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Camcorders are great, light years ahead of the old Super 8 home movie film cameras some of my well-heeled friends' parents had when I was a kid 40-odd years ago. The problem was that editing camcorder footage was so cumbersome and challenging, at least unless you had access to a studio full of multimegabucks digital editing equipment. Editing analog video tape without the proper and astronomically expensive equipment would result in degradation of the imagery with every copy, distortion, and ragged transitions that made your amateur productions look exceedingly amateurish.
My personal experience with video tape is fairly old school - dating back to the early 70s when I worked a cable TV station that was in the process of migrating from one inch reel-to-reel machines to Sony 3/4" videocassette decks - forerunners of today's 1/2" VHS, only the cassettes were larger and cruder, and head design and tape transport mechanisms pretty crude as well at that early stage. Normally, most of what we did was straight record and playback, but one of my colleagues decided to do an ambitious historical documentary. He worked very hard, with help here and there from other staff and friends, and the production turned out to be very good, except for all those rough edits between segments. Suffice to say that a editing video tape without the proper equipment is a heartbreaking enterprise.
But then came Apple's iMovie digital video software in 1999, the first-ever consumer-level digital video editing software. Truly a paradigm-buster. Now anyone with an iMac or PowerBook could, with a bit of practice and dedication, make professional-looking digital movies.
iMovie 2 came along in July, 2000, followed by iMovie 3 in January, 2003, and iMovie 4 as part of the $50 iLife suite in July, 2004,. The latest iteration in the iMovie evolution is iMovie HP, aka iMovie 5, and it's of course the most powerful and capable of the family, with a raft of new features beginning with, as the name suggests, support for HP video editing of high definition (HDTV) footage recorded by HDTV camcorders, although that level of hardware sophistication is likely to be beyond the budgets of most consumer users right now. Nevertheless, prices will drop, and if you have the hardware, iMovie HP is ready to work with its output.
Unfortunately, what iMovie doesn't come with is a good hard copy manual, and once again Pogue Press/O'Reilly has come to the rescue with a very good one, the subject of this review, iMovie HD & iDVD 5: The Missing Manual.
As the book's title indicates, this is really two books in one, with the last four chapters comprising what is essentially iDVD 5: The Missing Manual, which covers using Apple's iDVD disc-burning software, which is another component of the iLife suite that allows you to store and present your professional-looking iMovie productions in a professional-looking, archive-quality format. And of course, iDVD comes with no decent manual either.
The Missing Manual series has always had an attractive and pleasant to read format, but I have to say that the latest full color editions are the icing on the proverbial cake. These books are just gorgeous, and still with the great content presented in easily flowing, reader-friendly prose, in particular the titles authored by Mr. Pogue himself, who has an exceptional gift.
As Pogue notes, "Don't let the rumors fool you, iMovie may be simple, but it isn't simplistic. It offers a wide range of special effects and flexible features for creating transitions between scenes, superimposing text in your video, layering multiple soundtracks together, and more. Unfortunately, many of the best techniques aren't covered in the only 'manual' you get with iMovie: its electronic help screens."
iMovie HD & iDVD 5: The Missing Manual Is structured in five parts of several chapters each.
Part One, Capturing Footage, is about what you need to do before you actually be in working with the software.
Chapter 1, The DV Camcorder, walks you through the process of choosing a DV camcorder, discussing various media formats, and advocating the many advantages of shooting in DV rather than the cheaper traditional formats, suggests what sort of material you might want to record, which camcorder features are especially worthwhile having, and of course some advice on where and how to buy. If you're new to video recording or your experience is with older equipment, you'll find that there's plenty to learn and consider before making what is a relatively expensive purchase. This camcorder buyers guide could be worth the price of the book all by itself.
Chapter Two is about Turning Home Video Into Pro Video - how to give your projects that je ne sais quoi quality that whispers "professional," instead of obviously amateur, beginning with a discussion of why footage shot on film has different qualities of appearance than footage shot on videotape, before moving on to discuss the finer points of actually capturing images and action with your new DVD camcorder. Also covered are different types and the positioning of microphones, and camera techniques like zoom, pan, and tilt. There's a crash course on video lighting, and another on video composition. This is all valuable information, and a bonus in what is nominally a software manual.
