Video - Multimedia Technology, Multimedia - Mac Users, Video Technology, Film Editing, iMovie

iMovie 3 and iDVD : The Missing Manual

Name: iMovie 3 and iDVD : The Missing Manual
Author: David Pogue, Tim O'Reilly
ISBN: 9780596005078

by David Pogue, Tim O'Reilly

Write a review

Overview

Apple's free iMovie software made history by tearing down the barriers to pro-quality filmmaking. In version 3, iMovie offers powerful audio enhancements, slick new photo effects, and integration with iTunes and iPhoto— but it still comes without a single page of printed instructions.

In this funny, authoritative, updated guide, award-winning author David Pogue provides a complete course in Macintosh filmmaking. The book includes:

Essentials of film technique. Using iMovie without a grounding in film technique is like getting a map before you've learned to drive. This book offers a friendly guide to making even home movies look professional.
Editing basics. Part 2 of this book bursts with clever workarounds, hidden features, and editing tricks from the Hollywood film world.
Finding an audience. You can export your finished masterpiece back to the tape for high-quality TV playback— or save it as a QuickTime movie that you can post on a Web page, email to friends, or burn as a Video CD.
Mastering DVDs. If your Mac has a SuperDrive, you can distribute your movies at much higher quality than VHS tapes or QuickTime movies— by creating your own Hollywood-style DVDs. Four all-new chapters cover iDVD 3 in detail, including dozens of undocumented secrets for extending the program's design tools.

Whether you plan to make the next Blair Witch Project or just better home movies, iMovie 3 & iDVD: The Missing Manual lets you marry the stunning quality of digital video with the power of your imagination.

About the Author, David Pogue, Tim O'Reilly

David Pogue, Yale '85, is the personal-technology columnist for the New York Times. With nearly 3 million books in print, he is also one of the world's bestselling how-to authors, having written or co-written seven books in the "for Dummies" series (including Macs, Magic, Opera, and Classical Music), along with several computer-humor books and a technothriller, "Hard Drive" (a New York Times "notable book of the year"). Pogue is also the creator and primary author of the Missing Manual series of complete, funny computer books, a joint venture with O'Reilly & Associates. Titles in the series include Mac OS X, Windows XP, iPod, Microsoft Office, iPhoto, Dreamweaver, iMovie 2, and many others. His Web page is www.davidpogue.com, and his email address is [email protected].

Reviews

There are no reviews yet. Log in to write one.

Editorials

From Barnes & Noble

The Barnes & Noble Review
Apple’s iMovie 3 is better than ever. But it comes in the form of an 82 megabyte download from Apple.com. Yup: no printed manual.

We can help with that. Check out iMovie 3 & iDVD: The Missing Manual by legendary Mac maven and New York Times tech columnist David Pogue.

Updated all the way through the latest iMovie 3.03 bug fixes, this book walks you through every step of iMovie and iDVD video production. That's right, everything: from choosing the right digital camcorder to importing old analog video; basic editing; building your movie track; adding transitions, effects, titles, credits, and narration; and outputting your finished video to CD-ROM or QuickTime web streaming video.

While iMovie and iDVD are the only programs listed on the cover, you’ll also learn how to import and export from Apple’s other iLife programs -- for example, importing iTunes 3 audio and iPhoto 2 stills.

Speaking of stills, one of iMovie 3’s niftiest features is the “Ken Burns effect” -- the ability to pan still photos, as in Burns’s classic Civil War, baseball, and jazz documentaries. Pogue covers that in detail.

Ditto for all the other new iMovie 3 features that matter: Apple’s new “Liquid Timeline” editing interface; custom volume controls; iMovie’s improved video effects and titles; one-click export to iDVD; creating chapter markers that iDVD will transform into scene selection menus; and more.

Pogue also covers iMovie’s new visual and audio effects, including the bundled Skywalker sound effects straight from George Lucas’s ranch. (Pretty slick -- and you can’t beat the price.)

Pogue started the Missing Manual series, and this book’s a quintessential example of why it’s so good. It’s carefully written, with style and wit. It’s got a sturdy binding, to survive constant use. It’s full of tips that solve the problems you’ll really encounter. And it tells the truth about the software’s limitations and workarounds: the stuff you probably wouldn’t get in the “official” manual, if there were one. Bill Camarda

Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks for Dummies, Second Edition.

Library Journal

Focusing on the video components of Apple's iLife applications (see Computer Media, LJ 8/03), these three guides cover moviemaking more thoroughly than general iLife overviews, as well as the newer iMovie v.3 (available as a free download, with new Macs, or as part of the iLife CD purchase); libraries that own older titles should update. QuickStart spruces up an older edition with material on new features in v.3 (e.g., improved audio editing) and working with stills; there's also a short appendix on troubleshooting. After discussing digital camcorder features, it moves through shooting video and capturing audio, not getting into iMovie basics until a third of the way through. Extensive screen shots and step-by-step instructions make this a solid, nonthreatening purchase for beginners and all libraries, in conjunction with more comprehensive guides. For beginning to intermediate readers, Teach Yourself shows how to use iMovie and iDVD 3 together to create movies and burn them to DVD using Apple's SuperDrive. Notes, tips, and cautions add more info; suggested tasks, quizzes, exercises, and Q&A aid in self-study. One caveat: in pursuit of simplification, the authors sometimes use nonstandard terms ("adding" rather than "importing" audio, for example), which can make it difficult to locate a topic of interest. A good choice for task-based coverage of the most useful and common functions of both popular programs, for all libraries. Missing Manual also covers both programs, although the bulk is devoted to iMovie. Topics range from buying a DV camcorder, to adding titles, to using built-in themes in iDVD. Appendixes address each menu of iMovie 3 and iMovie troubleshooting extras; downloads are available online at missingmanuals.com; sidebars and tips add info. More thorough than Teach Yourself, this is appropriate for all libraries and beginning to intermediate users. If you can buy only one, choose Missing Manual. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.