Tag Archives: iMovie

fixed : Green Screen button not showing in iMovie 10

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Question :

I have made a video recording of myself in front of a green screen, and now I want to make the green transparent and put a video behind it in iMovie. I have iMovie 10.3.5 and the option for Green Screen should be in there, but when I import the video into iMovie and select it, there should be a Green Screen button at the left of the editing buttons above the clip preview, but the button just isn’t there, it isn’t greyed out or something, it just isn’t showing up… I searched in iMovie menus to find an option to switch the Green Screen button on, but there isn’t any…

What am I doing wrong ?

Answer :

Yes, it would have been better if Apple had included the button permanently in the row of editing buttons above the clip preview, then it could have been greyed out and instructions of what to do could be shown when you would try to click it.

So… yes… there is a modus operandi that isn’t obvious to everyone, but causes the Green Screen / Blue Screen button (the icon depicts ‘two overlaying squares’ and appears on the left of the row of editing buttons above the clip preview) to stay invisible :

the green screen video should always be an additional layer, but not the main layer !

so, do this to fix this problem and get the Green Screen / Blue Screen button to appear :

  • open iMovie
  • create a new Project
  • in the new project’s time line, import the video (or picture) that you want to show in the background first (so make the background video/picture the main clip in the time line)
  • then import the green screen video on top of the main (background) clip (so drag it in the row / layer above the main clip in the time line)
  • then select the green screen video in the time line (a yellow outline will appear around the clip) ; now the Green Screen / Blue Screen button will show up in the row of editing buttons above the clip preview on the upper right section of the screen
  • then click the Green Screen / Blue Screen button ; now the options needed to make the cut-out of the green screen will appear

That’s it !

enjoy 😉

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fixed : quickly rotate a movie file in macOS 10.15 Catalina

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Question :

I have a movie-file that was shot on an iPhone in portrait-mode, but I think it will look better  when viewed in landscape-mode. It’s a video of you cat playing on the carpet, shot from above, so both portrait-mode and landscape-mode are okay for viewing, but as we prefer to view video’s on out TV it would make more sense to have it in landscape-mode.

How do I do that ?

 

Answer :

In MacOSX and OSX rotating photos was easily done in iPhoto or Photos.app, but rotating video couldn’t be done in iPhoto or Photos.app – that had to be done in video editing software like iMovie, or a dedicated video-rotation-app.

In macOS 10.15 Catalina, rotating video 90 degrees can be done extremely simple in the Finder :

  • open the Finder (click out of all apps until you have only the Desktop to look at)
  • open a New Finder Window by typing CMD and N keys on your keyboard simultaneously (or goto Finder > File > New Finder Window)
  • locate the video-file (if you know it’s name, typ it in the Search-bar, else browse to the file if you know where it’s located)
  • then click on the file name to select it
  • the video preview will now come up on the right side, with various info and some buttons below it
  • to rotate your video 90 degrees counter-clockwise, click on Rotate Left
  • to rotate your video 90 degrees clockwise, press the ALT key on your keybord and click on Rotate Right (in the same spot where the Rotate Left button used to be)
  • then wait for the processing to end…

…and you’re done 😉

That’s it – enjoy !

fixed : can’t connect new iPhone (iOS 12) to MacBook Air Late 2010

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Question :

I have a new iPhone 8 (running iOS 12) and I want to connect it to iTunes on my MacBook Air (Late 2010), but when I connect them using the Lightning-to-USB-cable I get an error message saying the software on my Mac should be updated.

I found that I had OSX 10.10 Yosemite installed, so I used the Mac AppStore-app to upgrade to macOS 10.13 High_Sierra. That went smoothly, so I also installed all available updates for my apps from the Mac AppStore. Then, I ran into a strange error : I can’t upgrade to the newest version of iMovie because my version of macOS doesn’t meet the minimal system requirements…

I also ran iTunes, but even now my iPhone 8 isn’t recognised when I connect it…

I found that for some reason macOS 10.13.4 is installed, and not 10.13.6, but still : Mac AppStore says “no updates available”…

Is my MacBook Air late2010 not meeting the minimal system requirements for macOS 10.13.6 for some reason ?

I looked up my MacBook Air late 2010 in MacTracker, and found that is should be able to run macOS 10.13.6 so why won’t it install ?

How can I fix this ?

 

Answer :

For reasons unknown, you need to upgrade your MacBook Air to macOS 10.13.5 manually using this download :

download macOS 10.13.5 upgrade

And only after macOS 10.13.5 is installed, you can manually upgrade to macOS 10.13.6 using this download (this is an incremental upgrade, not a combo upgrade) :

download macOS 10.13.6 upgrade

After macOS 10.13.6 is installed, you should be able to update to the latest versions of iMovie and iTunes via the Mac AppStore.

If iTunes won’t update, you need to (re)install it manually, using this download :

download iTunes

After installing the latest version of iTunes, connect your iPhone to your Mac using a Lighting-to-USB-cable. Now, an extra update will be downloaded, which will put an extra Devices-button in the iTunes and your iPhone will be recognised in iTunes.

That’s it !

enjoy 😉