at the same time. But if you watch any movie, you'll notice that this isn't what usually happens: a scene between two people takes place, the action cuts between a shot of one to another before the first person has finished speaking, yet you can still hear them. This is known as a split edit.
It is used extensively throughout the industry and is a great way to improve a shot. It offers immense flexibility since you get to use the audio that works best for your current situation.
Split edits are obviously easy to achieve with professional editing suites, but how would you manage with a consumer-level program? If you were working with the original iMovie, you'd be out of luck. Even with a version as recent as the one released in 2009, you'd have to create complicated workarounds like detaching the audio and extending it, leading to potential disaster should that audio track move out of sync with the video it came from.
That option is still available in iMovie '11, but thankfully, the latest version also introduced many very powerful audio features (some of which had been missing since iMovie 6 HD). These include being able to see a clip's audio waveforms, alter just a segment of it and even see at a glance which part could be peaking and lead to distorted sound, making it easier to fix, or cut out of your project. Another addition is the split edit and we'll show you how it's a lot easier to achieve than it appears.
How to create a split edit effect
1. The Precision Editor
Find a clip in your project whose audio you'd like to extend and mouse over its thumbnail. You'll see a button appear lower left of it. Click on it and select the first option: Precision Editor. The lower part of the interface is replaced with a more zoomed-in version of your clips and their edit points.
2. See waveforms
By default, you'll only see the video clip. Just like the project section, you can zoom in or out of it with the slider, bottom-right of the section. If you want to see the clip's audio track, you need to click on the Show Audio Waveform button, top-right of the interface.
3. Create the split edit
Move the cursor to the edit point's blue line and make sure it's over the audio waveform, not the video. Now drag to the right to extend the audio but leave the video exactly where it was. You can do the same for the clip beneath it so you don't hear two audio tracks at the same time.
8. Split the screen in a clip
Create the effect for more than one image on the screen at the same time
Generally, the screen is the viewer's window into the film's world and it behaves like human eyes: you see one image at a time. But film can be a lot more flexible than that. You can in fact be more creative and see more than one image at the same time, each battling for your attention or complementing each other.
The most traditional reason to have two images side by side is for telephone conversations so you can see both people talking and more crucially, their reaction to what they're hearing. But you can also work with a smaller image, tucked away in the corner of the screen to create an observer of the larger action, for instance. You could also find a creative way to make both images interact with one another.
iMovie's interface appears to be designed to only handle a single layer of video and you can only put one clip before or after another. But it is possible to create both of the effects described above without you having to purchase a more expensive application – although you'll have to make sure the Advanced Tools are turned on (they aren't by default).
How to create the split screen effect
1. Picture in Picture
Drag a clip from an Event onto one already in your project (it doesn't matter which since you can move it around later). With your Advanced Tools switched on, a large menu will pop up. Select Picture in Picture from the contextual menu and your new clip will appear above the current one.
2. Move and resize
Check the preview section and you should now see a smaller clip top-right of the main image. You can actually move it around to wherever you please with a simple click and drag. Also, if you drag one of its corners, you can resize the smaller picture until it's the dimension you're after.
3. Inspector options
Double-click it to open the Inspector. From there, you can add a border around your smaller clip with a limited choice of thickness and colours. You can also turn the shadow on and off by clicking the appropriate tick box. The PIP Effect section offers you three ways to make the clip appear on screen.
4. Side by Side
You could alter the smaller clip until it's the same size as the one beneath it, but you can't place it side by side. To do this, you need to use a different tool. Drag another clip from an Event onto one in your project. This time you should choose Side by Side from the contextual menu.
5. More Inspector options
Double-click on the new clip to open the Inspector window. The options you're looking for are in the Side by Side section. You can choose which side of the image it will be placed, and whether you'd like it to slide into view instead of just appearing out of nowhere.
6. Cropping makes perfect
iMovie cuts your clip in half for you, focusing on the middle of the image. This may not be ideal; so if you do need the effect to preserve another part of the video, you have to use the Crop tool and experiment with the best section to use (you may also find a Ken Burns effect useful too).
9. Create a movie trailer
Announce your forthcoming film in style using iMovie's trailer factory
Once you've created a short film and put all your hard work into it, you need to build anticipation for your family blockbuster. After all, it's a very well ingrained tradition to create one (or more) trailers to lead the way for your film… although no one's ever truly explained why they're called trailers – aren't trailers supposed to trail, not lead?
