# iMovie - The Complete Class - review & insight | Gareth B. Davies Source: https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/imovie-the-complete-class/ [← All courses](https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/) Video & Animation · Solid intro · Rated 6 /10 # iMovie - The Complete Class Updated August 2026 Colin Marks · Certified Microsoft & Apple Trainer Beginner · 98 min A tight, beginner-friendly walkthrough that gets a total novice from blank timeline to exported movie in under two hours. [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fimovie-the-complete-class%2F470997137) New to Skillshare? Your first month is free, enough to take this course at no cost. Colin Marks' iMovie class is exactly what it says on the label: a beginner's guided tour through Apple's free video editor, from opening the app for the first time to hitting export. It does not try to be more than that, and for the audience it is aimed at, an absolute newcomer with a stack of holiday or party footage, that restraint mostly works in its favor. ## Structure and what it actually teaches The course follows the natural order of a real editing session. It opens by orienting viewers to the iMovie window itself: the traffic-light buttons, the import icon, the library-and-events filing system, and the difference between the media pool and the timeline. From there it moves into importing clips (with sample footage provided so learners can follow along on identical material), building a new movie project, and dragging clips onto the timeline one after another. The metaphor used throughout, that the timeline is a bird's-eye view of stitched-together video reels, is simple but effective for someone who has never thought about editing in these terms before. The middle stretch is where the course earns its keep. Audio gets a full pass: turning clip volume up or down, detaching audio from video so it can be repositioned independently, and running the built-in noise reduction filter to strip out wind or ambient hiss, with a side-by-side comparison of the waveform before and after. A separate lesson covers dropping in a licensed or copyright-free music track and manually trimming it to fade out with the picture, rather than letting it cut off abruptly. Splitting clips, applying quick color and stabilization fixes, and picking transitions round out the core editing toolkit. The transitions lesson in particular does more than list options: it makes the case for matching a transition's mood to the footage, cross-dissolves for a relaxed holiday video, hard cuts for anything meant to feel energetic. The green screen segment is the most technically substantial part of the course. It walks through the basic case of a fully green background, then goes further into the more realistic scenario of a partial green backdrop, showing how to drag the keying handles to isolate just the green section of the frame rather than the whole shot. That is a genuinely useful, specific skill that a lot of entry-level tutorials skip entirely. ## Where it comes up short The course closes with titles, credits, and export settings, covering resolution ceilings tied to source footage and the tradeoffs between quality presets and file size. It is competent but unremarkable, standard iMovie functionality explained clearly rather than creatively. The bigger issue is depth and pacing. At under two hours across eighteen short lessons, there is no room for anything beyond fundamentals. Color grading, keyframed effects, speed ramping, and multicam work are absent. The delivery is also loose and conversational to a fault, heavy on asides and light on tight scripting, which will suit some learners and frustrate others who want information delivered faster. Anyone who has already spent even an afternoon in iMovie will find little new here. The standout The green screen lesson on manually dragging the color-range handles to key out a background that is only partially green is the one technique here you won't find in iMovie's own help docs. ## What you will learn - · Importing footage from local folders, external drives, or an iPhone into iMovie's library and events system - · Building a project timeline by dragging, trimming, and splitting clips - · Cleaning up audio with volume adjustment, detaching audio, and applying background noise reduction - · Applying and choosing transitions purposefully based on pacing (cuts versus dissolves versus fades) - · Keying out green screen footage, including partial or imperfect green backgrounds - · Adding titles and credits, then exporting a finished file at the correct resolution and quality Best for: A first-time Mac owner or family-video hobbyist who has never opened iMovie and wants a guided, jargon-light path to a finished birthday or holiday video. Skip it if: Anyone who has already made a movie or two in iMovie, wants advanced color grading or multicam workflows, or needs a fast reference rather than a spoken walkthrough. Clarity of Instruction Organization of Lessons Helpful Examples Actionable Steps [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fimovie-the-complete-class%2F470997137)