After you have the footage that you need loaded onto your iPad, you’re ready to start editing your video in iMovie. If you still have a clip on your timeline that you put there so that you could give your project a name, tap, hold and drag the clip up and off the timeline so that there are no clips there.

To browse your video clips, tap on the Video tab at the top of the browser, then tap on All to see all of your video clips. To screen an entire clip in real time, tap on it once to select it, so that it’s surrounded by a yellow box, then tap the play button. You’ll see your video play in the Viewer window.

To scrub through the clip quickly, tap, hold and drag your finger across the clip. You can move forward or backward through the clip. When you find the clip that you want to use, you can either double tap on it to add it to the timeline, or tap the downward facing arrow.

Notice that the clip moves onto the timeline and that an orange line has appeared on the clip in your Browser to let know that it’s already been used. If you want to choose only a section of a clip from your video browser before adding it to the timeline, tap on it once to select it, so that it’s surrounded by a yellow box, then tap on either the left or right yellow handle to choose the start and end points of thee section you want.

You can see where you are in your clip in the Viewer window as you move the handles. To preview the section of your clip that you’ve selected, click on the play button. Then either double tap or tap the arrow to add it to your timeline.

When you add a second clip to your timeline, it will be added just after where the white playhead is located. By default the playhead automatically moves to the end of any clip you’ve just added, but let’s say we want our second clip to go in front of the first clip that we’ve added. To do this, tap on and drag the existing clip so that it’s located to the right of the playhead, then select and add your second clip.

Your second clip should now be the first clip on your timeline. It’s important to always check to see where your playhead is located before you add any clips to your timeline.

© Michael Rosenblum & Lisa Lambden 2015