Apple iMovie '08 - Manual (Page 33)

Chapter 2 Learn iMovie 33
 Standard (4:3): Produces a movie for viewing on a standard TV screen or on the
web. When viewed on an HDTV, there will be black space on the left and right sides
of the video, known as “pillar box.”
 iPhone (3:2): Produces a movie for viewing on the iPhone.
 Widescreen (16:9): Produces a movie ideal for viewing on a widescreen monitor or
high definition television (HDTV). When you view the movie on a standard TV, there
will be black space above and below the video, known as “letterbox”.
You can mix video formats and sizes in a single project. If you’re using video and
photos of different sizes, choose the aspect ratio that best suits the media. If this results
in “letterboxing” or “pillar boxing” in some of the content, you can add it to your project
and then crop it to remove the black bars. (To learn about cropping video, see
“Cropping Video Images” on page 28.)
Adding Video to Your Project
You can add as much video as you like to a video project, selecting it from a single
Event or several Events, and put it together in any order you like. When you add a
frame range to your project, it appears as a whole clip within your project even if it was
only part of a source video clip.
When you add video from an Event to your project, iMovie doesn’t move or duplicate
the video. Instead, it simply references the source video. For this reason, if your source
video is stored on an external hard disk, the disk must be connected to your computer
whenever you work in a project that references it. It also means you can add the same
video segment more than once if you want to duplicate it in your project, or add the
same video to multiple projects. In each instance, the video will function as a free-
standing clip.
To create a video slideshow, you’ll want to make all your project clips the same size,
or nearly the same size. Using clips of equal size evens the pacing of your movie.
It’s easy to do with the auto selection feature in iMovie, which always selects the same
amount of source video in a single click.
To add clips to your project:
1 Click a source video clip to select a frame range that you want to include in your
project.
Four seconds of video are automatically selected.
2 Click the “Add to Project” button in the middle of the iMovie toolbar to add video to
the end of your project, or drag the video selection to where you want it to appear in
your project.
“Add to Project” button