Working with Imovie

Alright, if I though I was hesitant with Photoshop, then I was absolutely terrified of using Imovie. I have a history of trying out different slideshow and movie-making softwares. My experience is this: purchase or start using a new software spend hours upon hours fumbling through its features start a project spend at least 1 hour trying to get each individual component to work get frustrated and start crying end up with a few minutes of usable yet highly dysfunctional footage after 60+ hours of work

You get my drift. My history has been one wrought with pain, suffereing, and feelings of inadequacy. therefore, you can understand my fear of Imovie. I tend to be a perfectionist, so the idea of creating something with a specific time constraint, blended shots, and a soundtrack sounded like weeks of work.

 As our group began filming, I felt excited at our vision. Then I felt dismay at the idea that we'd probably never get a project out like the one in my head. I have to say, working with Imovie was MUCH less stress than I had anticipated. We didn't have the opportunity to use it directly after instruction, so we did find ourselves struggling to remember specific features a bit. But overall, the 30 second clip came together quite smoothly. I was even impressed how fun it was to drag little clips up into the project, and then play them together. It looked pretty darn good before we even did anything with it!

Overall, I think we came out with a pretty nice end product. There are little tweaks I might have made if given the time, but I think it looks pretty cool. I have a much better appreciation for all the little things that go into putting a movie together. For instance, when showing it to my family, I just want to keep stopping it to say "look at this blending" or "do you see how well the music fits in right there?"

Although I don't think I will be using a whole lot of Imovie with my elementary students, I am definitely encouraged to make some of my own movies for use in the class. I like how easy it is to create a polished looking clip, and think this would be a nice, visual way to get students interested in upcoming content.