iMovie Worked Wonderfully and More Easily Than Windows Movie Maker

By Anonymous -
Mr. Hatlen, our principal, gave our students a challenge when we met with him in October.  He challenged each 5th grade classroom to make a video about leadership.  

 Making videos isn't as easy as it may seem.  It takes a bit of technological knowledge to put something together that looks presentable when the video is done.  We took on the challenge.  

 First, our students thought about what they wanted in the video.  We decided to keep it simple and tell what a good leader does.  My co-teacher and I also decided to add in a few chants, cheers and messages along with each students' leadership statement.  

 Next, we used a Flip Video camera to tape the students saying their leadership statements.  Flip Video cameras do not have a pause feature, so we ended up with quite a few video clips.  I chose the Flip Video Recorder since it takes quality videos.

 In the past, I have usually used Windows Movie Maker to create a movie with video clips, titles and transitions, but this time I decided to try something new and went with iMovie on my MacBook Air.

 One great advantage to iMovie over Windows Movie Maker was that iMovie will accept MP4 video files (this is the video file Flip Videos record in).  Windows Movie Maker does not accept MP4 video files, so in the past I would use Format Factory to convert all of my videos over to AVI files before importing them into Windows Movie Maker.

 iMovie was easy to use, quick to create a movie, and felt like a better quality video editor than Windows Movie Maker.  iMovie did not freeze up  like Windows Movie Maker does and it was very quick to load video clips.  I didn't really do much editing or adding in of titles and music.  I just stuck to the basics for my first video.

 I remember last Spring when our school tried to use Windows Movie Maker to create a video about Career Day with interviews done by our students.  It did not work out because Windows Movie Maker kept freezing up and could not handle the video clips we were trying to import.  This year I would recommend iMovie to our staff and I am confident that there will not be as many challenges as last year.

 iMovie worked great and our video is a success.  Here is our finished product.  It's not fancy, but it gets the message across.  

Comments

Unknown said…
I have never used iMovie, so I cannot comment on that. I have been using Windows Movie Maker since 2010. The interface has changed slightly since 2010. I've also used a Flip Video to make my movies for the past couple years. I never had a problem importing these video files into WMM like you indicated. I didn't need any conversion program. Perhaps you are doing it differently than I am. My videos are between 15 and 30 minutes long. The only thing I'd recommend is to keep photos and video files on your local drive (versus a network) and make sure you start making your movie at the beginning (as opposed to starting a scene in the middle, as an example).
November 23, 2013 at 11:25 PM
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