In any case, creating a trailer is an art in itself. You have to: pick the right music; select the appropriate clips; and not show too much otherwise there's no reason to see the actual movie, but reveal enough to make people look forward to it and get excited about the story.
You'll be pleased to know that you don't actually need to think too much about this: iMovie '11 comes with its own trailer-making factory: just add the clips in place, type in some information and you're good to go.
A lot of the technology behind trailer creation in iMovie centres on the program's ability to recognise if and how many people are in each shot. Without this facility, making such projects wouldn't be as fun, or as fast – as you'll see…
How to put together a movie trailer
1. Trailer selection
Start by creating a new project: use the Command+n keyboard shortcut. Scroll down past the usual project themes to the Movie Trailers section. You can choose from one of 15 different types. If you're not sure which one to go for, click on it and see a sample, complete with theme music.
2. Type in the details
The project area takes on an entirely new look and presents you with an outline of your trailer. Fill in all the information requested. The logo style is a choice of five recognisable Hollywood production studios – but don't try using that studio's actual name: iMovie won't let you.
3. Storyboard titles
Switch to the Storyboard section (the middle tab) where you'll see the building blocks of your movie, along with placeholder images and generic titles. Click on those titles to customise them (skim through them to see what they'll look like in the preview section; they are played in real time).
4. The Keyword panel
The Advanced Tools have to be turned on for this next step. In order to fill in those placeholder clips quickly, go to Window > Show Keyword Filter to open a panel to the left of the Event thumbnails. If no keywords are present, you'll also need to select your clips and go to File > Analyse Video > People.
5. Filter to fill
You'll see filters for Wide, Medium and Close-up shots, along with others with one, two or more people in the frame. Click on one of those filters to see all the clips matching that category. You can then drag the appropriate clip onto the right placeholder in your storyboard.
6. The Shot List
If you're getting lost, go to the Shot List tab. All the clips you need to find are there, listed by time. You can fill them up really fast: select the first one, then click on a clip to replace the placeholder instantly. The next placeholder is automatically selected. Repeat the process until none are left.
10. Cut in time to music
Create an effective montage or opening sequence in time to the music
Music is an essential part of any movie, as it helps set the mood for a scene. An opening sequence would be a lot less interesting and montages would just be a bland assortment of clips without any musical score to underpin them. Who can forget Soylent Green's musical opening montage, or the soundtrack that introduces Rocky?
Like these, the best examples of such sequences are those that are designed to work in time to the accompanying audio track. Trying to replicate such segments may be simple with a high-end video editing programme, but there's no obvious way to achieve this with iMovie; unless of course you reveal the audio's waveform in your project and manually trim each clip you're adding to match a particular peak, which would be an incredibly time-consuming and frustrating exercise.
Thankfully, hidden inside the Clip Trimmer is a way of doing this effortlessly. You'll see that anybody now has the means of editing any sequence in time to any musical track of their choosing. It really is only a matter of hitting the right key just at the right time.
How to cut your video to music
1. Music selection
Start with a brand new project. Go to Window > Music and Sound Effects to bring up the section, bottom-right of the interface. Find a song you'd like to use and drag it onto the empty project. All you'll see is a small green square with a cog wheel button. Click on that button and choose Clip Trimmer.
2. The musical note
The Clip Trimmer will appear in the area where your Events usually show; it displays the entire song's waveform over multiple lines. Top-right of the section is a series of icons. You can drag the musical note over your track to place a marker if you like, but that's not a very efficient method.
3. Add markers
Instead, start playing your song and each time you wish to add a marker (a point where you'll want to cut to another clip in time to the music), hit the m key. Don't worry if you're not very accurate: you can drag those white markers around until their position is perfect. Once finished, click Done.
4. Snap to Beat
Before you start editing your sequence, there's one more setting you need to turn on: iMovie needs to realise that those markers are important (it will curiously ignore them by default). In order to do this, make sure View > Snap to Beat has a tick next to it. If it hasn't, click on it to activate that feature.
5. Add clips
Your project doesn't look any different, but that's all about to change: choose a clip but don't worry about your selection's duration – just make sure it starts where you want it then drag it over your project: it'll be cut as soon as it reaches the first marker. Add more clips to build your edit.
6. Mute 'em
A sequence built in time to music often works best when no other audio can be heard, but montages involve many clips and it would be time consuming to mute each one individually. Thankfully, there's a faster way: Go to Edit > Select All, then Clip > Mute Clips to do it all in one go.
