Trailer competition, second update
Just so you know, the radio silence around the trailer competition is not for lack of interest or intent. Stuff got very crazy, very quickly, and we had a hard enough time getting the real trailer finished up. (Plus there was other stuff going on.)
We have all the clips ready to go, but we’re going to delay the launch until sometime early in September. That will give people — the New York and Los Angeles people — a chance to see the movie. And it will give us about five seconds to breathe.
Because I’m a curious geek, I threw all the trailer competition footage into Apple’s new iMovie 2008. The good news is that the application seems optimized for MP4 footage — it was really simple to throw the clips together. The bad news is that the program is almost unusable, at least for anything beyond the most basic vacation footage.
Some frustrations:
- It freezes the last frame of every clip. My workaround was to use half-second dissolves on every cut, which is incredibly hacky and unacceptable.
- Only the roughest volume changes are possible.
- You can’t split audio from video.
- The spacebar works differently than any Quicktime application. It doesn’t play/pause. It jumps within the clip.
- It uses a text-selection metaphor for grabbing footage, which is innovative but really imprecise.
- The “handles” for marking the edges of clips work differently depending on which mode you’re in. It’s bewildering.
I really wanted to like the program. It demoes well. But it’s a disaster.
Articles
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:29 am
thank goodness the last version of iMovie HD is available for free to download (from Apple’s site) to all people who’ve purchased the latest version and aren’t ready for the future. be like me and gladly take a step back for the sake productivity
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:33 am
I read David Pogues review in the NY Times last week, so I wasn’t surprised to see how disappointed you were with iMovie 08. I’ve had great fun making home movies of the kids to share with friends and family. I guess I’ll avoid iLife 08 or switch to Final Cut Express.
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:34 am
I read David Pogues review in the NY Times last week, so I wasn’t surprised to see how disappointed you were with iMovie 08. I’ve had great fun making home movies of the kids to share with friends and family with iMovie. I guess I’ll avoid iLife 08 or switch to Final Cut Express.
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:52 am
What did you expect from freeware?
August 22nd, 2007 at 11:57 am
“What did you expect from freeware?”
wow. people say the dumbest things.
August 22nd, 2007 at 5:17 pm
Yeah, OK Archimedes. Maybe you can explain what functionality you hope to glean from an add on to a $79 package. You get what you pay for.
August 23rd, 2007 at 2:07 am
I’m disappointed that New York and Los Angeles people will be getting such a huge advantage (in actually SEEING the movie) prior to the trailer competition. I guess it can’t really be helped (those other factors you mentioned with the real trailer) but I’m putting my whine on record anyway.
August 23rd, 2007 at 7:43 am
So, don’t upgrade iMovie is what you’re saying. Granted, I do most of my home movie editing in Final Cut and Motion, but I throw together little things in iMovie. The older versions split audio from video, and you’re saying they dropped that feature and others? Is it just to force people to pick up one of the versions of Final Cut?
August 23rd, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Productivity and iMovie in the same sentence?
If FCP is too HC get Final Cut Express. But of course iMovie 6 is perfectly acceptable too. I for one have never done any editing on iMovie, but can understand that the new version is better for throwing together some clips to be shown at a family dinner to relatives. Ease of use is the market niche Apple is aiming for and anyone reading a blog about moviemaking is not in that subject group
Apple is trying something new and there are a few bumps on the road but I like the direction. Not for me, though. I work with Final Cut Studio, for pretty much everything…
August 24th, 2007 at 3:24 am
–Quote from Adam: “Yeah, OK Archimedes. Maybe you can explain what functionality you hope to glean from an add on to a $79 package. You get what you pay for.”–
In the past years paying 79$ for the iLife package meant that besides the great other progs you got an absolutely worthwhile movie editing software. iMovie (HD) was easy to use, had everything you needed for a basic to not-so-basic editing job and dished out great results. With the possibility of fading in and out two audio tracks at once, very simple cut-and-edit options for the video track, a good compilation of filters and transitions I´ve seen hundreds of films shown on my moviemakers network that were edited with iMovie. To me it was the missing link between a freeware prog and Final Cut Express - the first providing not enough options, the latter too complicated.
The new software is an enormous letdown, though. It has been reduced to a Windows Movie Maker copy, blatantly leaving anybody behind who wants to do more than to import-export stuff. In the end, the decision to offer the ´old` iMovie HD is not only very fair, but it shows the step back that Apple has taken with the new software.
So, whoever bought the new iLife package - download iMovie HD, as long as you can. It´s worth it.
J.
August 26th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
First of all, iMovie is not freeware. You have to either buy a new Mac to get it, or pay $79 for the new iLife suite.
I actually like the new iMovie, but that’s from someone who thought the old version was basically unusable garbage. All I want is a package that allows me to slap my home videos together really quickly and upload them to Youtube, which is exactly what (and all) iMovie lets you do. If I want to do more, then I use FCS. Or, if I didn’t already have FCS, I think FCE would more than fit the bill. And it’s pretty cheap.
August 27th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
–Quote from Adam: “Yeah, OK Archimedes.”
wait, you’re comparing me to archimedes to make me look bad?