Ive not used imovie for a long time but as a guess i would imagine your going to find it very difficult to get decent film like results from it

FCP or after effects are going to be your best bet - check out the magic bullet plug ins for a.e, they may work with final cut aswell

just try playing around, i usually layer the same footage ontop, make it 40% or so transparent and add some blur and mess about with the curves/levels

good luck

Hi Aram.
This is going to be a challenge in iMovie is you're going to try to re-create a film look for a discerning eye, but there are some options for you if your really need to stay within iMovie and just need to get by with at least some type of film-like simulation.

Within the context of iMovie, I think you can only really focus on three primary approaches towards a film look: Color depth, motion blur, and film grain. Higher end apps have a wealth of other options for certain 'looks', but for iMovie, I would recommend you head over to www.geethree.com and take a look at their plug-in packages for effects.

You will likely have to spend a little money to get what you want, but you should be able to find something that that offers a little more control over color gamma, and a very likely a plug-in that offers some type of film-grain option.

There might be more, but I haven't played with iMovie for a while and haven't kept up on its advancements or growing set of options. I spent a year using iMovie to push it beyond its limits and I know that there are lot of things you can do with it if you are willing to spend some time tweaking whatever plug-ins you can find. If you look around you will be able to find a number of handy resources that will help you enhance its feature set but I think the GeeThree option is a good place to start.

One last note regarding purchased plug-ins. Before you go too overboard on a plug-in spending spree, guage your expenses to see if you will eventually be better served spending the extra money to move up to Final Cut Pro or at least Final Cut Express. You would then have alot more control over track transparencies and motion blur effects that the previous post mentioned.


-Jon

You might take a look at DVfilm Maker and see if you like what it can do. You can download a free fully functional trial version (it puts a logo on the converted video). It is not a plug-in, but a standalone program. You would export your iMovie project as a Quicktime file and then feed that file to DVfilm to process. See: http://www.dvfilm.com/maker/

instead of creating it in iMovie, you might want to experiment with putting some filters on your camera...

tiffen soft fx-1
schneider black frost 1/2
tiffen black pro mist

these are nice options for a more signature, less standard video-ish look.

another option would be to invest in a progressive DV camera....these are getting much cheaper! and there is a lot of lightly-used gear out there...

thanks, guys, for the detailed replies.
i've already got Final Cut Express, Adobe Premiere and Geethree packs installed in my iMovie, and i am considering going for a progressive dv camcorder.

i simply enjoy exploring the capacities and limits of such what-you-see-is-what-you-get applications as iMovie.

a couple of questions, though.

i've known of grain and colour correction effects for film-look simulation. but could you tell me more about motion blur, please? how do i apply it?

also, to extend the topic a bit, what would be the best ways of achieving cine-look in FCE and Adobe Premiere?

iMovie: Distorted QT Export
 

hi. any reason why iMovie vertically squeezes the picture of a footage when exporting a project as a QT movie? it's been happening in all the versions i've used (apart from v6).

Could it be a conflict with settings for 16:9 in either iMovie or your QT export settings?
-Jon

well, it's not THAT squashed, just slightly.

In the UK we use 720x576 pixels for a standard TV signal.

This is correctly dislayed as 768x576.

Hi Aram,
Sorry, I've been away a lot and haven't kept up on this thread. Regarding your question on motion blur, I'll take a stab at it, although my answer won't be very comprehensive.

The motion blur factor of the film look is due in partial to the fps factor of film, typically in the 24 fps range, a lower fps than standard dv video which is most often noted to be 60i - although this is different in the UK. (I'm not going to go into any detail here regarding 60i or 30p or any of that stuff)

In a sense, the visual effect of higher fps in dv creates that "too realistic" effect that you get when watching home movies, as opposed to that "softer smoother feel you get when watching a theatrical movie. I know, I am simplifying it considerably but I'm just touching on the basics here.

Anyway, the lower frame rate of film helps lend it to a more fluid smoothness that many viewers seem to appreciate without being able to indentify it. (Reel life just feels smoother than real life.)

Basically, film frames shoot lower fps than dv, and are exposed slightly longer in general, thusly exposing a longer shot of action into each frame, causing the blur you can see when ojects move, although it is most noticable when viewing in single frame mode.

As far as adding motion blur in post, I am sure there are plug-ins or settings that will allow for this, but to do it well, I would suspect you may be looking beyond the iMovie factor and moving into areas like After Effects, or higher end plug-ins that might be accessible through your FCE, but more likely moving into FCP, Shake or Boris territory.

Perhaps others can sound in on such avenues of pursuit.

Another thing to consider would be looking towards the purchase of a camera that would allow shooting in 30p, or even 24p, or at least giving you a decent amount of manual control of the exposure and shutter speeds. This will help you achieve somewhat of the 'film look' effect while shooting by trying to simulate the traditional 'film frame rate standards'.

