iPhone Launch at SB Apple Store, Shot & edited on an iPhone (+ iMovie tips & tricks)

[Shorties]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lEVei3x7v0

This was shot and edited in 720p entirely on an iPhone 4 using iMovie. I received my iPhone 4 in the mail a day early and my friend didn't want to go wait for his alone, so I decide to go along and document the entire event with my new iPhone's HD camera. (Some of those in line were noticeably annoyed at my use of the new phone while they waited, but I tried to conceal it as much as possible). We got to the Santa Barbara State Street Apple Store around 5:30am and were about 25th in the reservation line. I had a ton of fun, and am so glad I went, Apple really knows how to release a product, maybe next time I'll just reserve it rather than get it shipped.

EDIT: So I learned some tricks while editing that I thought I should share those for others playing around with iMovie

I typically work within Final Cut Pro when editing video, so going into iMovie I was met with several limitations, but I figured out a few workarounds for most of the issues I faced:

• Titles remain over an entire clip, so if you want titles just to appear at the beginning of a clip, (Like seen at the very beginning of my video) you must trim the end of a clip to the length you wish. Then import that same clip again, and trim the beginning to the length of your first clip. Make sure you remove the crossfade as well.
• You cannot add titles over photos, so if you want this you must be a little creative. All you have to do is make a new project, put the photos you want in your actual project in this project, and then export this in 720p. Once you do that it will be in your camera roll and you can import that clip and cut it up for use as a video, so that you can add titles over the photos.
• There is no way to split clips, so similar to adding titles to a part of a clip, you must cut a clip down on one side of your "split" then reimport the clip, and cut the beginning equal to the length of your first clip. You may want to do this if you want one part of a clip to have audio, or if you want to place another clip between your "split". (Make sure to remove the unnecessary transition between your split clips).
• If you want your film to fade to black (Which mine did at the end) you must download a black JPG, (ex: http://jendelosreyes.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/black-square.jpg ). Its a good idea to keep a black jpg in your camera roll as a tool for editing. You also may want to make a project with just the black image and export it as a video so that you can place titles over black.
• If your phone screwed up the orientation (Or if you switched mid filming) while you were filming so that it thinks its a vertical video when it was really horizontal, (Mine did this on one of my clips), the only way I found to alleviate this is downloading the App "Rotate Video" which costs $.99 in the app store. It says its 3GS only but it seemed to have no issues rotating the HD video.

If there is anything else that you want to do within iMovie that you just can't figure out how to do, feel free to ask. I had to figure out a lot of workarounds while editing this test video, I might be able to help.

 

[glocke12]

nice, but that background music is annoying as hell.

 

[Ntombi]

Really nice. I just started playing with iMovie for iPhone this morning, so seeing yours is timely.

 

[Shorties]

nice, but that background music is annoying as hell.

Yeah unfortunately I never was able to figure out how to control the sound volume on background music, and it seems the music must be in the background of the entire video or none at all. One workaround to this would be to create a new project of just the parts you wish to have the background music then exporting that video and placing it within your main project.

Really nice. I just started playing with iMovie for iPhone this morning, so seeing yours is timely.

I added some tips and tricks for you and others like you playing around with it for the first time, so that you don't have to figure out all the workarounds like I did. Or so that you don't get frustrated with the limitations of iMovie.

 

[Kadin]

Well done. I used iMovie for a few minutes and made a quick clip and honestly wasn't very impressed. After watching yours I might give it another shot. Good tips and please add more if you can!

 

[Shorties]

Well done. I used iMovie for a few minutes and made a quick clip and honestly wasn't very impressed. After watching yours I might give it another shot. Good tips and please add more if you can!

If there is anything specifically that you want to do that you haven't figured out yet I can try to figure it out.

 

[darkhunter139]

iMovie is decent for adding music and stuff but the method of trimming on there is HORRIBLE. I don't really know how they missed the mark so much on that...

Hopefully an update will make it better.

 

[tigress666]

Shoot, I haven't figured out how to clip out frames I want out.

I either can't get the slider thing to move, the wrong end seems to move cutting off the wrong frames (already figured out can't stick stuff in the middle unless you put the same clip to each side of what you want in the middle and edit it so the clip's frames meet at the right place. But I can't seem to be able to get a grasp on how to cut out what I want to cut out).

Oh, and yeah, honestly I expected you to be able to split up a clip (and not a workaround like what I've been trying to do and what OP did succesfully). I would think that's pretty basic functionality of a video editing software. I mean like the basic functionality. Kinda disappointed in that. That's what I bought it to do .

 

[Rooftop voter]

I haven't been able export my clips to the camera roll. Seems to crash everytime I try. Hopefully it gets fixed, but is there a work around for now that anyone knows about?

 

[TheAppleGeek]

Subscribed.

 

[Shorties]

I haven't been able export my clips to the camera roll. Seems to crash everytime I try. Hopefully it gets fixed, but is there a work around for now that anyone knows about?

That's an issue I have not run into. Have you tried shutting down your phone and starting it up again? And have you tried removing the iMovie app and then re downloading it?

 

[Shorties]

Shoot, I haven't figured out how to clip out frames I want out.

I either can't get the slider thing to move, the wrong end seems to move cutting off the wrong frames (already figured out can't stick stuff in the middle unless you put the same clip to each side of what you want in the middle and edit it so the clip's frames meet at the right place. But I can't seem to be able to get a grasp on how to cut out what I want to cut out).

Oh, and yeah, honestly I expected you to be able to split up a clip (and not a workaround like what I've been trying to do and what OP did succesfully). I would think that's pretty basic functionality of a video editing software. I mean like the basic functionality. Kinda disappointed in that. That's what I bought it to do .

To edit either side just tap on the clip you want to edit, then the two sliders should be on either side. As you slide the slider the timecode that you get at the top is the length of the clip. You can use that as a guide to figure out exactly how much to cut off on either side. But yeah I hope the updates add the ability to split at the playhead, and the ability to add titles to photos, cause right now it seems like an unnecessary hassle.