Importing videos into iMovie

Before you can start editing video clips on iMovie, they have to be imported. Importing means bringing videos into iMovie. This article gives you brief instructions on how to import video clips into iMovie.

Connect the camera to the Mac, with the memory card inside the camera. You will need the cable provided with your camera to do this. Set the camera to playback or VTR mode; this is the same mode you use to view photos/videos on the camera. Some cameras may need you to make additional selection to indicate whether you are connecting to a computer or to some other recording device. Read your camera instructions for more information.

Open iMovie and click on the File option. Choose Import and then Movies.

 

This dialog box appears.

It allows you to choose where you want to save the footage. It is convenient because it shows how much footage can be stored on each one of your hard drives. You can add these clips to any existing event, or you can create a new event. You also have the option to split days into events, so if you have recorded footage over separate days, it will have its own event based on the date. You get to choose how you want to keep the imported video, either Large or Full (original) size.  The last option here is the choice of whether you want to Copy Files or Move Files. By choosing Copy Files, you retain the original files intact after copying them into iMovie, and by choosing Move Files, you delete the original files after copying them into iMovie. Once you have decided on the settings, click Import.

Import window opens up.

All the clips recorded on the camera appear right here. You can selectively check the ones you want to import or uncheck the ones you don’t want to import.  A quick way to uncheck all the clips is to hold down Option while clicking the check box of the clips you want to keep. This unchecks everything else.

iMovie offers you the option to analyze video while you import it. You can analyze the video for Stabilization and People, using the Analyze Video option in the Import window. Stabilization feature allows iMovie to take shaky footages and smoothen it out; People feature is for iMovie to go through the footage and detect the presence of people. This can be useful if you want to find just the footages that have people in it, later. If you select any of these options, just be aware that it will add significant amount of time to your import.  Once you have made your selection, you can click Import Checked.

Here are few other resources you might find useful to learn more about this.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ph2153

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoOMkrf7-w4

Saving iMovie Project to an External Hard Drive

Before saving your iMovie project, please make sure that your external hard drive is compatible. Your external hard drive must be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). iMovie doesn’t support network-attached storage (mapped network drive or Google Drive) or external flash memory drives.

Saving a project to a hard disk:

1. First connect the external hard disk to your computer, and the grayish icon will appear in your event library.

2. Go to Project Library


Note: Project library button is located at the top left corner 

Select the project you have created. If you need to move the project, hold down the Command key as you drag the project to the icon of your external hard drive, and then choose “Move project” or “Move project and Events. If you need to copy the project, simply drag your project to the icon of the hard disk (in the Event Library) to your external hard drive.

“Copy Project/ or Move project” means that project in its new location rather than physically copying project’s video and other media (such as photos) onto the other disk. This will NOT allow you to work on your project from another Mac. It creates only a copy of the project file, no clips, images, etc. that are part of your project. This is not usually useful for protecting/backing up your work. 

“Copy Projects and Events/ or Move Projects and Events” means that the source video and other media you added to the project are copied to the new location/ hard drive. If you select Move, instead of Copy, these files will be deleted from their original location. Moving or Copying Project and Events will allow you to work on your project from another Mac. 

Note: Move vs. Copy?

Copying the file will not delete your projects from original location while moving will delete your projects from original location.

Make sure you select Move Projects and Events!

Please remember that computers at MEWS are frozen, which means that they automatically delete any saved files on the computer!


Click here for more in depth explanation :)

Who Helps you in the MEWS?

Meet your Video Consultants

Have an iMovie, digital storytelling, or multimedia project for a class? Need help adding audio, still photographs or music to your project? 

Come to the MEWS Teaching Space. We can help you move footage from your camera to iMovie, help troubleshoot your project, and help with editing. 

Here are some of the video consultants who work in the MEWS, welcoming Jorge back to help.

Each consultant has the skills and experience to help with your assignments.

Meet our consultants:

Alex
Amelia

Camila

Lucia

Mahima
Noura

Pratima

Yunmi
and read about their experience on their pages linked on the top of this blog.

Here are our hours.
Please drop by!