How to edit vertical videos in iMovie

Many times I happened to record a video on my smartphone and find out later it’s vertically orientated. Sharing a vertical video on Facebook or YouTube might ruin your viewers’ playback experiences. This guide will teach you how to fix the aforementioned issue and other similar ones by using the iMovie application.

iMovie is a popular video editing utility developed by the Apple company. With its help, you can play, create, edit, and share your homemade movies. The application works with a wide variety of video formats, provides you with many editing options, and generates quality output files. It might prove to be of good use if you need it for editing the vertical clip you recorded on your smartphone.

Rotate vertical videos with iMovie

This integrated editing option comes in handy if you need to immediately convert a video recorded in portrait mode to landscape format.

1. Launch the iMovie application on your Mac.

2. Import the vertical movie you wish to edit from its folder location.

Importing Vertical Video

3. Select it from the library field. On the upper-right side of the interface, you will see a cropping icon. Click it to reveal the video crop and rotate options.

4. Click the indicated arrow buttons to rotate 90 degrees. You can always undo project alterations if needed.

5. Press the "Done" button.

Crop vertical videos with iMovie

The cropping editing options might prove to be of good use if you need to focus on a certain part of the imported clip.

1. Launch the iMovie application on your Mac.

2. Import the vertical movie you wish to edit from its folder location.

3. Select it from the library field. On the upper-right side of the interface, you will see a cropping icon. Click it to reveal the video crop and rotate options.

4. Click the "Crop" button. Drag the corners of the green area to change size and position of the video part you wish to crop.

Cropping Vertical Video

5. Press the "Done" button.

Apply visual effects to vertical videos with iMovie

iMovie comes with multiple visual effects which help you transform your homemade clips into stunning works of art. Here’s what you need to do in order to apply one of the offered visual effects:

1. Select the vertical video from the library field (you can also apply a visual effect for a certain segment from a movie - select the area from the timeline section).

2. Click the "Video Effect" button.

Selecting Video Effect Option

3. Select the preferred clip filter.

Choosing Visual Effect

Optional:

You can remove a visual effect if needed. Select the clip or segment from the video you wish to alter, click the "Video Effect" button, and choose the "None" option.

Conclusion

iMovie proves to be a reliable solution for editing vertical clips. It provides you with many built-in editing options and preserves the quality of the original files. And since the application is integrated into every OS X and is free-to-use, I can’t find any reasons why you shouldn’t use it for completing vertical video editing tasks.

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