iMovie '11 & iDVD: The Missing Manual

Chapter 6. Video Effects

It’s a funny thing that we’ll take pristine HD video and make it look old and grainy. On purpose. But video effects, like the popular Aged Film effect, create a mood that you can’t really communicate in any other way.

Once upon a time, iMovie ’08 came without any built-in video effects. You couldn’t even slow clips down or speed them up. To make matters worse, you couldn’t install new effects in the form of plug-ins from other companies, as you could with the old iMovie. As a result, a lot of people swore off iMovie ’08 altogether.

iMovie ’09 brought back all those missing effects, like Slo-Mo, Reverse Motion, and the beloved Aged Film. Apple even added new effects that iMovie never had before, like Picture-in-Picture and Green Screen.

iMovie ’11 adds a few more basic video effects for good measure, like Side-by-Side picture, but where Apple really waved its magic wand is in the new One-Step effects. These take selected footage and apply an awesome effect, like Instant Replay, in one step instead of the dozens it would take to create the same effect manually.

Note

Still no plug-ins, though, just in case you’ve been holding out for them. Don’t expect that set of third-party plug-ins you bought for iMovie HD to ever work in the new iMovie.

Maybe best of all is that you don’t have to wait for iMovie to render (process) an effect. Your project immediately reflects any effect you select. iMovie’s new state of video effects is pretty compelling, even if it took a detour ...