iMovie for iPad tutorial

IMovie for iPad A good test for a new piece of software you have on your iPad or on your desktop or laptop computer, is to just open it up and see what you can do with it. This approach is especially appealing to those users that don’t like to read manuals. I think it is a good route for testing any new piece of software. You will quickly and easily find out how intuitive the software is in real-world use. If an application is well-designed, then it shouldn’t really be necessary to read a 20 page manual in order to get started. So this is what I did with iMovie for iPad.

A first look at iMovie on iPad

When you first open iMovie, the screen you see is a graphic of a brick wall and above that there is a representation of the signage for a cinema. I suppose it is meant to look a bit like the entrance to a cinema, but it wouldn’t be very successful as you would have to walk straight into a brick wall. Everyone knows that a sign for a cinema is put up, above the entrance doors. The brick wall is there to display the posters for your projects. In some ways, it seems to me that the design of this is just a little bit tacky. IMovie on iPad In order to get started you tap on the plus symbol at the bottom of the screen You are given a choice of creating a project or a trailer. It seems to me sensible to create the movie first and work on the trailer afterwards. So to get started, I went for creating a project. In the previous article and screencast I showed how it is possible to move video files from the iPhone onto the iPad and I decided to use some of these video clips in my project.

iMovie iPad tutorial – In points and out points

You can see your video clips in the top left section of the application, tap on a video clip to choose it. When you have chosen the video clip that you want to use you see yellow dots on the end markers, moving while the left to choose the in point and the one on the right to choose the out point. I don’t think that the tool to do that is particularly precise, certainly not as good as the methods used in Pinnacle Studio for pre-trimming video clips. Then to move the chosen portion to the timeline you tap on the button with the downward pointing arrow. Your other option is to Tap on button to play it in the viewer. Once you have your clip in the timeline in iMovie for iPad it is then a good time to be more precise with the trimming of your video clip. You can choose your in point much more precisely when you use the pinch gesture to zoom in closer to your clip on the timeline.

How to edit videos on iMovie for iPad

So the thing to do is to throw all of the video clips that you want to use into your timeline and then start to refine it. You can have it set so that it uses a default transition, the cross dissolve. On the other hand you can let it just use straight cuts and put any transitions in afterwards. Whereas in Pinnacle Studio you get a number of transitions to choose from, in iMovie for iPad you essentially only get one plus the specialised transitions found within the templates. In total you only get eight templates and when you choose one of the templates it changes a number of things and not just the transitions. So you could just change a template and mess up a number of settings you have already made and would prefer to keep. In terms of configurability, Pinnacle Studio which used to be called Avid for iPad has much more to offer than does iMovie for iPad.

Good and Geeky iMovie tutorial video

In this first video looking at iMovie on iPad we are just scratching the surface. There will be subsequent videos in which we will go into greater detail with regards what you can do with iMovie for iPad. Check out this video to see how you can use a default Music track to go with the template that you choose. In future NoStylus iMovie tutorial video screencasts on YouTube, I will show you how to add a voice-over or other audio effects or music.

Imovie for ipad tutorial 1

The Good and Geeky verdict on iMovie for iPad

Without a doubt, iMovie for iPad is a capable application to use to edit video on your iPad. Some will even say that it is a miracle that it is now possible to edit video on a tablet device. While iMovie is nice to use and also without a doubt will provide you with good quality output, it is not quite up to the standard of Lumafusion. It is always good to see third-party developers giving the Apple coders a run for their money. One would hope that this will lead to further development and improvement of applications like iMovie on iPad. This can only be good news for end-users of iPads. Keep your eyes open for the next iMovie iPad tutorial from Good and Geeky.