You have lots of short videos from your weekend vacation and you want to compile and share the clips. But you have barely had the time to do it. What can you do? Well, if you are a Mac user, you can quickly compile your holiday clips into a movie trailer using iMovie and share the trailer as a ‘teaser’ with your friends. You can then go back to your clips and edit them seriously later on when you have more spare time.

Creating a movie trailer using iMovie is fairly simple, and from my amateur perspective, I think the result is astonishing.

The Beginning

Similar to Apple’s other creative applications, such as Pages How to Create Impressive Pages Documents and Templates on Mac How to Create Impressive Pages Documents and Templates on Mac The price isn’t the only reason to give Pages a spin — it's packed with ready-to-use templates that will make your work look fantastic. Read More , Keynote 10 Tips and Tricks for Amazing Keynote Presentations on Mac 10 Tips and Tricks for Amazing Keynote Presentations on Mac If you use Keynote on Mac, you need to know these essential tips and tricks to make your Keynote presentations stand out. Read More , and iWeb iWeb - Build A Quick, Easy & Beautiful Website [Mac only] iWeb - Build A Quick, Easy & Beautiful Website [Mac only] Read More , iMovie provides users with several ready-to-use templates. Start by going to the “File” menu to create a “New Project“.

The template window will open. There are fifteen Movie Trailer templates you can use in your project.

When you click on a template, you can see more information about the item in the right pane. The preview window will give you a general idea about what your movie trailer will look like. You can also see the cast, duration of the movie trailer, and a short description of the template. Click “Create” when you’ve set your heart on one template.

Your chosen template will be opened in the upper left pane, but we’ll get back to it later.

The next step is to import the short clips that you want to use in your project. Go to the “File – Import” menu. You can also import your movies directly from any connected camera.

While importing the clips, iMovie will also optimize them. The process could take a while depending on the power of your machine, how many movies you import, and how long those movies are.

The imported clips will appear in the lower right pane in the series of scenes, while the library of events is in the left pane.

Start Creating

If you used a mobile device to shoot your movies, you might get clips with the wrong orientation. There’s an easy way to fix this disorientation in iMovie. First, select the disoriented clip(s), Then adjust the selection by dragging the left and right yellow borders.

After that, go to the “Window – Cropping, Ken Burns & Rotation” menu, or use the “C” shortcut key.

Go to the preview pane and click one of the rotation buttons to fix the orientation.

Not let’s start our main event. Go to the “Project” pane, and customize your project’s information under the “Outline” tab.

Next, move to the “Storyboard” tab. Here’s where the magic happens. All you have to do to create your trailer is click on the scenes on the storyboard, then browse and click on the scenes from imported movies.

Try to match the scenes between the storyboard and the movie clips. For example, if the storyboard says “Action“, pick an action scene from the movie clip. After you have filled all the scenes on the storyboard, iMovie will tell you that your trailer is complete.

Export & Share

Now that you’ve finished your masterpiece, all that’s left to do is share it with the world. Go to the “Share” menu and choose one of the sharing methods you want to use. For example, if you want to save the movie to your hard drive, choose “Export Movie“.

Give a name to the project and choose one of the exporting options according to the quality you want. Then click the “Export” button.

Another possible exporting method that you can choose is to send the trailer to YouTube. Log in with your YouTube account, complete the information, and choose the movie quality. After that you can upload the video. The time needed for the uploading process will depend on the speed of your Internet connection and the size of your movie.

When the movie is uploaded, iMovie will tell you the URL. You can share it with your friends using email or by viewing it on the YouTube site.

In my experiment, I managed to create a 48-second trailer in less than 5 minutes – without counting the time importing the clips.

If you love to record your life in short videos, then you should try to compile the clips into movie trailers and share them with your friends and family. It’s better than leaving them on your hard drive collecting virtual dust.

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Have you tried iMovie? Do you use other video editing applications for your home videos? Please share your thoughts and ideas using the comments below.