PE2_iMovie

The Lynda.com training videos were great, but learning to use iMovie is certainly going to be a hands on experience for me.  After watching, and watching, and watching some more, I finally decided to sit down and play with iMovie.  I decided the easiest, and most practical use for me at this point, would be creating a photo slideshow with some still images.  I chose this particular type of movie because I am toying with the idea of having my students create digital autobiographies at the beginning of the next semester, and this is also something I have wanted to learn to enhance my photography business.  

So, the first step in this process was to open a new project in iMovie.

After opening a new project, I thought it would make sense to import the photos that I was planning to use for the movie.  Because I had not obtained approval from any of my clients to use their images for this exercise, I chose to use my family portraits to create my movie.  The family portraits that I used are from a session that we had done with Carrie Small, a local photographer here in Fayetteville. 

Adding pictures to iMovie was pretty easy, but the pictures had to be added to iPhoto before they could be imported to iMovie  I was a little unsure of how to add pictures to iPhoto, so I consulted my trusty videos from Lynda.com to get some help with that.

Once the pictures were in iMovie the fun began!

After choosing the photos I wanted to work with I added them to the project area and began to edit them by cropping, adding transitions, and working with the Ken Burns effect. This was one of the more difficult parts of creating the movie.  I couldn't seem to get all of my pictures to transition the way I wanted them to.

After adding the transitions, and the theme I wanted to use, I decided a little music would be appropriate.    So, I added some royalty free music from http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/ , a website managed by Kevin Macleod.

I didn't bother with any of the advanced editing techniques in this video, because I just wanted to see if I could handle creating a basic video.  And I did!  Its not the greatest video, but for a first time I'm ok with it.  

While working in iMovie, I found that creating this type of movie is not too difficult.  It does take some time, and if you want to create something great you have to really work at it. Its also a good idea to know  the tools, and the keyboard short cuts.  

Thanks again for reading my blog and following me on this journey! Happy Blogging all!