Making iMovies [Paperback]

Scott Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 21, 2000

Now it's as easy to make professional-quality movies and showcase them over the Internet as it is to use e-mail or surf the Web. Using clear, simple, jargon-free language, Making iMovies for the Web offers step-by-step instructions, and guides readers through the unique features of Apple's easy-to-use iMovie software (integrated with the new iMac DV models). On top of that, the disc provides all the necessary elements-lesson files, video clips, sound effects, music scores, illustrations, still photographs-for completing sophisticated tutorial projects, inspiring readers by giving them a sense of confidence and competence. Apple's introduction of the low-cost iMac DV computers will transform desktop video production in the same way Macintosh computers sparked the desktop publishing revolution. It put creative movie production capabilities in the hands of anyone who has the simple tools, but it also leaves wide open the kinds of movies they can produce.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Just as digital cameras revolutionized still photography, digital motion-picture devices are sure to have a big effect on the home and amateur video scenes. Making iMovies shows how you--the owner of a video camera, and with an interest in digital movie production--can make professional-quality video sequences on your personal computer. Author Scott Smith's editing platform of choice? The Apple iMac DV, or any other Macintosh computer with a FireWire interface for external devices. Smith presents a beautifully illustrated guide to the techniques of telling stories and eliciting emotions via digital video.

As you'd expect, Smith covers his bases in terms of explaining iMovie's essential capabilities. More valuably, he takes readers beyond the basics of connectivity and clip splicing. A typical example: While makers of traditional film-based movies can depict characters against a brick-wall background with no worries, bricks can cause jitter and compression problems in digitally recorded sequences. Therefore, Smith says, digital video producers need to zoom closer to subjects that are backed by a complicated surface. Not all of his advice is as explicitly technical. He also offers advice on orienting elements in the video frame, choosing subtle but effective music, selecting costumes, and storyboarding. He's written (and, no less importantly, helped lay out) a superb book that balances the technical and artistic sides of digital video production on the Macintosh. --David Wall

Topics covered: Digital video production, with emphasis on the tools and resources available on the iMac DV and other editing platforms based on Mac OS and FireWire. Using the iMovie application as his prime tool, the author explains story planning, visual design, time management, and other technical aspects of videography. Sound, lighting, music, costumes, and the like receive ample coverage, as do editing techniques, titling, transitions, and narration.

From the Back Cover

Scott Smith is a senior editor at RES: The Magazine of Digital Filmmaking, where he reports on trends in digital video production. An experienced filmmake and animator, he is also a founding partner of Silver Planet Studio, creator of digital effects for dozens of feature films including director Frank Grow's Love God and Tood Solondz's latest film, Happiness. His last book was The Film 100, a ranking of the msot influential people in the history of cinema.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 156 pages
• Publisher: Pearson Education (April 21, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201704897
• ISBN-13: 978-0201704891
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,795,820 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #25 in Books > Computers & Technology > Apple > iMovie + iDVD
  • #74 in Books > Computers & Technology > Apple > Mac Administration

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent iMovie guide with a *great* DVD-ROM, May 10, 2000

By 

John DiBello (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Making iMovies (Paperback)

I'm sure you've seen the Apple TV commercials: make digital home movies, including professional-standard fades, cuts and credits, on your iMac DV! Enticed by these dramatic TV commercials, I bought an iMac DV, but of course there was no iMovie instruction manual included. One of the only laments I have about Apple these days is the lack of documentation and instruction books included with their new computers (and their online help features are frequently confusing, anemic, and infuriating to use), but luckily a whole new range of books are being published to cope with this lack. This is one of the first iMovie instruction manuals published, and though I can't make any comparisons yet with the many that will likely follow, this is a great instruction and idea manual. This largish-format paperback (9 x 9 inches) takes you step-by-step through planning your iMovie, storyboarding, filming on your digital camera, editing, scoring, and adding sound and credits. Lots of color illustrations show you examples as well as screen-shot menus that make the process clear and easy-to-follow. There's an excellent general theory section on storytelling on film, many examples of how to make your shots more dramatic, how to get around the basic limitations of shooting digitally or showing your iMovies on a computer screen, troubleshooting, things to avoid, and much more. Among the great tips it offered that I didn't know and *needed* to know is how to convert Quicktime files into iMovie format. Most important, this book contains a DVD-ROM with all the files you need for three separate project exercises in editing, scoring, adding sound and credits. Most "exercises" provided with computer manuals are usually pretty lame, but *not* these...they're entertaining, well-shot short-short film segments (you put `em together into three films), with a tongue-in-cheek quality and twist endings that make them fun to work on, *not* laborious. So, in short, this a great introduction and beginner's manual to a user-friendly but very detailed Macintosh program in specific and novice filmmaking in general. While the page count (138 pages) may seem anemic for $39.95, the large amount of color and the DVD-ROM featuring imaginative projects to use as exercises and source material go a long way to making this a good buy. I'm eagerly awaiting a competing book: David Pogue's "iMovie: The Missing Manual" (ISBN 1565928598)--Pogue is one of the recognized experts on all things Mac and *always* entertaining to read--but *this* book is a great way to start out making your own iMovies. Narration by Jeff Goldblum not included.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The Worst Book I've Seen In a Long Time, March 8, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Making iMovies (Paperback)

This book should not be on the market in its present error-filled state. Apparently the other reviewers who rate it so highly are looking at the book's pretty pictures. They surely have not tried to use the book as a new learner, as the book intends.

The book fails utterly as a tutorial. It has numerous factual errors, mismatches between book and actual experience, misleading language, etc. etc.

This book needs an overall edit in the worst way. At the very least someone should have gone through the tutorials (to make sure they worked!) before putting them into print.

The file for the very first lesson has a different name on the CD than the one given for it in the book, and does not start up with images already imported, as it should. And the web site they refer you to for enhanced coverage is a complete bust.

But that's just the start of your troubles if you're trying to use this book to learn iMovie. Go for David Pogue's Missing Manual. Infinitely superior, and half the price.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad, but not the best., December 16, 2001

By 

Bakari Chavanu - See all my reviews

This review is from: Making iMovies (Paperback)

(...) If you're interested in shooting and editing fictional stories using iMovie, Smith's book is very useful--even though it's outdated (it covers iMovie1, not 2). What I appreciated about the book is that Smith takes digital editing seriously. He explains, somewhat, the art of it, which is evident in both the book and the attached DVD.

This book, however, would be a waste of money for those seeking to shoot home, small business, or community outreach videos. If you're shooting and editing for these reasons, I highly recommend David Pogue's "iMovie 2," Rory O'Neill and Eden Muir's "Movie Making with iMovie," or Todd Stauffer's iMovie 2 for Dummies"--the latter includes a good CD Rom with Quicktime movie examples of the strategies and techniques explained in Stauffer's book. Stauffer also goes into advance video editing techniques not clearly explained in Neill or Smith's book.(...)