You’ve been wanting to try your hand at video editing for a while, now. As you stare at your MacBook screen, however, you have no idea where to begin. You’ve gotten as far as adding your clips into the movie maker, but that’s about it. Putting in transitions and playing around with your audio is lost on you. You’ve got a lot of long clips that you get bored watching, let alone your viewers. You’re using clips of you talking, but you can’t hear yourself speak due to your background music. Figuring out how to make fixes has you tearing your hair out. We can teach you how to edit videos on MacBook like a pro. Check out this guide to get started with iMovie.
1. Get Organized
You can buy video editing software, but if you’re looking for something free, you’ll have iMovie. We will be running with the assumption that you’re using the free option.
When you go to your video clip folder to add them to the program, you’ll see everything you’ve ever filmed. It can be a little overwhelming if you’ve got a lot of video duplicates.
To make learning how to edit videos on a MacBook easier, you’ll want to organize your folders before you get started with your editing. There’s software out there that makes finding those pesky duplicates super easy. You’ve only got to look.
2. Add-In Photos
An old editing tactic that people use to break up clips and add some visual interest to their videos is adding pictures. To do this, go to the Libraries section of iMovie and click Photo Library. You should now be able to see your picture options.
Drag the ones of your choice down to the timeline the same way you would your clips. As a default, the photos will only be about four seconds long. If you want it to appear a little longer than that, you can click on one of the photo’s edges and drag it.
3. Split Your Clips
You’ve got a long clip that you’re working with. You want to use it, but it’s so lengthy that you’re worried that it won’t provide enough visual interest to keep your viewers engaged.
If there are parts of the clip that you can do without, you can cut them. Find the part of the timeline you want to chop out and right-click it. Select Split Clip to separate it from the rest of the video.
4. Don’t Use Distracting Titles
Let’s say that you’re recording a video lecture for students. You want them to know who you are, which means you’re probably going to add a name title to the video somewhere.
Doing that is fine, but you don’t want it to be too distracting. We recommend putting your name in the bottom third of the video. This way, it’s not covering up your face.
Keep the text on the smaller side. It should be large enough for viewers to be able to read it without being so large that it’s all anyone notices.
5. Detaching Audio
Having your audio drop out when you’re showing photos and coming back when you switch to clips again can be a really neat tactic to add some visual interest. It’s not too hard to do, either.
Right-click the part of the timeline where you want to remove the sound and click Detach Audio. You should now see your sound as its own green bar below your clips.
6. Turn Your Background Music Down
You can have background music going on while you’re speaking in a video. If you don’t do a little tweaking with your sound, however, nobody will be able to hear you over the music.
The general rule of thumb is to always turn the music down more than you think you need. It’s better if it’s too quiet than too loud.
If you look, you’ll see a horizontal bar across the audio waveform. All you have to do is drag that bar down to reduce the audio.
7. Fade the Audio in and Out
Transitioning from one clip to the next isn’t going to go too smoothly if the audio at the end of the first clip is louder than the audio at the beginning of the next. You’ve got to let the sound gradually fade in.
Hover your mouse over the audio track. You should see a little round button that you can drag around. If you pull it toward the middle, that should do the trick.
8. Add-In Transitions
Another way to make going from clip to clip a little less overwhelming is to put in transitions. The software has plenty to choose from.
Head to the transitions header at the top of iMovie. When you find a transition that you like, grab it and drag it between two clips. As a default, the transition will only last about a second, but you can change that by double-clicking on it.
How to Edit Videos on MacBook in a Snap
Do you want to try your hand at video editing? It can be a little overwhelming if you don’t know how to edit videos on MacBook. You’ve got to make your transitions smooth as butter and do a bunch of other tricks to keep viewer interest.
We hope that this basic tutorial has shown you how it’s done. For more tips that will teach you how to navigate your way around your computer, visit the Technology section of our blog.
