To detach audio from a video file using Quicktime, follow these steps:
The file format will have an .m4a audio extension, and can be imported into an audio or video editing program.
Think of voiceover as reading a poem (i.e., “expressive reading”):
Many people’s go-to transition is a cross dissolves. Use jump cuts as well, such as at the end of a sentence or statement, or “on the beat”, such as when a note is struck in the music, or a word is spoken in the narrative.
These are just possible cues to help the viewer change to a new topic – there’s always more to discover. And experiment with using a few together.
Note: There is a list of iMovie tutorials online at the bottom of this page that are extremely helpful. Be sure to check them out!
Here’s a brief video that covers how to start a project, import footage, do a quick trim, then export the movie.
iMovie is organized into 3 thematic areas, generally found at the top of the screen unless you have already opened up a project:
Generally, iMovie opens your last edited project. If you haven’t created a project, create one by choosing File/New Movie. iMovie will then bring you into the project view for your new project. In this project view, iMovie is broken up into 3 distinct areas.
Generally you should create a new library for your project, as otherwise you may eventually have several project’s media in your main iMovie Library. This can become rather cumbersome to sift through several years of different project’s media.
Within your iMovie library, media is organized into events, which are organized by date. Quick screensaving real estate tip: You can hide the events names by unclicking the “Show Separate Days in Events” in the View menu.
While reviewing video clips, you may find a good section within the clip. You can favorite that portion of the clip by choosing Mark/Favorite, or hitting the F keyboard shortcut. Inversely, if you find a bad section within a clip, you can reject that portion of the clip by choosing Mark/Delete, or hitting the delete button on your keyboard. Later, you can sort your media by looking at only the clips you’ve favorited, which can be helpful when sifting through dozens of clips.
Generally you can drag-and-drop your media from anywhere on your computer onto your project’s timeline, and the media will get copied to your iMovie project library.
You may have imported video or photos into the Photos app. You can easily add these into your project by these steps:
iMovie has several tools to edit your video; here are a few of the more common ones to use.
There are a few ways that iMovie can displays videos or images that are stacked on top of each other in a timeline. These changes are found in the Video Overlay settings, located above the main viewing screen of your footage when you have selected a video or image on the top layer. For convenience sake, we will refer to the format as video, but images can apply here as well. The image below shows the location of the video overlay tool, with Cutaway selected.
The cutaway. The default format for displaying two videos that are on top of each other is the cutaway, which takes the top video and covers the entire frame, hiding the bottom frame.
Picture-in-picture. You can change the video overlay to show a picture-in-picture. You can also move the top video around in the frame, as well as resize it. The image below shows the video overlay tool, with the picture-in-picture tool in use. Note how the smaller video image can be resized and moved about.
With a clip in your timeline, hover over the beginning or end of the clip until the trim tool appears. Click and drag to either remove the beginning or ending portion of your clip.
In the timeline, position the playhead where you would like to split a media clip. Go up to the Modify menu item, and choose “Split Clip” from the options. Trim the clips further as needed.
You can animate media by zooming in/out of an image by choosing the Ken Burns effect. This is found by selecting the Cropping tool in the Media Viewer when the media is selected.
You can choose when the image start and end sizes from this view. Additionally, you can apply this effect to movies, though the zoomed movie may become “fuzzy” depending on your export settings.
With a video clip in your timeline selected, right-click the video and choose the “Detach Audio” selection. If the video portion is not needed, move the audio to a separate area in your timeline (so that it is no longer connected to the source video) and delete the video portion of the clip.
You can slow, speed up, or freeze a portion of your movie, among other actions. These controls can be accessed in two ways. You can either choose the top menu item Modify, then choose the appropriate control (slow motion, fast forward, add freeze frame, etc), indicated by the rectangle highlighted below.
Or. you can choose the Speed tool in the media viewer’s toolbar, indicated by the arrow in the image below.
To use the freeze frame tool, select your clip then choose the freeze frame option. The freeze frame will be noted in your timeline with the hand icon, indicated below.
You can then adjust the freeze frame duration by dragging on the left or right dot, indicated by the red rectangle in the image below. Dragging the right button icon to the right would increase the duration of the freeze frame.
View this page for tips on editing your zoom/powerpoint footage in imovie.
To adjust audio levels, roll over the video clip, and click-and-drag on the audio waveform to make the volume louder or quieter.
