How to split a video clip in iMovie 08

Thu, 6 September 2007

iMovie HD (06) has a nice little function that splits the video clip at any point you want.

With iMovie 08 there is very little reason you would want to split the clip, so the oh-eight doesn’t have this option. But if you really want to do it, there is a way around. The entire work is done in the event pane, the lower half of the screen.

Here is a clip that we want to split in two.

First, we need to spread the clip wide in order to enhance the selection precision, so in the lower right corner of the screen you need to select 2 sec or shorter time.

Now we click on the clip where we’d like to split it…

…then click and drag one side of the selector towards the other so we actually select the shortest possible time, e.g. 0.1 sec.

Right clicking the selection gives us the contextual menu, so we select Reject Selection

Dropping only one frame results in the clip being split in two.

Simple as that.

Stumble it!

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Category Posted in Software, Tips

5 Responses to “How to split a video clip in iMovie 08”

  1. Richard Kimber said: Thu, 20 September 2007 at 05:21

    Nice one thanks. That had me stumped.

  2. Richard Kimber said: Thu, 20 September 2007 at 05:26

    One problem. If you try and drag one of the two new clips into a second event, the other follows.

  3. Richard Kimber said: Thu, 20 September 2007 at 06:17

    Sorry for the multiple posts. The final step is to send rejected clips to the trash. This separates the source files.

  4. Rick K said: Sun, 20 July 2008 at 09:12

    So, this tip - is awesome. It saved me about an hour. Thank you tons!

  5. Martin said: Tue, 26 August 2008 at 23:24

    “With iMovie 08 there is very little reason you would want to split the clip”. Typical. Rather than admit a Mac product is defective because it isn’t designed to do what it’s supposed to do properly, the apologists try to pretend that the user is at fault for doing something ‘unnecessary’, or unlikely to be necessary.

    Here’s a reason - I’m making a DVD. The material is too large for one DVD so I need to make a part 1 and part 2. The place where I want to make the cut falls in the middle of one of the clips. That’s a perfectly good reason. Why isn’t clip splitting designed in? Pathetic.

    I have to work with a Mac. I’m really getting fed up with the insistent ‘Macs are the future, Macs are so much better’. I don’t mind progress, but they’re NOT! Macs are advertised as being ‘good at the fun stuff’ (Mac vs PC ads), like video editing for example. But you’re saying iMovie 08 doesn’t have a clip splitting feature? You’re having a laugh - this is REALLY basic stuff!

    Its constant niggles like this which are convincing me that the Mac is not better for advanced users who want to do things properly, UNLESS you’re prepared to splash on FCP, but that isn’t a fair comparison is it! (and clip splitting is NOT advanced)

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