Good luck.
-Jon

Letterboxing in iMovie (Canon XH A1)
 

i know the A1 is not compatible with imovie unless u convert it to 60i. So i filmed in 60i and tried importing it. It imports it but It shows a blue screen and says playback STD non viewable or something but when Its done importing it says LETTERBOXING. THIS MAY TAKE A WHILE. WHY IS THAT? I do not want to letterbox my footage. I tried going on the cameras signal options and it says the letterbox is off. Why is it letterboxing and how do i stop that! It makes the importing take soooo much longer like REALLY REALLY LONG just cuz it says LETTERBOXING. THIS MAY TAKE A WHILE. PLEASE HELP!

Moved from Canon XH to NLE Mac.

you have to check your preferences in iMovie, not the camera. Go into preferences > import > uncheck the box that says "automatic pillarboxing and letterboxing"

Eric
your awesome. thank you!

You sure are working hard at getting this fotage... hope you're gonna share it :)

Imported 16:9 DV to iMovie, Not Working Right
 

Hi to all who are reading. I need some help from someone who has trodden this road already. I set the XH A1 to 16:9 DV recording, and when I was done with my shoot, I downloaded the content to iMovie (I couldn't yet figure how to send it to Final Cut Express) and it does not set it in letterbox, but rathers makes all the faces very long. I thought in the past that the program automatically adjusted, but it has not done it yet, and I can't find a setting on iMovie to get it to actually do it.

Anyone have suggestions???

Thanks!

Hi Dean.

Seems your footage needs to be converted in anamorphic 16:9.
I know how to do it in FCP. I am not a iMove user.

To import your footage via FCP, just go to the "easy setup" (under Final Cut Pro), and then tick the "show all" box. Look for DV-NTSC (or PAL) - Anamorphic.

Then go to "Log and Capture" and try to capture your footage.

Try these steps and tell me if it works.

imovie as field monitor,capture
 

I like the idea of using my macbook as a monitor and encoder, but the problem is that the picture quality is really terrible. I did a side-by-side with an ntsc monitor and I don't think I could ever trust the laptop for anything besides focus.

Does anyone ever use imovie capture/import for FCP?

Hi Seth and welcome to the forums.

There are two isssues presented here:

1.) Using iMovie and your laptop as a field monitor works for some situations, but not in cases where you need even a moderatly critical eye. It is highly doubtful that you are going to get an accurate read on focus, color balance and exposure without first doing alot of set-up and calibration work first, and even then, you also will need to disable the MacBooks ambient light sensor system that lightens or darkens your screen depending upon your environment as this will mess with any calibration you might have already done. This being the case, your monitor screen is not likely to provide you a true representation of what your camera is 'seeing'. Also, by default, iMovie is generally set in its preferences to NOT provide the highest quality display of your image - you can change this setting in iMovie preferences to suit the limitions of your graphics card, but if it is not set to high quality, then using the monitor to focus will not be easy.

2.) Capturing through iMovie for transfer to Final Cut Pro... Well, I know some people who do this because they are not comfortable with the log and capture process of FCP and they are used to the iMovie process, but I think the iMovie-to-FCP method is frustrating hassle...here's why. iMovie and FCP don't use the same codec base and FCP cannot natively read the native contents of your iMovie capture. (This is where Final Cut Express comes in as it uses a nearly identical interface as FCP, but with the codec system of iMovie, which is handy for folks who like to capture in iMovie and edit in Final Cut Express.)

But to use your iMovie content in Final Cut Pro you should avoid the standard full resolution export as a .dv file. Final Cut Pro cannot use this file without first requiring a lengthy (and sometimes crash prone render).
You first need to export (or share) your clips out of iMovie, and choose the 'expert settings' option and selecting the NTSC DVCPRO option, and your audio settings at aiff audio at 48kHz (assuming this is the standard way with which you are setting up your FCP projects.)

Hope this helps.
-Jon

Personal experience says it's best to use imovie in this workflow as nothing more than a field monitor. I've done the whole iMovie import/capture thing and have been really disappointed with the results. Extra conversion just kills the smooth workflow of a nice "capture now" workflow in FCP. Assuming you are quite judicious with your shooting ratio.

imovie - import video from DVD?
 

Guys (/Girls!) -

imovie question - can the current version of imovie import video from a (non-encrypted) DVD and edit that and create a new DVD for it?

reason is that I have a video transfer customer who has a reasonably new mac, but can't decide whether he wants me to transfer his analog tapes to AVI files or a playable DVD (which I would hardware encode real time).

I PC stuff, but nothing about mac.

