Change a clip’s look progressively over time using iMovie’s built-in effects.

Modern camcorders can automatically focus, white balance, and color correct for you. As a result, most of your clips will look fine and be ready to be included into a project the moment you import them. But machines being what they are, they do sometimes get it wrong, which is why iMovie’s various video tools can come in handy. With them, you can alter the brightness, contrast, and color of any shot. You can obviously use them to also distort the image, giving it an unnatural appearance to simulate unusual weather conditions or to create that alien planet feel you were after.

Despite appearances, you can apply changes to a clip gradually over time.

Couple those changes with one of iMovie’s 19 video filters and you have a broad palette to play with. (You can also copy and paste those changes from one clip to another by using the Edit > Paste Adjustments command in the menu bar. This can save you a lot of time if you want to create a special visual style for a large part of your project.)

Unlike Final Cut Pro and other professional editing packages, there isn’t an obvious way to gradually apply that change over time—it’s a black and white clip, or it’s a color one, for instance; there’s no in-between. So what do you do if you want to play around with your image and slowly intensify the color? See below.

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How to Work With Effects in iMovie

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  1. Find and Cut

  Find the clip you want to alter over time and add it to your project. Skim over it with the mouse until you’re over the part where you’d like the change to occur. Without moving the cursor, press Shift-Command-S to activate the Split Clip tool, which cuts the clip into two at that very point.

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  2. All Change

  Double-click on one part of the clip to open the Inspector window. Click the Video tab and make your changes. You can also make use of the Video Effect menu in the Inspector’s Clip tab to add a single effect to your clip (only one can be used at a time). You can alter your modifications at any time.

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  3. Transition

  Go to Window > Transitions to open the Transitions pane at the bottom-right corner of the interface. Locate Cross Dissolve and drag it onto the gap between the clips. To change its length, double-click it in your project and type in a new value in the Duration field.

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