Apps for the student journalist: iMovie

What: iMovie

Platform: iOS,
Cost: $4.99

I think there are two things that keep many schools from moving into video: the learning curve of the software and the cost of the equipment. If you have an iPod, iPhone or iPad, look no further than iMovie to begin making some nice video packages.

While iMovie may not have all the bells and whistles like the desktop version of iMovie has and while it comes nowhere near the abilities of a Final Cut or Adobe Premiere, it works great for what the masses need it for – to put together a nice, quick, simple video piece to accompany a story. One thing student journalists need to remember is that “timeliness” plays a crucial role in the field today. While it’s nice to have a couple weeks to put together a video package sometimes, most viewers want to see videos of events soon after they happened (or better yet, while they are still happening).

iMovie makes it easy to take video that you’ve captured, make a few simple edits, throw in some lower thirds and publish a nicely packaged piece in a short amount of time. If you have a cell signal or are on wifi, you can even directly upload the final video to Youtube, Facebook, Vimeo and CNNiReport.

While there are lots of other options out there to edit video with, I think the masses will find this well worth the money they will spend and the time it will take them to learn it.

We’ve posted about this app a few times in the past including “How to use iMovie with the iPhone and iPod” and  “How to use iMovie on the iPad” but we thought it made sense to post individually here with our “Apps” series. You can also find online support for iOS iMovie through Apple here.

Aaron Manfull

Aaron is in his 26th year of advising student media. He is currently the Director of Student Media at Francis Howell North High School in St. Charles, Missouri. He is the Journalism Education Association Digital Media Chair and co-Director of Media Now. He is the 2023 JEA Teacher Inspiration Award Winner and is a former Dow Jones News Fund National Journalism Teacher of the Year. He is one of the authors of the textbook "Student Journalism and Media Literacy." You can find him on X and Instagram @manfull. He's a proud father. A transplanted Iowan. And an avid Hawkeye Fan.

Aaron Manfull has 862 posts and counting. See all posts by Aaron Manfull

One thought on “Apps for the student journalist: iMovie

  • November 26, 2015 at 7:02 am
    Permalink

    Hi, nice article.For some raseon, you cant do all of the above with an iphone 4s. For 1) the ipad connection kit does not work on it (huge bummer, especially the usb one, the camera has its own power source, why restrict it!!)2) you have to reencode 5dmkII footage, for the iphone 4s to see it. So the correct Title of the article would be imovie for ipad2 with iOS5 can now edit 5D Mark II videos I can understand why my ipad 1 cant do it, but i cant why my iphone 4s can not

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.