iMovie Organization

In most programs, you create a file and once you click "Save" or "Save As," the result is a stand-alone entity that you can save to a USB stick or even email to yourself.

Apple, however, has created a completely different organizational structure for iMovie '08. Every time you upload a video clip, the clip joins the Event Library. Then you create a movie by referencing the Library. Think of it as a wardrobe. You can mix and match your pants and shirts and accessories, but at the end of the day, all of the items still remain a part of your wardrobe.

The downside of this is that in order to save your files to an external storage device, you'll need to move your entire library back and forth off the hard drive. (We'll teach you how to do that, though!) The upside is that you can now add the same video clip to several different movies, a previously time-consuming, space-eating task.


< previous section

next section >