iMovie Tutorial 0002 - Cutting and Arranging Clips

  Now that you have successfully captured your video clips, you will want to edit and arrange them to create you movie. It is very rare to flawlessly capture exactly what you need, with the exact in and out points that you want. You will need to trim unwanted frames and footage from your clips.

  Trimming Clips:

  Senario: I have several video clips taken from a TV news broadcast. I need to trim out extraneous frames where I started importing slightly before I needed to, and ended slightly after my target footage. 

  1. Load the clip into the timeline by dragging it from the clip tray to the timeline. Switch to Expert mode by clicking the clock tab on the timeline.

  2. I need to trim the extra frames at the start of my first clip. To do this, I will move the playback slider past the area I want to trim, until the first frame of the footage I want to keep is visible in the playback window. To split the clip, go to the EDIT menu and choose ÒSplit Video Clip at PlayheadÓ. This divides the clip. Click off the clip at the timeline to deselect it, and select the extra clip at the beginning. Hit the Delete key to clear it.

  3. I also need to trim frames at the end of my clip. I will move the playback head to the first frame of the section I want to discard, use the Split command again (z-T), and delete the unwanted section. When I am done with this clip, I will drag it back to the clip tray, and load the next. I will continue doing this until all of my clips are trimmed.

  Arranging the Clips

  As you may have guessed from loading clips into the timeline, arranging clips is as easy as dragging the clips and dropping them in the desired order. Any order will work; it all depends on your creativity!