iMovie 09 and iDVD for Mac OS X: Visual QuickStart Guide [Paperback]

Jeff Carlson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0321601327 | ISBN-13: 978-0321601322 | Publication Date: May 31, 2009 | Edition: 1

Visual QuickStart Guide—the quick and easy way to learn!

This full-color, amply illustrated, accessible book teaches readers the essential skills necessary for creating compelling movies with iMovie '09 and iDVD, Apple's consumer-friendly digital movie and DVD-burning software applications. Readers can follow the step-by-step instructions from the beginning to get a tour of the applications or look up specific tasks to learn just what they need to know. Longtime Macintosh and technology writer Jeff Carlson takes extra steps to ensure that readers understand all of the key aspects of digital movie making.

• Easy visual approach uses pictures to guide you through iMovie '09 and iDVD (and how they interact with the other iLife ’09 applications) and show you what to do.
• Concise steps and explanations let you get up and running in no time.
• Page for page, the best content and value around.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jeff Carlson divides his time between his Seattle design company, Never Enough Coffee Creations (www.necoffee.com), and writing for publications such as Macworld and HOW magazines. He is the author of both editions of Making a Movie with iMovie and iDVD: Visual QuickProject Guide, and he wrote all of the previous editions of this book. Jeff is also managing editor of TidBITS (www.tidbits.com), the weekly electronic newsletter on Mac technology, and is the Mac co-columnist for the Seattle Times.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Peachpit Press; 1 edition (May 31, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321601327
• ISBN-13: 978-0321601322
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #754,957 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #12 in Books > Computers & Technology > Apple > iMovie + iDVD

More About the Author

I'm a freelance writer and designer. I've authored and edited a number of best-selling books about video editing, Web design, the Mac, and Palm devices. I'm a columnist for The Seattle Times, contribute regularly to magazines such as Macworld, HOW Magazine, and Photoshop Elements Techniques. The closest thing I have to a real job is Managing Editor of TidBITS.

See my personal weblog at http://www.jeffcarlson.com/, and my iMovie/video editing weblog at http://www.jeffcarlson.com/imovievqs/. More information about my work and current projects can be found at http://www.necoffee.com/.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great iMovie '09 guide, no printed iDVD items, November 28, 2009

By 

D. Greenbaum "DoctorDave™" (Lawrence, KS) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: iMovie 09 and iDVD for Mac OS X: Visual QuickStart Guide (Paperback)

Typically, Peachpit's Visual Quickstart Guide jumps you into a program giving you the "quickstart" to get working and obtain a basic understanding of the program. This book didn't follow that theme as closely as others in the series, but it's still an excellent guide to iMovie 09. If you buy only one book on iMovie, I firmly believe this should be the one. It's short, straightforward and highly accessible to someone who has never used a video camera before.

The book starts off with the essentials of movie making on your Mac, discussing important topics such as AV equipment, movie planning, lighting and composition. These preliminary chapters are an absolute gem. While I've worked with iMovie before, I never really understood the essentials of lighting, focus, and composition. A great iMovie starts out with the fundamentals and the first five chapters of the book are devoted to just this.

Next, the book gives you a "Make a Movie in a Hurry" overview of iMovie so you can quickly complete a task and have some initial success. Then, the author goes in detail about iMovie in a logical progression as to how the typical project would go: importing, editing, and exporting. Throughout the chapters the author includes tips and tricks not just about the usage of iMovie, but why a user should care about certain functions. Knowing all the features of iMovie doesn't really help unless you know how to use them in your projects to enhance your work. After reading this book, I understood much more of the power of iMovie and how to use the features of iMovie to make better movies.

Ironically, what's missing from the book is a guide to iDVD. One small chapter is devoted to iDVD and then the author directs you to his website for another 60 or so pages of iDVD info: [...] That's my major con of the book: the title is extremely misleading. This is NOT a book about iDVD, it's strictly about iMovie. I can't imagine why the book was titled and distributed the way it was.

Pros: Easy to understand, accessible
Cons: No iDVD printed materials in book

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very good resource. Clear and easy., June 13, 2010

By 

A. Sear "serenity" (Miami, FL) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: iMovie 09 and iDVD for Mac OS X: Visual QuickStart Guide (Paperback)

I highly recommend this book. It is clear and easy to use. I also bought and rated the iMovie book in the 'Personal Genius' series, which is also excellent. I use both and have found them to be excellent and I quickly learned a tremendous amount on a program that isn't that easy to learn on your own. It also is very beneficial for learning how iMovie stores your events and projects, which is very different than other programs so necessary to learn via a professional book. I am very happy with this. Well worth it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars this book and iMovie did not work for me ... a complete waste of time and money, March 19, 2011

By 

CashSenderdotcom - See all my reviews

This review is from: iMovie 09 and iDVD for Mac OS X: Visual QuickStart Guide (Paperback)

I recently switched to the Mac world from PC primarily for my video editing work. So I am completely unfamiliar with iMovie and video editing in general when using a Mac. For this reason, I purchased this book to help me get my feet wet with iMovie.

Although the book is well laid out, with excellent colour photos and plenty of screen shot examples, I immediately stumbled upon a major problem which this book could not help me with. I have hooked my Sony video cam up to my Mac, and come hell or high water, I cannot get iMovie to capture video from the camera.

The chapter in this book does not provide a trouble shooting section of what do if when you hit the capture button, and capture for three minutes, nothing is actually captured to your Mac during the capture. Nada.

So what I did was go back to the store, I spent $200 on Final Cut Express .. and had no problem at all capturing the footage to my Mac... without using any book!

So my conclusion is that this book did not properly provide me with the information I needed to successfully capture footage from iMovie. It was a waste of my money, and I will not be using the book or iMovie any more. Thumbs down.