Life would be simple here for my customer if imovie can reach into the vob files, grab the mpegs, and edit mpeg and then create output that could be (re) authored. Thus, I could just give him some playable DVDs, and if he does decide he wants to dip into editing, he could do that. (otherwise, if I give him avi's and he decides he is not going to edit, then someone, e.g. me, has to encode all that stuff, which I could have done on the first pass much more easily and cost effectively).

any thoughts on this are appreciated.. if this is too OT for this forum, then I apologize (it's not a real FCP post question, for example, but ...).

thanks...!!

you'll need to either extract the movie with something like handbreak or do a movie screen capture with something like snapzpro. try to have a .mov in h264 codec for best results.

google is your friend!

thanks..google is my friend, but wasn't last night!! (searched but no luck)

can imovie edit mpeg2? assume so based on your reply?

thanks again..greatly appreciate all of this.

MPEG Streamclip
 

I use MPEG Streamclip. It's free - just google it. You can import video from the Video TS folder on the DVD and save it as a QuickTime or DV file for iMovie.

The short answer is NO, iMovie doesn't edit MPEG2 files.
:-)

Which is why everyone is pointing to utilities to pull out the MPEG2 data into DV or something similar. I believe MPEG Streamclip requires the Apple MPEG2 plug-in thing... which isn't free. Handbrake/MediaFork will turn it into H264 or older MPEG4 which iMovie, I believe, would have to then convert back to a DV format... You are losing quality with each change BTW.

got it thanks.. really appreciated ... helped alot... (and yup, each transcode will definitely impact the quality of the video in some way).. thanks again!!!!

I use iMovie as a field monitor quite often when I know I will be in a recording environment that doesn't involve a lot of action or when I want to record video & audio directly to a hard drive. It is quick, easy, and doesn't take much desktop space. I'm more interested in framing when I choose to use iMovie as a field monitor. If my laptop had a faster processor (it is a G3@700MHz), I would use FCExpress or FCP. For focus issues I either use my camera's viewfinder or a 13" CRT monitor.

Does FCE HD have the option of "start a new clip at each scene break" like in iMovie?
 

Like the title suggests....

Has FCE HD got this option, like in iMovie?....

I'm not using FCE HD (just FCE 2.0) but I think what you are looking for is under "Mark" then "DV Start/Stop Detect" You would capture the whole section of tape or the whole tape, then select it in the browser and then click "Mark" on the top pull down menu, then "DV Start/Stop Detect." This will place makers at each time you started recording on the tape. If you want to after that, you can make each an Independent Clip or Subclip from the "Modify" Menu.

Hope this helps...

Kevin

This is the way it works for "SD" footage (FCE 3.0) for "HD" then it works like iMovie -- creates a new clip file for each "scene"

thanks for the responses...

ok so i've captured the whole tape (SD 16:9 DVCAM from a DSR500) and after ive captured it ive selected "detect start stop" which places the small markers on the bottom at each scene break... but now how do i get FCE to make a split at each marker point, or turn them into individual clips?

I had exactly the same problem as Dean. Now i figured the above out for myself, and reimported it all with the "Auto Letterboxing" switched off and the project set-up as "DV Widescreen" (DV cam, not HDV cam).

My question is : I have captured 16:9 footage from my DV camcorder to imovie, but it is displaying it in iMovie as squished 4:3. Will it OUTPUT it as 16:9 successfully? Or do i have to kick off the Letterboxing thing manually?

very grateful to an answer to this - it will save my hours of delay an frustration. It takes 2.2 times the original footage time to Letterbox it, and i dont see why it is letterboxing it at all as its 16:9 native footage and the project is "DV Widescreen".

iMovie question
 

Is it possible to open footage imported through final cut in Imovie?

Thanks in advance.

Can't see why you'd drive a pinto when you've got the keys to the cadillac, but to each his own. 3 words can solve your problem: Drag and Drop.

My thoughts exactly. I'm basically fighting the clock, don't have time to put Final cut on a laptop that I'm traveling with and need to finish a project on the road. Thanks for the reply!

Replacing iMovie with Final Cut
 

Is it safe to uninstall iMovie if I am planning to use Final Cut Studio 2? Is there any reason to keep both?

What about iDVD? FC includes a DVD tool. Should I keep both?

I also use photoshop CS2 / Lightroom and I have tried to figure if I can uninstall iPhoto as I NEVER use it.

Hi Chris, and welcome to DVinfo. It's probably safe to do this, but personally I wouldn't bother. Given the size of hard drives today I don't think it's worth the trouble, and you never know when these programs might come in handy in the future.

I am working off of a MBP with a 120gig drive. With CS2 and some other stuff it fills up fast. I have all of my photos off on externals.

I am looking to conserve as much space as possible for when I am working in the field. If I no longer use the apps I like to remove them. I am new to the mac so I was unsure if other aps or the OS was dependent on the iMovie, Iphoto, IDVD or the like.

I took Iphoto off once and then found that Imovie used it to import photos. I reinstalled it. Later I found out that all you had to do was drag a photo from the picture folder to the timeline to import. So now I no longer use it.

Thanks for the info and the welcome.

I use iMovie now as an on set monitor for focusing and checking the overscan area on my XL1s. Nothing else though.