“When Apple releases new products, they’re often hailed as breakthroughs,” Jefferson Graham reports for USA Today. “But with the recent update of its beloved iMovie software, Apple finds itself in an unusual position: defense. Longtime iMovie fans aren’t happy.”
“Apple isn’t apologizing. It says it wants a new audience for iMovie and that the redesign had to happen. ‘The consumer video-editing industry is dying,’ says Rob Schoeben, Apple’s vice president of applications and product marketing. ‘It got crushed by digital photography,'” Graham reports.
Graham reports, “Most camcorder owners never bother with video editing. Yet they will use software programs such as Apple’s iPhoto to manage their pictures and growing collection of video clips from still cameras, Schoeben says. Apple was forced to do a ‘radical reinvention’ of iMovie to get its users to work with their video clips, he says. Schoeben believes video novices will find it easier to edit with iMovie and, thus, use the program more. ‘This may be controversial at first, but long term … we’ll be fine.’
Graham reports, “Schoeben says iMovie has more advanced features than many on the message boards realize. Apple just hasn’t done a good enough job of letting people know about them, he says. More tutorials will be posted online like the ones at http://www.apple.com/ilife/tutorials/#imovie
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take by SteveJack: Longtime iMovie users aren’t happy, but average consumers should be ecstatic with the new iMovie ’08; it’s actually a triumph. Just so you know where I’m coming from, in addition to my brief bio below, I am a former 15+ year professional TV producer and video editor. Chances are good that you’ve seen something I’ve edited – most likely on a Mac-based Avid system costing over $100,000.
Schoeben’s right: people weren’t using iMovie because iMovie was too daunting (believe it or not). iMovie used to be and was designed to be a baby non-linear editor (NLE). I hated the thing personally and never used it, either. It was too “consumerish” in spots and too “pro” in others; in other words, a hodgepodge. I moved to Final Cut Pro long ago. What Apple has done with the new iMovie ’08 is what Apple typically does: shift the paradigm. In this case, they’ve done so radically and, in the process, revolutionized consumer editing. When all is said and done, iMovie ’08 will go down as an important transformative milestone in digital editing history.
Apple has shown the world the future and some people whine that they can’t sepia tone it.
It’s no surprise that longtime iMovie users are up in arms – hey, back in the TV stations and production houses where I worked, we used to complain when Avid moved one button or changed an icon with a new Media Composer version! We were used to the way things were, dammit, and didn’t want to change because it slowed us down – at first. With iMovie ’08, Apple has done more than move a button, they’ve blown up and the reassembled the entire app! They weren’t kidding with Think Different.
Longtime iMovie users will have to give the new iMovie a proper chance. I hope that with time, you’ll come to love it as I do. Some won’t and to those I say, it’s your loss. You are most likely already too advanced an editor for iMovie anyway (hint, hint: Final Cut Express – you’ll love it). New users or those that can adapt more quickly will find a fast, intuitive, easy-to-use video editing application in iMovie ’08.
iMovie was meant to be an editing application for beginning editors and camcorder users who wanted to quickly edit footage into shorter, more interesting finished products. iMovie ’08 finally achieves that vision.
Apple deserves credit for recognizing the problem and totally rethinking an application that relatively few of its target audience used. iMovie ’08 will bring video editing to many more people than previous versions, which was Apple’s goal all along.
While I’m disappointed that some iMovie users aren’t embracing change as readily as I believe Mac users should, I can empathize. You used to know how iMovie worked and now you don’t. The temptation to just give up and scream is very real, but change is hard and, in this case, it’s worth it. This whole brouhaha reminds me so much of the move from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X!
iMovie ’08 does need some more effects and a fuller feature set, but the foundation Apple has now laid is very, very strong and I fully expect iMovie to evolve and get even better over time. Start working with it now for simple projects, so you’ll be ready for the next version of iMovie. I doubt future iMovie changes will ever be so radical – Apple’s on the right track now – we’ll just get more features, refinements, and capabilities, but the basic premise of editing will be what iMovie ’08 has now established.
In the meantime, iMovie ’06 HD is there for the taking (and maybe Apple can rework it, rename it, and find a place for it in their lineup between iMovie and Final Cut Express where it belongs). I recommend that longtime iMovie users take advantage and use both applications, but give iMovie ’08 a real chance. Watch the tutorials (http://www.apple.com/ilife/tutorials/#imovie) and put in the time; I know it hurts, but “no pain, no gain!” Properly used, iMovie ’08 can create excellent quality product. With a little less knee-jerk and a little more exploration, I think you’ll find that iMovie ’08 is a revelation.
SteveJack is a long-time Macintosh user, web designer, multimedia producer and a regular contributor to the MacDailyNews Opinion section.
