PE1_iMovie

Working as a videotape editor at a broadcast news station, I’ve spent plenty of early mornings rewinding, joggling, searching, spinning and playing back hours’ worth of raw video just to make a 20 second tape suitable for the news. iMovie ’11 back then would have made my job and my life so much easier.

As I watched the tutorial on Lynda.com, I realized how far editing has come. It’s simple to use, and that may be the case for me since I’ve had exposure to the harder way of doing things. Take the non-linear design of iMovie’s display.

Before, I had to watch between two monitors, turn a wheel to get the point in the footage I wanted to capture. But with iMovie, I can see most if not all the footage at once, roll over a scene with my mouse and select the footage instantly. I’m enthralled with the click and drag method of pulling footage from the event panel into the project panel. And all this takes place within one screen, love it!

The full screen playback feature is great for those of us, without X-Men-like vision, who want to get the full effect of a scene.

The ability to rate footage for efficient use later is also good if you're in a time crunch and need to grab something quickly.  I would be hesitant to get rid of or reject footage at this juncture.  I’m not familiar with the previous editions of this program but so far I’m enjoying what iMovie ’11 has to offer.