Editing: iMovie

We transitioned from using 'Adobe Premier Pro' to iMovie, and though it happened for regulation reasons out of our control, it actually proved to be extremely beneficial to our group and our final product. The process of editing became much more efficient, as we had access to iMovie at school and at home, and we did not have to travel back and forth to the college in order to edit. Eliminating the need for travel for our group was very beneficial as none of us are able to drive, so we were relying on lifts there, which meant we had to accommodate our editing time around other people's schedules. Having access to the editing software both in school on the selection of macs that are available, and on my laptop proved useful. It meant that during any free periods in school, we could access our edit to work on it. Having the software on my laptop also meant that I could spend multiple hours outside of school hours editing, which proved essential in us being able to edit our final draft with such precision as we did.

Although our group had experience in using Adobe Premier Pro, we still found that it was very complicated to get to grips with. We had found that time that could have been spent editing was being spent trying to figure out how to use certain tools and effects. As a group, we found that iMovie was a much more simple piece of software to use. Hannah and I had previous experience in using the software, which meant that we were aware of most of the features it had to offer, and could use them effectively.

What tools/techniques did we use?

We used the crop to fill tool to turn this relatively long shot of Hannah and Jade into a medium shot, as we felt that this would be more effective in the piece. Making the shot more focused on the girls highlights their emotion, and removes the unnecessary background that was included.




When using iMovie, we were unable to use techniques such as isolating colour within a shot, as the software was not capable of advanced techniques such as this. Instead, we used a split between a black and white filter on shots, and standard colour on the rest of the shots, to demonstrate the protagonists transition between self-conflict, sadness and isolation, to happiness and acceptance of her sexuality. To create the black and white filter effect, we used the colour correction tool to erase the colour and leave the shot in black and white.








Throughout the video, we used the slow motion technique on a multitude of occasions. We felt that slowing down the clips to 80% of their normal speed helped to make them more poignant, and added to the emotion of the shots. In coloured part of the piece, we used slow motion as a method to make the shots seem very dream-like, as we wanted to represent the protagonists relief and intense happiness that she had finally accepted herself, and was falling in love again.

Cross dissolve with slow motion

Cross dissolve with increased speed

In our piece we featured sections of footage where we used cross dissolves. This was a technique we were unfamiliar with before this project, but we thought that using cross dissolve techniques worked almost like time lapse in a certain sense. We used a cross dissolve of Hannah and Josh walking on top of the rocks to represent sadness and how time moved slowly because the protagonist was so unhappy. We also used a cross dissolve in the reversed shot of Hannah walking on the pebbles away from Josh, to demonstrate the speed of her return to him, as she could not bring herself to let go.





We used the stabilisation tool on this long shot of Jade and Hannah at the beach, as due to the strong wind that day, the footage was a little shaky. The stabilisation tool proved to be quite effective, as it zoomed in on the shot more to decrease its shaky appearance.





Opinion on using iMovie...

I believe that switching to using iMovie was the best decision we could have made for our the editing process of our video. Our familiarity with the simple software allowed us to edit the footage a lot better than we would have using 'Adobe Premier Pro'. We could make full use of the software and its features, and for that reason, I believe our final edit is of a much better standard than we would have been able to produce using the more complicated software.