(Apple justifying iMovie ’08 to schools that have invested in pre-’08 iMovie-centric courses should be a fun thing to hear)
Schools shouldn’t be teaching iMovie except in Continuing Ed classes which are usually free or $15 tops.
If a school is actually providing editing courses, they should be with a minimum of Final Cut Express.
I find it interesting that the ones you hear PRAISING the glories of the new iMovie write later posts stating that they ONLY use Final Cut Pro.
I purchased Final Cut Express — AND HATED IT!! I thought I had bought a Microsoft program.
I wonder how Final Cut Pro people would feel if their program had been replaced by the new iMovie ’08? We could make stupid statements, they are are, such as:
“Oh, it’s so much better, it’s easier to use and there’s only 9 transition that you can use! Obviously, it’s serious lack of abilities to produce anything that looks good is a wonderful upgrade that all users must buy!”
“You can’t strip the audio out of a clip. If you want to add a song to the background, you can’t even control where in the movie it starts or ends, and you can’t just put in part of the song. You are forced to put in the song in its entirety, and it must begin at the beginning of your movie, and it must fade out when your movie ends before the song does.”
Oh yes you can!
1. you can drag the green bar which represents your music, to which ever frame you have
2. in the small box in the green bar, select that, and you get two bars… play around with them
As for fading… no idea… but it should be in there.
If you still can’t get the music to start at a later point… just add a music track that has no sound!
I really appreciate the new iMovie08. I didn’t use the previous iMovies at all because I found the experience extremely frustrating. I began video editing about 8yrs ago at a non-profit with FCP and everything has been coloured by that wonderful application. Ten minutes into the included tutorial and there was no looking back or need to read any documentation to begin to be productive. Actually, we created two projects in iMovie while waiting for FCP to be delivered. When FCP arrived it was a revelation.
FC was new to me then, and iMovie is new to me now, and I love it. It’s a good intuitive Apple app. I did not feel that way about iMovie.
It is precisely the timeline of the previous iMovies that I find most frustrating. I don’t like the timeline “moving and changing” – clips expanding to fill timeline and automatically removing gaps, etc. I like a clip to stay where I put it and to be able to see its relation to other clips, gaps and all. I couldn’t get into iMovie before at all. It was like trying to do a simple page layout on Word instead of Pages.
I can understand the disappointment of “advanced iMovie users” – especially those who have taken the time to make iMovie work for them. I know buying FCE isn’t a great prospect; and I know it’s not a great consolation, but FCE is well worth its price. I don’t believe you will have to put in the same effort to be as proficient in it as you were in the previous iMovie.
iMovie now makes a great library/preview/archiving tool for all my footage – plus a quick tool for a storyline. I am going to get all my footage back out now. Having iMovie08 and FC is a bit like having iPhoto (great organiser and slideshow maker with some editing tools) and Photoshop (though FC is easier). Not to be smug at all, but before iMovie08 it was more like having Photoshop and something like MS PaintShop (my analogy to old iMovie) — you can use if you have to, but why bother?
I much prefer a paradigm shift (no timeline for example) to having something that is not quite there and less intuitive than it ought to be (old iMovie).
Cannot get iMove to work (3 hours) and spent 4 hours getting errors out of iphoto to retrieve my 8gb’s of sacred family photo’s. So this piece of pooh called iLife 08 belongs on Steve Job front door in a paper bag set alight and let him put it out. Karma is a funny thing, it is because of unconditional non objective journalism in the I.T sector and the too many fingers in too many pies that has resulted in Apple taking the eye off the ball on this one.
In response to Mr. (or Ms.) Earth to Glenn Earth to Glenn:
Thank you for showing me those tips. It took me a while to get your first tip to work. As for the second one, clicking on that box lets me trim down the clip, which is good, but it automatically fades in and out the music and doesn’t let you turn off the fading or speed it up or slow it down. You’re forced to accept it as it is.
“As for fading… no idea… but it should be in there.”
You’re right, it SHOULD be, but it’s NOT! If it is, I would like someone to show me how. If I have music in the background and then I have a video clip where someone is talking, and I want to fade down the volume while he’s speaking and then fade it back up when he’s done speaking, I can very easily do that in iMovie HD, but I can’t do that in this new iMovie. If you can figure out a way let me know.
The point I’m trying to make here is that iMovie ’08 has far more limitations than iMovie HD when it comes to editing. You don’t have nearly as much freedom to be creative. As I said in my previous post, this is very unlike Apple, who has always been about inspiring creativity. iMovie ’08 isn’t a bad app for what it is, but as a replacement for iMovie HD it’s really, really weak.
So, please tell me, can I take a movie project in ’06, bring it to ’08, and expect it to work? Can I take a project made in ’08 and bring it to ’06 and expect to work on it some more?