To reduce the abrupt clipping of audio when it begins or ends, go to the beginning or end of an audio clip and drag on the fader icon, which is a small circle, to minimize the sound being introduced or removed abruptly.
Soundducking
To soundduck an audio track (to lower the volume of one audio source so another audio source is heard more clearly), option-click on the area where you want to start lowering the volume, which will create a keyframe, or marker where a change will be taking place. Do another option-click just to the right of the audio to set another keyframe. Then, move to the area you want to raise the volume, and create two new keyframes. Adjust the keyframes and the volume as needed.
An easier way to sound duck is to press the “r” key, and click-and-drag over the area you would like to adjust. When you release the mouse button and the “r” key (which is short for “range”), you will have 4 keyframes added for you already. Adjust the keyframes and clip volume as needed.
iMovie has several color correction tools. The first one is the magic wand tool, which sometimes is able to do an adequate job of color correction. Select your clip, then click on the magic wand tool.
For more color adjustment, you can use the color correction tool. Select the clip, then move the sliders to adjust the highlights, midtones, and shadow areas of the video or image.
Export your edited movie by clicking on the share icon on the top right of the iMovie interface.
Or, you can choose File/Share, and choose the File option.
After making these options, the File/Share dialog box will also give you a sense of how long the video will take to export, as well as the estimated file size.
If sharing files for a course, read these instructions on using Reed’s Panopto media server to share your content.
Movie files tend to be too large to email. We recommend using a Reed application called Filerobot, which allows sending of large files (up to 2 GB). Read more about Filerobot.
iMovie stores all its projects by default into the username/Movies directory on your mac’s hard drive as a file aptly named “iMovie Library.” This file contains all your media in one place. As you grow your movie projects, you may want to start breaking them up into smaller projects or libraries.
Here’s a few iMovie keyboard shortcuts that you might find useful:
Arrow keys: Sometimes you want to nudge the playhead left or right. The left- and right-arrow keys are the ones to use, rather than trying to use your mouse. Using the up-arrow key will take you to the beginning of the clip your playhead is on, then the end of any preceding clips or transitions; down-arrow will take you to the end of the clip, then the start of the next clip or transition in the timeline.
Apple has an extensive amount of documentation on using iMovie. There’s these tutorials as well.
Notices have appeared in the various media labs around campus: Reed is discontinuing all VHS support, beginning this Fall.
The news has come without fanfare, and those who did see the signs were, in all likelihood, even more surprised to learn that, until now, Reed’s A/V department actually still did support VHS. After all, nearly thirty years have passed since the format’s peak popularity. By the time most current Reedies’ autobiographical memories began, VHS was already on its way out; even DVD, its successor, is on its last legs. So, in some ways, we all said goodbye to VHS a long time ago, and the announcement comes as a formality.
Continue reading “Discontinuation of VHS Support at Reed / YouTube to VHS ?”
This is where you pull everything together. You will review any footage or media, fix any issues with the media, then bring them onto a timeline and do your first edit in the editing software of your choice. Then, refine the final piece, which can take several rounds of editing.
Here’s a few pages to help you in the video production process:
There’s links in the post-production section on how to record or screen capture your Mac computer screen, but here’s those links here, as these techniques are often used during the production process.
There’s a slide deck for interviews 101; the main takeways are:
Before recording:
During recording:
Here’s a list of possible video editing software choices.
iMovie is an easy free tool installed on most Macs, and is the best video editing software for its price (free!). For users needing more functionality, they may want to try Final Cut Pro (an Apple-only product) or Adobe Premiere Pro (also available for pcs).
This is a brief list of video editing terms; there is plenty more to know that have been compiled elsewhere, from sites such as vimeo.com and videomaker.com.
Here’s a few basics terms to know:
Transitions are the change between one media clip and another media clip in a timeline. Here’s a few common transitions:
Change in action; sometimes implies same time period.
Sometimes implies a change in time.
Implies an ending of some sort.
Screenflow is great app for screen recording/screencasting, but this grab bag of tips can be applied to any screen recording scenario (there’s loads of free screencast software on the web as well). Quicktime can also do screen recording.
Continue reading “Screen recording/Screencasting Tips”As an instructional technologist for performing arts my job is multifaceted. One of the aspect of my job is to look for emerging technologies that could be relevant to education within the performing arts; another aspect is to look for new technologies that could enhance creativity within or integrate with performances. Sometimes the technology crosses over between these two and sometimes it doesn’t.
Continue reading “Shoot a film with our new iPad filmmaking case!”
