iMovie '11 New Features Overview

ByMike Moffit

iMovie ’11 was released today at Apple’s Back to the Mac press conference, as part of the new iLife ’11 multimedia productivity suite. Some standout new features include:

Movie Trailers – This is a fun feature. If you thought the movie was great, just wait until you see the trailer. Now you can make one yourself in iMovie ’11. Choose from 15 movie trailer templates in almost every genre: adventure, drama, romantic comedy, and more. Graphics and titles flash across the big (or small) screen. The legendary London Symphony Orchestra performs an epic original soundtrack. And suddenly your home video goes Hollywood. Movie trailers are easy to create. Just click your clips to drop them into the storyboard. Add character names and personalize the titles. Then trims your clips to fit and adds transitions, titles, and special effects. The result? A trailer tour de force.

All-New Audio Editing – Go from indie filmmaker to master sound editor with new audio editing tools in iMovie. Sound effects, voiceover, and music — you control them all. iMovie shows you detailed audio waveforms for all your clips. They’re color coded, so you can see where the audio is overpowering. To adjust the audio levels of a clip or part of a clip, just drag the volume slider. To shorten or extend fades, drag the fade edges. As you make changes, waveforms update immediately so you always see what you hear. And the new single-row view shows you your entire movie project in one horizontal row, so it’s easier to preview and edit your soundtrack.

One-Step Effects – A dog running in slow motion. A wedding ceremony sped up. Pee Wee baseball instant replays. Home videos are even more entertaining with visual effects, and you can make them happen with a click. Add jump cuts and flip effects perfectly timed to music. Transition parts of clips from color to black and white, sepia, or a dream haze. Choose a clip, choose from over 12 effects, and click to apply.

People Finder – What’s a movie without a great cast? iMovie makes it easy to find your stars without digging through all your footage. By analyzing your video for faces, People Finder identifies the parts with people in them and tells you how many are in each scene. It also finds the close-ups, medium shots, or wide angles so it’s easy to grab video clips as you need them. People Finder is great to use while you make movie trailers. You can quickly find the right shots and drop them into the movie trailer storyboard.

Your World Premiere – iMovie ’11 lets you publish your movies in more ways to more places. You can export movies to iTunes and watch them on your iPhone, iPad, iPod, or Apple TV. Share them with your friends on Facebook. Premiere them with a YouTube or Vimeo audience. Publish newsworthy content to CNN iReport. And you can create a video podcast in iMovie and send it directly to Apple Podcast Producer. When you export HD video at full 1920-by-1080p resolution, whatever you share will stun everyone.

Sports and News Themes – Today’s headlines: whatever you want them to be. Turn your video into a broadcast news segment complete with sophisticated graphics, sleek transitions, and hard-hitting titles you write yourself. The News theme is a fun way to announce a graduation or a new baby. Want to report real-life news? Share your story with CNN iReport directly from iMovie. With the Sports theme, you can turn a Pee Wee baseball game, a round of golf, or skateboarding at the park into sports video highlights. Add sports graphics and transitions. Choose from dynamic animated titles, such as game score, team face-off, and player stats. The Sports theme even includes a Sports Team Editor that seamlessly integrates your own player photos, rosters, statistics, and team logos into any Sports theme movie.

iLife is a $49 upgrade for existing Mac users, and comes free with every new Mac. It’ll be listed on our site for sale and shipment shortly.

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