iMovie 3 Solutions: Tips, Tricks, and Special Effects

As Erica says "iMovie can do a lot more than you might ever expect from a free product" Having spent a lifetime editing film and then video by the traditional methods I found computer editing with iMovie both a revelation and a revolution. You can use it as an easy way to put together family and holiday videos but as this book shows it has hidden power to allow you to make high quality productions.Written in a clear and authoritative but friendly style it provides step by step guides to accomplish a wide range of visual and audio effects. The author comes up with a set of solutions based on her own practical experience. This is a hands on book written by someone who enjoys the challenge of pushing iMovie to the limits.You can read it cover to cover and be impressed by the attractive layout and use of colour but keep it within reach of the Mac ready to provide the answer for any new effect you want to create not only with iMovie but also with Quicktime. As a generous extra there is a disc full of plug ins and other helpful software - some of it written specially by the author and not available elsewhere.Erica's first book about iMovie helped me rescue a major project which had refused to open from the hard disc and the this one has a wealth of new material on how to exploit the added features in iMovie 3 and solve some of the issues it raises. If you use the software this book is essential to fully exploit iMovie 3

In iMovie 2 Solutions, Erica Sadun gave us cool tricks with low (or no) cost additions to iMovie 2. Now iMovie 3 is out and the tips from the iMovie 2 book are....still working. Some of the same tricks show up in this new book, but that is expected with a program like iMovie. As I said about iMovie 2 Solutions, if you're looking for a basic iMovie how-to book, look elsewhere. That's not what this book is for. This book is going to show you how to use iMovie 3 and a few mostly inexpensive pieces of software to do the kinds of tricks that you would spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for high end DV movie editing software packages. The high end software might do it easier and maybe faster, but the learning curve, not to mention the cost, is so much higher. The new tricks are well worth the cost of this book. Ms Sadun writes very well. Clear and consise without talking down to her intended audience. All the tricks are laid out step by step, with examples shown not only in the book, but also on the very useful companion DVD. The software included on the DVD is also a nice bonus. If you're really brave, you can make your own iMovie plugins! Many very useful plugins are included to get you started, but this will whet your appitite for the huge assortment of practical (and some not so practical, but fun) world of iMovie plugins. Hit the search engine of your choice and type in "iMovie Plugins". OK, what software will you need to do these tricks? A graphics program like Adobe Photoshop Elements for less than 80 bucks (although you could also use any decent graphics program), and Apple's very own QuickTime Pro (the free regular QuickTime will not do) for [a few] measly bucks. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to go beyond iMovie's feature set without spending a fortune.