iMovie Tutorial: Turn iPhone clips into video sequences

by Stephen Ashby

Package your iPhone holiday clips into a ‘memory lane’ style video sequence using iMovie’s slick post-production tools

We may have fond memories of seemingly endless childhood summer holidays, but with only a handful of photos to jog our recollections. Thanks to our ever-present iPhone we can return from more recent family holidays with hours of footage, giving us the problem of sharing it. Thanks to iMovie’s tools we can present our modern holiday footage in a ‘trip down memory lane’ inspired sequence. To evoke the hazy childhood memories we’ll show you how to add gentle blur effects to the edge of the shot. As time can seem to slow down in childhood memories, we’ll re-time certain clips to dwell on a cherished moment.

1: Create a new project
Go to File New Project. Choose a 4:3 Aspect Ratio to suit our iPhone 3GS footage. Set Theme to None to avoid adding titles and transitions automatically.

2: Import clips
Go to File>Import Movies. Browse to Memory Source Clips folder (from this issue’s disc). Press Command+A to select the shots. Create a new Event. Click Import.

3: Add clips
We’ve trimmed the clips and ordered them so that they don’t need much editing. Drag the eight clips from the Events Browser into the Project Window.

4: Add the memory effect
Press Command+A to select all the project’s clips, then press I to open the Inspector. Click Video Effect, then Romantic to blur the frame edge. Now click Done.

5: Play with time
Click in a grey area to deselect the clips, then click on shot 4. Press I to open the Inspector. Set Speed to 50% to slow down the spinning boy. Click Done.

6: Choose a theme
To enhance our video memories, click on the Titles browser. Set Theme to Scrapbook. Untick Automatically add transitions and titles. Click OK.

7: Add a title
Drag the Scrapbook title onto shot 1. Click in the text field and type ‘Down Memory Lane’. Click Done and play the clip to see the animated title.

8: Add a caption
Drag Upper Third onto shot 2 and add a caption. Drag the edge of the caption bar to extend it over the start of shot 3. This knits the clips together.

9: Edit the transition
Go to the Transitions browser. Drag Scrapbook 4 between the last two shots. Click on the Transition icon. Drag the numbers onto clips you want to feature.