4 Top iMovie ’09 Tips

Spice up your seasonal movie projects with these handy tips from our iMovie editing expert.

iMovie ’09 has a great set of features, some of which you may not have had a chance to sample or have had no need for in the past. With the holidays coming up, make sure your finished edits look as good as they possibly can with our selection of iMovie pointers that will put you on the path to perfect presentation and mastery of Apple’s movie making app.

Transitional tricks

If you apply a theme to your project you’ll be limited to the transitions and titles that iMovie chooses for you. Experiment by adding your own transitions and titles from the Inspector.

Cream of the crop

iMovie’s Crop tool is a handy way to focus on action in your footage and remove unwanted background action. Use the boxes to select the area you want to emphasise.

Map mastery

If your movie includes travel, don’t forget the great new Maps feature in iMovie ’09 to dynamically display your journey.

The final chapter

If you plan to show your movie in QuickTime or send it to iDVD, don’t forget to add chapter markers to break up your film and provide entry points to specific sections.