The iPhone and iPad Just Made It Easier Than Ever to Channel Your Inner Spielberg. Here’s How

iMovie is the movie-making app that Apple bakes into every iPhone, iPad and Mac. It’s great because it allows anybody to create professional-looking videos without any kind of editing experience. And, most importantly, it’s free!

The problem with iMovie, to date, is that it hasn’t been super initiative for new users, but Apple has gone out and fixed that with the latest app update. Specifically, Apple is adding two new features — called “Magic Movie” and “Storyboards” — that are designed to make video-editing and movie making incredibly easy on iMovie.

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Let iMovie make a short film for you

Apple

Magic Movie is a new feature that allows you to create a beautifully edited short film with just a few taps. All you have to do select which videos and photos you want to include — it’s easiest to just select an album, but you can select individual photos and videos from your library as well — and Magic Movie will identify the best parts of the footage and the create the short film for you complete with titles, transitions and yes music.

Once you’ve created a short film with Magic Movie, you then have the ability to add your own edits and customizations. You can trim or extend clips. You can add or delete photos or adjust the order that they appear. And you can change things like the music, fonts or filters. In this way, Magic Movie is more like a template for getting the ball rolling on your first film.

To use Magic Movie, all you have to do is open the iMovie app and select Magic Movie in the drop-down menu.

Create films with easy-to-use templates

Apple

Storyboards is the other new feature and it’s a bit different because it’s catered to people who have a more specific vision for their films in mind. It essentially gives you access to 20 different templates — ranging from product reviews to Q&A’s, “Top-5” lists to cooking tutorials, news reports to DIY videos — that you can select from.

Once you select a storyboard, it’ll then give you a detailed shot list for the user to follow as well as filming tips for capturing the best content (such as using top-down or wide-angle shots). You can also customize each storyboard during or after you complete it with various things, like reordering the shot list, adjusting fonts and color palettes, and changing the music (just like with Magic Movie).

To use Storyboards, all you have to do is open the iMovie app and select Storyboard in the drop-down menu (it’s directly under Magic Movie).

Make sure your iPhone or iPad are updated

In order to use these new iMovie features, all you have to do is make sure that your iPhone or iPad has been recently updated. Your iPhone needs to be running iOS 15.2 (or higher) and your iPad needs to be running iPadOS 15.2 (or higher).

To check what iOS or iPadOS you are running, open the Settings app > select General > select About. If you need to update, select Software Update in the General menu in the Settings app.

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