How to Splice Video Clips

On Mac

1. Transfer your video clips to your computer. If your video clips are on a smartphone, you'll need to transfer them to your computer before you can splice them together.

   1. If your video clips are on a video camera, you'll either need to connect the video camera to your computer via a USB cable or plug the camera's SD card into your computer. After that, you can select the camera in File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac), open the DCIM folder, and move the files onto your computer.

2. Open iMovie. Click the Launchpad app icon (the rocket ship in your Mac's Dock), then click the purple-and-white iMovie app icon in the list of apps there.

   1. You can also open Spotlight
      , type in imovie, and double-click iMovie.
   EXPERT TIP

   Gavin Anstey

   Video Producer, COO at Cinebody

   Gavin Anstey is the COO at Cinebody. Cinebody is User-Directed Content software that empowers brands to create instant, authentic, and engaging video content with anyone on earth. Gavin studied Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder, before launching a career in video production and software

   Gavin Anstey
   Video Producer, COO at Cinebody

   "IMovie works great for splicing videos, because overall, it's a very intuitive program, but even more specifically, splicing videos is very straightforward."

    

3. Create a new project. Click File in the top-left corner of the screen, click New Project... in the drop-down menu, click Movie, and enter a name for your project.

4. Select video clips. Before you can join together your videos, you'll need to import them into iMovie:

   1. Click File
   2. Select Import
   3. Click Movies
   4. Go to the folder in which your movie clips are stored.
   5. Select movie clips by holding down ⌘ Command and clicking each file you want to use.
   6. Click Import Selected

5. Move the movie clips into the editing area. Click and drag each movie clip from the list of clips into the editing section at the bottom of the window.

   1. You can also select all of the movie clips at once by clicking one and then pressing ⌘ Command+A, after which point you can drag all of the videos into the editing area.

6. Rearrange your movie clips if necessary. Once in the editing area, you can click and drag a video clip left or right to move it up or down in the video order.

7. Split a clip. If you want to place one video clip in the middle of another clip, do the following:

   1. Click the place where you want to insert the second video (e.g., the middle of a clip).
   2. Press ⌘ Command+B
   3. Click and drag the video that you want to place in the middle of the clip in between the clip's halves.

8. Adjust the length of a clip. If you want to trim part of a clip, do the following:

   1. Select the clip by clicking it.
   2. Click and drag the left or right edge of the clip in toward the center of the clip.
   3. Stop dragging when the clip is at your desired length.

9. Preview your movie. Once you've edited the clips to the length and order that you want to use, you can preview your spliced video by clicking the "Play"

   button below the video window on the right side of iMovie.

10. Click the "Share"

    icon. This icon is in the top-right corner of the window. A drop-down menu will appear.

11. Click File. It's in the drop-down menu. Doing so will open a pop-up window in which you can save your video.

12. Save your video. In order to save your iMovie project as a playable video file, do the following:^[1]

    1. Make sure the settings in the pop-up window (e.g., "Resolution") are correct.
    2. Click Next...
    3. Enter a name in the "Save As" box.
    4. Select a save location from the "Where" drop-down box.
    5. Click Save