Tuesday, April 28, 2009

iMovie '09 and iLife '09

I finally received my copy of iLife '09 and my Missing Manual for iMovie '09. First, I watched the tutorial to see what the new changes were going to be in this version. The tutorial makes it seems really easy though I struggled mightily without a manual with the last version. What I like about this project is the fact that I can sit down and take my time to learn it properly. I have a long term project of making a short movie to send family by Christmas time. This will allow me time to practice for several months before I embark on that journey.

I read the introduction which reaffirmed my desire to eventually buy a digital video camera with MiniDV tapes. They just haven't made a digital video camera with enough memory that isn't outrageously expensive. Nevertheless, I will eventually buy one of the newer cameras with a hard drive when two things happen: they can shoot in HD with enough space and the price falls significantly.

Tonight, I am going to read Part 1 on editing in iMovie. The first chapter covers importing video. Tomorrow, I plan on borrowing the school's camera to shoot some footage that I will use to import. I am going to start with some practice footage before I shoot the footage I will use for the presentation in June. I might even re-edit a project i did for my last class, since I was not sure what I was doing at the time.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

iMovie Project in EDIT 435

I finally received confirmation that both the manual written by David Pogue and my iLife '09 software is on its way to my house. Once it is here I can dive right in to iMovie '09. In a project in my last class I struggled quite a bit due to the fact that I was not familiar with the newer version. The old version of iMovie is very easy to use. The newest version looks like it is easier to use then the last version. It's possible they listened to their customers and mad ethe necessary changes because I don't know anyone that like sthat version. When I purchased my iMac during Christmas, I noticed they installed the newest version on my dock, but gave me a copy of the old version in my applications folder. I am looking forward to reading the Missing Manual and playing with the new controls in iMovie '09. I may even buy a camera to add to the experience.