iMovie Commercial Assignment

My group and I were given the assignment of making a commercial for an educational product of our invention. The commercial had to be 2 minutes long, and the fictional product had to benefit student learning in some way.

Using the flip cam proved to be quite easy. At first using the camera was too easy. It took us a minute to figure out which of the three buttons turned it on. The shooting of the video went really well, was very simple. Being able to pop open the usb on the top of the camera was really convenient. The only challenge I can think of was not being able to hold the camera as steady as i would have liked.

In our imovie we used multiple features. We used the title maker feature to make our title transitions; when the voice over said the price, we were able to put the price up on the screen. We also used different kinds of transitions, we used the page curl transition, circle close, and crossfade in addition to others. We used some video effects, like vignette and slow motion as well as speeding up the video. The video effects panel was nice, we were able to modify the exposure on some portions of the video that were too dark. We were also able to use the audio controls panel to modify the volume of the voice over and background music so both could be heard clearly.

If I were to do it again, I would play with the precision control panel a little more and really perfect the timing of the music, narration and video, I would also like to try more video and audio effects.

I would rate iMovie a 10+. The ease of use, and Apple's way of making a very complicated task (video editing) simple enough that a student with no editing experience can learn easily and accomplish is amazing.

I my preschool classroom I would use a flip cam in my classroom to record some of my students working, to watch it later. I would also use it to record special events and projects. I think it would also be useful to record a group of students singing a new song or listening to a new story that they and their peers can watch in small groups at a later time to either learn a new song, or reinforce a concept taught in the classroom. iMovie would be especially helpful in taking the video from the classroom and enable me to organize it in a way that makes sense, and displaying it in a way that is attractive for the students.