When you open iMovie, you will see the Project Library at the upper left of the workspace. Let’s walk through starting a new project.

In the Project Library are listed al of your iMovie projects on your computer and external hard drives. For each project, you will see listed information such as the name of the project, the duration, frames per second, last modified date and a preview of a few frames. If the project has a name but is still empty, the preview frames will be empty. Also in this panel, we can right-click on any project in the list to get several options including duplicate the project or move it to the trash.

To work on a project from the Project Library, select the project from the list and click the Edit Project button at the top left corner of the workspace or double-click on the project in the list. This will close the Project Library and open the Project Browser panel. The Edit Project button has also been replaced with the Project Library button, which you can click to go back to the Project Library. In the Project Browser is the Timeline. As you work on your project, you will drag sections of your raw footage in the Event Browser to the Timeline in the Project Browser.

You will not always want to work on an existing project. To start a new project, click File - New Project from the iMovie Menubar. The New Project screen opens and has a few questions for you. First, you have the option to begin your project from a Project Theme or Movie Trailer template. We will go into more detail about these later. Now we will start a project from scratch.

Your first task is to give your project a name and choose an Aspect Ratio. The Aspect Ratio is the relationship between the height of the screen to the width of the screen. There are two options to choose from for Aspect Ratio. Most of us are familiar with the Widescreen (16:9) aspect ratio which we have on our HD televisions. Before these wider screens became popular, we had the standard (4:3) screen ratio. You will want to use the option that best fits your raw footage. You will also want to choose a Frame Rate that best matches your raw footage. Your final decision is the type of transition or animation that plays between video clips. You have several to choose from the pop-up menu. If you prefer to add your transitions manually, uncheck this option.

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