clip names showing in iMovie

There is a way around this. I had the same need and the only thing I could think of was to name each seperate event by the clip's name. Here's how I did it:

1. In the Finder, select a movie
2. Copy its name
3. Create a new folder
4. Paste the name you've just copied in the folder name field
5. Move the movie in that folder
6. Repeat this process for every movie you want to see the name of in iMovie
7. Once done, move all the folders into your iMovie Events folder
8. Launch iMovie, if it was open close it and relaunch it
9. Upon opening, iMovie will create the thumnail and cache folder. This may take some time. Then all your clips should appear as seperate events.

Depending on the ammount of clips you have, doing things this way may be a long and tedious process, but it works. I tried to create an AppleScript script that would automate this, but I did not succeed. Remember, this is only a way around this iMovie limitation.

Hey Mark:

I am just as frustrated! I was able to import a series of clips from a tennis match and by accident...they were all in the correct order...but I have been trying to do the same ever since and I can 't figure out how to do it! Even if I can manually re arrange the order of the clips...that would help somewhat..but I feel I have been going around in circles, and I am very close to ditch using IMovie. 😢

In iMovie 11, you should not rename your clips. If you keep your clips as named by the camcorder, iMovie will sort them correctly in chronological order.

If you have a need to rename clips and see clip names, I suggest you consider Final Cut Pro X, where this is supported and there are many sorting options as well as keywords.

I wish that was true AppleMan...but I did not rename my clips and they were in a random order....much to my surprise and frustration. 😟