Confessions of a Social Media Junkie

[June 7/19 fun fact: I wrote this post two years ago. It’s been sitting in my blog drafts. Until today. So it’s kind of like a throwback post. 😉 Enjoy.]

I’ve been working hard to up my video editing skills. To limited success. I’m definitely not an expert but I’m having fun messing around with the editing tools in iMovie.

I edited this video easily in iMovie – and was able to add the title slides, etc.:

I created the video below using the iMovie app on my phone – which was an okay experience. Can’t seem to add titles to videos using that app as far as I can tell. Not sure the app is all that valuable.

Here’s another video from a while back that I recorded in portrait mode. The reasoning for this approach was that I was going to post a clip from the video to Instagram, and at the time, it was easier to record in portrait mode for that reason.

Well, I then decided to edit it in iMovie and unfortunately, iMovie completely stretched the video – I couldn’t figure out why. I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out how to fix it. Nothing in the iMovie help menu or Apply support forums to give a simple answer on how to fix it.

How to use iMovie to switch a video recorded in portrait mode to landscape mode

I found the solution in a comment left on this blog article on how to fix the portrait mode issue. Interestingly enough – the article wasn’t helpful but a commentor named Lindsey sure was. Her tip:

For anyone who wants an actual working solution… If you accidentally shoot an iPhone video vertically and want to add it to iMovie, when you go to import your video file DO NOT Optimize Video. It will import vertical without distortion or stretching your subjects into oompa loompas. Aside from the black boxes on each side it looks fine.

And there you have it – my limited video editing skills on show. 🙂