How to crop iPhone video in iMovie AFTER I have done editing

Question

How to crop iPhone video in iMovie AFTER I have done editing

iMovie 10.1.14

On a 2 minute video that I imported from my iPhone, I separated the audio, then deleted a 5 second segment of it. Now I want to export it exactly as it was, same aspect ratio (portrait mode), but with my edit of course, dropping out the 5 seconds of audio.

When I do the export, everything is fine except, the video includes the black side bars filling out the default aspect ratio around the portrait mode rectangle. I found instruction for cropping the segment in the "Project Media," which is the unedited version--the crop procedure works here, but export includes the unwanted audio.

It seems that there is no way to crop the segment and export along with the audio that I have edited. Any ideas?

Posted on May 24, 2020 12:03 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Rich839

Level 8

47,214 points

May 24, 2020 12:31 PM in response to imaginary_forest

Hi,

With the timeline crop tool in the tool bar in the upper right, use the little rotation rectangles to rotate the video clip sideways so that it fills the screen. Export the sideways video. On your desk top open the exported video in QuicktimePlayer and rotate it right side up again. There will be no black bars.

— Rich

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Answer 2

May 24, 2020 1:56 PM in response to Rich839

Thanks for your response. This does work, except QT exports the rotated file at twice the file size (same resolution). The two ways I've tried to save/export are Export As/720p... and Share/Mail, but my guess is QT maintains the original pixel orientation in the file cache, so finding the right save option probably isn't the issue. In any case, the "Save As..." option is grayed out, maybe because I have the free version.

Out of curiosity, why can't I crop the clip that I've edited in iMovie?

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Answer 3

Rich839

Level 8

47,214 points

May 24, 2020 2:21 PM in response to imaginary_forest

When I try the QuickTimePlayer procedure the video is only very slightly larger in file size than the original portrait. It is not double the file size.

iMovie has as a 16:9 aspect screen ratio that cannot be changed. However, you should be able to crop the video in Project Media, then in the timeline detach the audio (Modify/Detach Audio) and trim off the 5 seconds of audio from the detached clip, and then export out the project. That will get rid of the unwanted 5 seconds of audio.

-- Rich

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Answer 4

May 24, 2020 9:57 PM in response to Rich839

For some reason this video is 63.4 MB exported horizontally from iMovie, then 113.9 MB after rotating and exporting from QT, not quite twice the size.

Regarding cropping, if I understand you correctly, I need to crop the video first, then proceed with the audio modifications and export. Essentially, this means I need to do my work over again, which in this case isn't that big a deal, but it just seems odd that cropping can't be done after one does editing. That said, I rarely work with video so maybe the work flow is evident to everyone else.

Thanks!

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Answer 5

Rich839

Level 8

47,214 points

May 25, 2020 11:22 AM in response to imaginary_forest

Your proposed work flow should work.

-- Rich

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How to crop iPhone video in iMovie AFTER I have done editing

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