iMovie Workshop

This afternoon I took part in an iMovie workshop to try and get some sort of knowledge when it comes to 4d/time-based work. In the art industry, people don’t just want photographers who can take stills but films too; commercial work often includes needing to produce a short film or showreel so it’s best to be introduced to it now so that our skills can progress further. Before starting the workshop I had wanted to create short showreels but hadn’t known how to go about it - so before starting today I had no experience. At the beginning of the workshop, we were given a short brief talk as well as a video to watch to show us what sort of thing we were expected to produce in the afternoon. The video was a short showreel cut from a much larger one which created an entire film. The showreel was a selection of images put together to create a story of which was narrated by a male voice over the top. I had never really seen work like this before but I did actually really like it. I thought it was very interesting opposed to a simple video film. After the video, we were given a quick talk as to what we were doing and how to get started. As well as this, we were given a link to a pdf with all the instruction (as a step by step guide) to complete the task.

As we could choose any topic to cover in our showreels, I chose to keep it as project related as possible. For this I chose a selection of 4 photos from my project to do with marine conservation. My images were all of Wembury beach so my title page would be that. Following the instructions was pretty easy as it was laid out very simple. I worked through the steps; importing my images, setting the length they’re shown, transitions, sound and title. Below is the showreel I created during the workshop.

I’m quite happy with this as it was my first time even opening the program. I would’ve liked to include more photos as it was only just over 20 seconds but I wanted to keep it project related with my best images. When I first looked at my finished piece I liked the transitions but eventually I went off the transitioning as it took focus off the image by one image turning into another. As for the music, I struggled at first to find something which went with the calm look of the beach images. I settled for a free track on iMovie which was quite calm and beachy. The title at the beginning was just to inform viewers of where the pictures were taken and the photographer. I’m definitely going to work on my skills when it comes to creating showreels as I enjoyed the process and I like the work which can be produced from doing it. Overall I enjoyed the workshop and felt it was definitely something we needed. It's given me the ability to start exploring more 4d work within my projects and I will now know how to present my photographs more efficiently.

What Have I Learnt?

Summarised, from this workshop I have learnt

- How to create a new imovie by choosing a theme or the no theme selection

- How to import photographs by selecting my photographs from my documents and dragging them into the timeline of my movie

- How to make certain frames continue longer by dragging and extending the images

- How to add music by clicking on the music tab and choosing a fitting piece - then dragging it to the timeline with your images and put it at the correct time

- How to add a title by clicking on the title tab and choosing the one you want followed by editing the text for your movie and place it on the timeline in the correct place

- How to make transitions between each photograph more interesting by choosing a fitting and appropriate transition from the tab and dragging it where you want it change from one photograph to another photograph.

Since completing my original video on iMovie, I have since extended the same one adding a few extra shots from a few other places as well as additional text (informative) and changing the music. The finished video is below. I am much happier with this video as it's a lot more developed than the first one.