The name of the event will reflect the timestamp of your clips. EventĪn event is where your imported video clips, audio clip & photos are stored. When creating a new library, it’s worth remembering that it may take up a lot of space, as the video clips you’re using are copied into it, so you might want to place it on an external drive. You’ll get the option to decide where to create your new library and the name of the library. You can create New libraries by going to Open Library in the File menu and selecting New….

A library called ‘iMovie Library’ is created in your ‘Movies’ folder the first time iMovie is opened. A library holds all of your movie clips from your camera, and lets you organise these into ‘Events’. In iMovie, there’s Libraries, Projects & Events.Ī Library is the ‘Top Level’ container in iMovie. Libraries, Projects & EventsĪt first, the way iMovie organises its files and media can seem a bit daunting, especially if you’re used to apps such as Word or Photoshop where you work on one file at a time. If your Mac doesn’t already have iMovie installed, search in the App Store for iMovie. However, the user interface and workflow of iMovie is very similar to FCP and many of the basic techniques described here are also applicable to Final Cut Pro, should you move to that at a later stage. It’s the little brother of Apple’s Final Cut Pro (FCP) app, which is aimed at full-blown movie production. It’s what’s known as a Non-Linear editor, as the original files remain untouched by the editing process. What is iMovie & How do I get it?Īpple’s iMovie is a free video editing app that’s available from the Mac App Store.

For any major changes in iMovie functionality, I’ll update this post. The screenshots here are taken from iMovie V10.2.5, so they might be slightly different if Apple has updated its software since this was written. The majority of this is Mac-based, but, since iMovie is also available on the iPad and iPhone, I’ll cover the differences when using these versions in a later post. It isn’t intended to be a comprehensive guide to iMovie, just enough to let you put together your first movie.Īlthough this post is written with a GoPro camera in mind, the principles apply to video editing from most sources, be it a DSLR/ Mirrorless camera, a drone or a video camera. This article and the subsequent ones explain how to do some basic editing using Apple’s free iMovie app. I use iMovie with my GoPro for editing most of my video footage that you’ll see on this site. Once you’ve got some footage on your GoPro, you’re going to want to share it with the wider world.

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