iMovie 11 is a consumer-oriented video editor, but that doesn't mean it's a lightweight. It offers a number of powerful yet easy-to-use tools on the surface. You may not know that it also has some advanced tools under the hood.
The most broadly useful advanced tool is keywords. You can use keywords to organize your videos, as well as make videos and video clips easier to find.
Among other things, Advanced Tools also let you add comments and chapter markers to projects, use green screens and blue screens to superimpose video clips, easily replace a video clip with another video clip of the same length, and add picture-in-picture clips to a video.
How to Turn on iMovie 11's Advanced Tools
To turn on Advanced Tools, go to the iMovie menu and select 'Preferences.' When the iMovie Preferences window opens, put a check mark next to Show Advanced Tools, and then close the iMovie Preferences window. You'll now see a few buttons in iMovie that weren't there before.
There are two new buttons to the right of the Horizontal Display button in the top right corner of the Project browser window. The left button is a Comment tool. You can drag the Comment button to a video clip to add a comment, not unlike adding a sticky note to a document. The right button is a Chapter Marker. You can drag the Chapter Marker button to each place in a video that you want to mark as a chapter.
The other new buttons are added to the horizontal menu bar that splits the iMovie window in half. The Pointer (arrow) button closes any tool you currently have open. The Keyword (key) button lets you add keywords to videos and video clips, to make it easier to organize them.
