Trailers help you create movies like a pro
My family knows that I like to create movies, so it was no surprise when my sister sent me a 2¼ hour video of a recent event she participated in and asked me to create a much shorter video she could share on social media.
To do it right, I’d watch the 2¼ hour video several times, marking her scenes and making notes. Then I’d watch her scenes several times and cull out the best moments. Eventually I’d assemble the best parts of the best scenes and add transitions and titles and save a rough cut.
I’d love to do that (and I probably will someday), but it means finding several days for editing and polishing. I don’t have time for that now, so I turned to iMovie’s best-kept secret, Trailers, and created a short, super-professional-looking movie trailer in less than two hours.
She loved it and it couldn’t have been easier. If you’ve never tried making a Trailer with iMovie, here’s a quick lesson:
Launch iMovie and choose New Trailer in the File menu (shortcut: Command+Shift+N).
The Create a Trailer screen appears with dozens of templates such as Action, Adventure, Bollywood,
Epic Drama, Documentary, and more. Click the triangular “Play/Pause” button to preview a template, then select the one you prefer and click the Create button.
The top half of the Trailer window displays your media top-left and a viewer/editor/previewer top-right. Below that are three tabs — Outline, Storyboard and Shot List — used to customize the template.
The Outline tab is text-only and lets you add a movie title, studio, logo and add names to the credits.
The Storyboard tab displays proxy images with a suggested shot type for that clip — Closeup, Action, Group, Wide, Medium and so on. It’s also where you can edit the on-screen text (or not — some templates work nicely even if you don’t change a word).
Finally, the Shot List tab displays proxy images, too, but this time without text and with the proxies grouped by shot type and number needed (such as Action – 3 clips; Closeup – 6 clips) for your convenience.
Once you’ve replaced all proxies with clips of your own, and you’ve edited onscreen text (if necessary), click the
Play button under the viewer panel to preview your trailer. Fine-tune, preview and repeat. When you’re satisfied, choose Share to export your masterpiece to a file, an email, YouTube or Facebook.
I love iMovie Trailers and have made at least a dozen over the years, and everyone loves them. Give it a try — it is easy and the results are usually breathtaking.
I have one final tip: Master the “Ken Burns effect” (look it up in iMovie Help) if you want your trailers to look even slicker and more professional.