The iMovie app is virtually the same on both the iPhone and iPad, but where there are differences, we’ll point them out as we go through this course. We recommend that you use your iPhone or iPad in landscape orientation to allow for more options to be displayed at the same time.

When you first open the iMovie app, you get a welcome screen that displays some of the features that iMovie offers. For now tap Continue. On the next screen, you’ll see any video that you already have on your iPad or iPhone, and the Video button at the top will be chosen. The other two options at the top of this screen are Projects and Theater.

After you’ve created your first project, this is the first screen you’ll see after you open the app, and you’ll see any projects that you’ve created here, and will be able to tap them to continue to work on them. This is also where you can create a new project.

The Theater option will display your completed projects, which you can view by tapping on them. To create a project, tap the plus button. Each time you tap to create a new project you can choose to create a movie or a trailer.

The Movie option gives you much more flexibility to create your video the way you would like, whereas the Trailer option works within a very specific pre-determined template.

For the purposes of this course, tap on the Movie option. The next screen allows you to select a theme for your movie. You can preview any theme by tapping on it to select it, and then tapping the play button at the bottom.

For the purposes of this course, tap on the Simple theme, then tap where it says Create in the top right corner. The project editing interface screen will appear. In the upper right corner is the Browser area where you’ll see any video, photos or audio, such as music or sound effects, that are already located on your iPad or iPhone.

Due to the limited space on an iPhone screen, you’ll need to tap on one of the Video, Photos or Audio buttons to access those browsers. Before you can give your new video project a name, you’ll need to add at least one clip from your video browser to your timeline, which you can easily delete later. To do this, just find the clip you want and double tap on it to add it.

You’ll see an image from the clip you just added appear in the area in top left corner which is called the Viewer. The white vertical line in the timeline is called a playhead and it indicates which portion of your project is currently playing in your viewer. To skim through your clip on your timeline, tap and drag the clip to the left or right. You can also play the clip in real time by tapping on the play button located beneath the Viewer.

It will start playing from the point where the white playhead line was located. You can tap on the Audio Waveform button located beneath the browser to display your timeline clip’s audio waveform. Blue indicates that it is turned on. An audio waveform is just a graphic representation of the peaks and valleys in your audio. Note that if the clip that you added to your timeline doesn’t have any audio, you’ll just see a blank grey bar Located directly to the right of the waveform display button is the Undo button, which lets you undo your last action.

You can keep tapping on the Undo button to undo each of your previous actions in the order that you made them. To Re-do an action that you’ve mistakenly Undone, tap and hold on the Undo button and select ReDo. The three buttons located in the lower right corner from left to right are Camera, which lets you shoot directly into iMovie using your devices front or rear camera. Microphone which when tapped allows you to record voiceover directly into your project.

The third button is the project settings button. This is where you can change the theme of your project, choose to turn the theme music on or off, or fade in or out of your video at the beginning and end. If you tap on the arrow located in the top left of the screen, you’ll be taken back to the Project Viewer which gives you an overview of your project. You can Play it, Share it, or delete it.

You can also finally give your project a name other than “My Movie”. To do this, tap on the title, tap the x to delete the previous text, and then type in your new name. Then tap Done. To go back to your project to continue working on it, tap on the thumbnail image. Notice that your new Project name is now displayed at the top of your Viewer.

The iPhone version of iMovie has a slightly different layout from the iPad. In landscape orientation on the iPhone, the three buttons that let you browse your media, use your camera, or record voiceover have been moved to the left side of the screen. The biggest difference between the iPad and iPhone versions of iMovie is that you don’t have the option to view your audio waveforms on the iPhone, but you can adjust your audio levels, which we’ll go over in a later lesson.

© Michael Rosenblum & Lisa Lambden 2015