how to session · • share as a “file” and save the file to your desktop…then save it in...

Language Instructor Drop-in (Mike Barker) carleton.ca/lrr

HOW TO SESSION : Editing your own video with iMovie

Overview Video is everywhere and almost everyone carries a device capable of making it in their pocket. And with just a bit of practice, you can use a tool like iMovie to create videos for use in your teaching:

• a native speaker speaking about life in his home town • several upper year students giving beginners language learning tips • a soundless video for which students have to add in the dialogue

Also, it will give you an idea of how easily students can use video to create their own engaging multimedia projects:

• cooking in Italian • a crime drama in German • advertising products in Japanese

For a little inspiration, check out what a former student used video to achieve:

• youtube.com/user/CookingWithMira In this session, you will learn how to:

• edit video in iMovie • add text • add photos • create transitions • export or “share” your final movie

The goal of this session is not teach you to make a movie, but rather:

a) to share a few of the basic skills that you need to start exploring iMovie b) to see some of the ways in which video-making by your students can

encourage, facilitate, and demonstrate language learning.


But first a little background Before we get started, let’s look at some things that can trip you up before you even get started:

• not all cameras create videos you can edit with iMovie: first thing to wrap your head around is that, when you’re shooting a video you’re actually shooting both audio and video. So, think of the resulting movie as a container that holds both audio and video. And not all containers are the same. The names of some of these containers may already be familiar to you: MOV, MP4, WMV, AVI. The reason I mention this is that different cameras create different kinds of files (containers) and not all of these files can be understood by iMovie. WMV files, for example, are created by some Android phones and have to be converted before they can be imported into iMovie. MOV is the best format to work with in iMovie.

• better quality means bigger file size: when you are shooting video, you can

decide how good the quality of the video will be. I mention this to remind you that while it’s always better to have the highest quality video to start with, high quality video takes more storage space…which may be a problem if your phone or device doesn’t have a lot of memory to spare. File size and quality will always be a trade-off. These are the settings for my iPhone’s camera (which “si” is in Spanish):

Other devices will have more varied settings, but this gives you a sense of what you can change. FPS stands for “frames per second” and 1080p stands for the number of horizontal lines of pixels in the video. So you can always adjust the settings. Also, you can add memory cards go some devices to expand the memory.


• two thoughts about audio: one, audio is important. Good audio with

terrible video is easier to watch than terrible audio with good video. So make sure you think about it when you film. Some things that affect audio are:

§ wind § a fridge that turns on and off § the proximity of the mic to the people speaking § people traffic

And two, you can always record “voice overs” afterwards as narrations. This will allow you to control the content and to make sure you can record in a quiet space.

Getting started You will need a Mac computer to use iMovie. Here’s how to get started:

• open iMovie: if you don’t see it in the “Dock” (the collection of programs at the bottom of your screen), click on the Finder (the happy face on the bottom left), open the “Applications” folder, and you will find it in the list. Double-click to open it.

• create a new movie

• choose a theme: I usually just used the “No Theme” option…but you can experiment with the others.

• import your video: create a new event and import your video into it. I created an event called “Around Ottawa”.

•

Adding your video Now you are ready to add your video. I have put a collection of video on your desktop. It is in a folder called “Around Ottawa”.


To add it to your project, click the “Import” icon and select the clips you want. This will import the clips into your “Event”…probably called today’s date. It should look something like this:

Now double click the “Around Ottawa” project and you should see this:

Timeline

Effects


Start editing Now that you have the video clips in your project, you are ready to start editing. Take a few minutes to look at the different clips and decide which ones you want to use. To view a clip, just click on it and press the space bar. To add a clip to the “Timeline”, click on it and drag it down:

Having trouble seeing it? Click the zoom slider:

You can also select only a portion of a clip using the yellow sliders at either end of a clip:

this orange bar shows how much of the clip is in the movie


Once you have a few clips in, you can start adding transitions. A transition is an effect that plays when you move from one clip to the next in the timeline. To do this, click “Transitions” in the menu on the left:

And to add one, click and drag it to the space between two clips:

To see what it will look like, click in the timeline and press the space bar. Now you can do the same thing with the titles option. This will allow you to add titles between clips or on the surface of clips:

Double-click a titles box to add your own text. You can also adjust duration.

Recording a voiceover: To record a voiceover, click on the clip when you want to start talking, then:

this 4 second clip will appear on the surface of the video

this 4 second clip will appear before the video clip plays

Click ➊ to activate the microphone

Click ➋ to start and stop the recording

➊ ➋


There is also a section of “Sound Effects” in the menu on the left. Scroll through it to see what’s available. You can drag these into the ♫ track in the timeline. Experiment with them.

Sharing your video When you are finished, you need to export your video in order to create a playable movie. In iMovie talk, “export” is called “Share.” Here’s how:

At Carleton, we don’t have an easy way to share video, there are a few options:

• share as a “File” and save the file to your desktop…then save it in your Onedrive, Dropbox, or Google Drive account. From here you can share it with others using a link.

• share as a “File” and upload to the Carleton server using Techsmith Relay • create YouTube or Vimeo account and share it there

Summing up: We’ve only had a very short time together today, but I hope you have seen how easy it can be for you and your students to create short videos using a tool like iMovie. However, my intention is not for you to go out and make 1001 videos. It’s more to suggest that video can be an excellent and creative option for your students to use to demonstrate what they have learned, both in writing and in speaking. And I would encourage you to include video as one of the possible assignment types that your students can submit. Also, an FYI: Windows computers also have something called Windows Moviemaker that has many features that are similar to iMovie.

how to session · • share as a “file” and save the file to your desktop…then save it in...

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