iMovie

Welcome to the basics:

i Movie is a wonderful tool to use in your classroom. Capture moments that will last a lifetime. Allow students to show what they have learned and share wonderful activities with their classmates and families.

Getting Started:

First things first: Charge your camera.

Often overlooked, but the most crucial step. Plug in your camera with the battery in, and let it fully charge.

Breaking it Down: What are all these cords?

1. Stereo Video Cable: Used to plug your camera into VCR’s, TV’s, DVD players, or anything else you want.

2. Power Adapter: This little tool converts your electricity into the right charge for your camera.

3. Power Cord: You guessed it; it powers your adapter and allows you to utilize yet another outlet. (buy power strips)

4. Lithium ion Battery: Powers your camera

5. Button Battery: This little cutie saves your date and time info in case you run out of juice while recording. That way you don’t have to re-enter it each time your battery gets low.

(the button battery lives under your big battery, but don’t worry, your techie will put that in if you have trouble)

6. Manual: your first stop for help and tricks.

Recording:

To record, just set the thumb control on the right side to “Camera”.

Press the white button and you are recording.

To stop: Press the white button again.

Zoom: Focus on subjects or pan out for wide shots.

The zoom button is a toggle on the top of the camera on the right. Push it left and right to zoom in and out.

Putting in Your MiniDV Cassette Tape:

1. Flip camera over

2. Press “Open/Eject” button down and push toward arrow.

3. Gently open door (you will hear a happy click)

4. Wait! (soon the mysterious elevator will raise the “thing” and it will open. Just be patient.

5. Mystery compartment open: put in tape.

(the tape goes in facing down. it will only go in one way...

6. Gently pinch the tape into it’s home. (don’t close door)

7. Magic takes over and the “thing” lowers mysteriously.

8. Now you can close the door...

Ta Da!!! You did it... And didn’t break a thing. Well done.

Enough About the Camera: Time to Import

1. Turn Camera on: Set to “Play Mode” (thumb control)

2. Find your cord (or in your case, go buy one *smile*)

3. Plug cord into camera and computer.

4. Click on iMovie and select “new project”.

5. You will see a blue screen that says “camera connected”

6. Make Sure You REWOUND Your Tape

(to rewind: open side view window. In Play Mode: you will see a small screen that shows you how to rewind. Push the “joy stick” LEFT. This will rewind your tape)

7. Press “Import” (clips will begin to show up on the right.)

8. After you are done importing: Turn off your camera and disconnect it from the computer. Remember to charge it up.

9. Drag clips into clip tray: put them in the order you want them in for your movie.

Adding a Title: Name it

1. In the “editing” view, Select Title

2. As you click once on each title name, you will see a preview

3. When you find one you like, change the preset title

4. Below that you can set the font and speed of your title

5. When it is perfect, grab the blue “T” next to the name of your title and drag it onto your first clip in the clip tray.

Example: I picked “Centered Title” So I grabbed the blue “T” and put it on my first clip.

6. When it is done adding the title, there will be a small T on the clip. (you can do the same at the end to make credits)

Adding Transitions: Spice it Up

1. Again, still in the “editing” view, select Transitions

2. Click once to preview transitions.

3. Once you have found the one you want, grab the blue box and drag it to the beginning or end of any clip to add it.

4. Wait, when it is done you will see the transition on the clip.

Review and Save: You are done!

Now you can add many more fancy things, and feel free to play around in iMovie, but for the basics you are all done.

Save Your Work: Do this often

Exporting: This saves your movie as a file that can be burnt on CD or DVD, or just shared with your class.

1. Save, and save again.

2. Push play one last time to see that everything is the way you want it.

3. Go to File> Export.

4. You will see a window that tells you how it will save your file. Select the one that meets your needs, CD, Web, or which ever. The difference in saving is quality and resolution of your movie. Saving for web will be slightly less frames per second, so it will be better viewed online. Saving to CD is a little faster and higher quality, since your computer can handle that.

5. So select the one you like and press “share”

6. A box will ask you to name your Movie and select a location to save to. I recommend sticking with the “movies” folder, so it will be easy to find.

6. Save it and you are done.