Chapter 3, Special Event Filming, is a collection of short but incisive tutorials on capturing footage in particular context, such as interviews, music videos, life stage performances, speeches, sports, photos and old movies, weddings (including a handy crib sheet of shots you don't want to miss), and even actual scripted films.
In Part Two, Editing in iMovie, we get down to the main course, beginning with transferring your camcorder footage into iMovie.
Chapter 4, Camcorder Meets Mac, walks you through using FireWire interfaces for download, setting up and configuring the iMovie application, importing camcorder footage, other sources of video footage such as iSight video, live camcorder recording, USB camcorders, and HDV camcorders, as well as important footage from non-DVD tapes.
Building The Movie is the title of Chapter 5, a good, brief description of the chapter's content. There is a lot of information on working with clips, using the movie track and time line viewer.
Chapter 6 addresses Transitions And Effects, key elements of achieving a professional look. This is where many readers will find the book really pays off.
Chapter 7 on using Titles, Captions, And Characters is also vital information for adding polish to your productions, and a showcase of the power and versatility of the iMovie application.
Chapter 8 moves on to the most next element of professional film production: Narration, Music, And Sound. As David Pogue observes, if you ever had the opportunity to view a Hollywood picture before the musical soundtrack and sound effects were added, your impression would probably be that it had no more emotional impact than your typical home movie. So, on with tutorials on working with audio clips, recording narration, importing iTunes music or music from CDs, sound effects, adjusting volume, overlaying video or sound, and extracting audio from video.
Chapter 9 gives you the skinny on using Still Pictures And QuickTime Movies in your video productions, including the "Ken Burns Effect" to "animate" still photos by zooming and panning over them. There is also a section on creating still images from video footage.
Chapter 10 moves on to Professional Editing Techniques, telling you how to put the proverbial icing and decorations on the cake, and how to avoid pitfalls.
Part Three, Finding Your Audience, is about presenting your completed production.
Chapter 11, Back To The Camcorder, explains why, after editing is completed, you may want to export your movie back into the camcorder, from which you can watch it directly on a TV or transfer it to a VHS video cassette (you can also a transfer directly from the Mac to the VCR).
Chapter 12, From iMovie To QuickTime, discusses the fine points of converting your masterpiece into a QuickTime movie for viewing on computers, QuickTime being a compression format that allows movies to be stored more compactly. The chapter is an excellent tutorial on understanding and using QuickTime technology.
Chapter 13, Movies On The Web. explores the ins and outs of presenting movies on the Internet, or even showing abbreviated ones on your cellphone.
The final chapter in the iMovie HD section, Chapter 14 - QuickTime Player, explains how to get the best out of Apple's video playback software, QuickTime Player and QuickTime Player Pro, including some fancy playback tricks.
Part Four is a book with in a book, essentially iDVD 5: The Missing Manual.
iDVD is the component of Apple's iLife software suite that facilitates transferring your iMovies and iPhoto slide shows into slick DVD packages that can play in standard DVD players or most computers.
Chapter 15, From iMovie To Live DVD discusses the advantages of DVD media, and walks you through the process of preparing your video for iDVD presentation and archiving. There is more to this than you might imagine.
Chapter 16, iDVD Productions By Hand, tells and shows how to move beyond iDVD's slick automation and take control by doing some things manually, as well as making DVD slide shows of your still photos.
Pogue notes that some of Apple's I DVD themes have great backgrounds but lame video, so Chapter 17 is about Designing iDVD Themes. There is also a section of thumbnail reviews of the built-in themes.
iDVD Secrets is the title of Chapter 18, in which Pogue reveals how to unleash the hidden power of iDVD, provided you're willing to try some new and unusual approaches.
Part Five contains three appendices:
Appendix A: iMovie HD Menu By Menu
Appendix B: Troubleshooting
Appendix C: Master Keyboard Shortcut List
There is also a 15-page Index.
There is a ton of value in this profusely illustrated 500 page book, for the relatively modest price of $29.95. If you use iMovie and/or iDVD software, don't even think twice. You need this book, it's a winner from cover to cover. Bravo.
iMovie HD & iDVD 5: The Missing Manual
David Pogue
ISBN: 0-596-10033-7,
516 pages,
$29.95 US, $41.95 CA
1-800-998-9938; 1-707-827-7000
For more information, visit:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/imoviehdtmm/
Charles W. Moore
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