Edit vertical videos in iMovie

Question

Edit vertical videos in iMovie

Alright, so I know what you're wondering, "Why would you want to edit video shot vertically?" Well I'll explain. I run a snapchat travel vlog, I upload a lot of videos I edit in iMovie, however, when I upload videos I created in iMovie, the aspect ratio is changed and so it uploads onto snapchat as a small square in the middle and the remaining space is just black. Kind of like if you watched horizontally shot footage on a vertical iPhone screen. It puts the footage in the middle and fills in the void with black emptiness. I want to keep the video the same size of the vertical screen so I can upload to Snapchat and have my edited video fill the screen. Is there any way to do this? If I try to adjust the aspect ratio in HandBrake after editing, it makes the video all skawompy and squeezed together. Thanks for any advice.

iMovie '11, iOS 9.3

Posted on Mar 28, 2016 6:58 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

ChuchieH

Level 1

9 points

Jan 10, 2018 7:34 AM in response to stayclassyUtah

Tap on the clip -once you’ve imported it. And on the top right, you can select that magnifying glass with a plus. Then, it allows you to pinch -zoom in or pinch out to resize to the image size you like.

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Answer 2

Rich839

Level 8

47,250 points

Jan 27, 2017 1:00 PM in response to yvomc23

To rotate it back to vertical, select it in the time line, click on the crop button in the tool bar at the top of your screen, and use the rotating feature to make it vertical.

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Answer 3

yvomc23

Level 1

4 points

Jan 27, 2017 9:31 AM in response to GeeD

So this is a Quicktime Pro not just a Quicktime Player? Guess I will have to try handbrake. Are there any other programs (free preferable) you would recommend for vertical video editing.

I've got it all fixed in iMovie like you said (great tip), but definitely need a way to rotate the video back to vertical now that all my editing is done. Gracias!

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Answer 4

WillyGT

Level 1

61 points

Jul 26, 2017 6:24 AM in response to yvomc23

I used iMovie to edit my vertical clip sideways to fill the 16:9 ratio and then saved the sideways clip to my desktop, opened the file with Quicktime Player and in the edit tab you can find options for rotating as needed.

Thanks to GeeD! 🙂

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Answer 5

Skazkina

Level 1

12 points

Jan 11, 2018 1:41 AM in response to ChuchieH

Thank you! May be you know how to resize titles on iphone in imovie?

They are too large on vertical videos;(

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Answer 6

GeeD

Level 6

9,173 points

Mar 29, 2016 11:24 AM in response to stayclassyUtah

No. iMovie 10 only works in 16:9 aspect ratio. You need Final Cut Pro to work in arbitrary ratios. I don't know about iMovie for IOS.

You could rotate the video onto its side after putting it into the timeline and edit that, though you would not be able to use any titles. After exporting to file you can rotate back using Quicktime Player, Handbrake or similar. This is what is suggested in: http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/help-editing-vertical-iphone-video-on-imovie -for-mac-aspect-ratio-problem.1938179/ (The embedded video is hilarious 😁 though I'm not suggesting that vertical video is a silly as it tries to make out!)

Geoff.

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Answer 7

Apr 4, 2016 10:24 AM in response to GeeD

Awesome, thanks for the info!

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Answer 8

yvomc23

Level 1

4 points

Jan 27, 2017 1:03 PM in response to Rich839

But I would have to do that in iMovie on a Mac, right? I've been doing the bulk of my editing on an iPad mini. Don't have easy access to Mac, but will try this. Thanks for the suggestion!

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