Print This Page DST: Starting an iMovie Project

  1. Open iMovie.
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  2. Go to File and select “New Project …”
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  3. Name your project according to the “lastname_grad_dst” convention.
  4. Choose “Standard (4:3)” as your aspect ratio. Click “Create.”
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  5. Your project name should now appear, and be highlighted, in the Project Library in the top left corner of the iMovie interface.
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  6. Start your project by adding images. You should have gathered images into iPhoto and planned your digital story already in order to take this step.
    1. Click on the camera icon in the lower right side of the iMovie interface to bring up your iPhoto images.
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    2. Scroll through the images that you added to iPhoto to find the first image of your digital story. Should your images be missing for some reason, you might need to quit iMovie and re-launch the program. If that doesn’t work, follow these red bullets for each of the images that is not showing up in iMovie.
      • Open iPhoto. Select the image.
      • Under “File” choose “Export …”
      • Change the dropdown menu next to the word “Kind” to the “JPEG” option, then click “Export.”
      • Choose a destination and name for your file.
      • After the export, delete the image from iPhoto, but keep iPhoto open.
      • Find the new “name.jpg” image (where you exported it). Drag it into iPhoto.
      • Check iMovie. If your image still does not appear, close iMovie and open it again.
    3. Drag an image into the top middle area and drop it in the order you want it to occur. The first image you drop there will automatically become the first image of your project. You may change this by dropping a different image to the left of the first image, or by moving multiple images around later.
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  7. Insert your images in the order that you devised in your storyboard planning.
  8. You can choose to play your project in the top-right playback area, or full screen, by clicking on these buttons. The left button is the full-screen option.
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  9. The next step is to add voice over, which will include changing the lengths of your images to match your narrative. You will work with the Ken Burns Effect to add motion and emphasis to your images later.