Press Release
April 28, 2005
"iMovie HD & iDVD 5: The Missing Manual": Hollywood-Quality Filmmaking from the Comfort of Home
Sebastopol, CA--"Don't let the rumors fool you," warns number one
bestselling Mac author and Emmy-award-winning CBS News
correspondent David Pogue. "iMovie may be simple, but it isn't simplistic.
It offers a wide range of special effects and flexible features for creating
transitions between scenes, superimposing text in your video, layering
multiple soundtracks together, and more. Unfortunately, many of the
best techniques aren't covered in the only 'manual' you get with iMovie:
its electronic help screens."
iMovie is the first digital video (DV) editing software for
nonprofessionals--that is, people who have lives outside of video editing.
"iMovie HD [the new iLife '05 version] represents a deep overhaul of the
program, one that will challenge even the iMovie veteran with a good deal
of unlearning and relearning," says Pogue. In the new, full-color iMovie
HD and iDVD 5: The Missing Manual (O'Reilly, US $29.95), Pogue explains
iMovie's big-ticket features and improvements as well as the finer
points--the intriguing little enhancements that typically go unmentioned
but, "taken together, will make a big difference in your moviemaking
career."
And then, along with guest author (and bestselling digital-video goddess)
Erica Sadun, Pogue includes an invaluable book-within-a-book on iDVD,
exploring all of iDVD 5's new enhancements that make home DVDs look even
more like commercial Hollywood DVDs.
With very little jargon and plenty of humor and wisdom, Pogue offers a
complete course in Macintosh filmmaking and DVD design, including:
Essentials of film technique: iMovie may deliver the technical tools to produce amazing videos, but Pogue delivers what readers need to master the artistic side of shooting--lighting, sound, and composition--and shows them how to use the dozens of buttons adorning the modern camcorder.
Editing basics: These pages burst with clever workarounds, hidden features, and editing tricks from the Hollywood film world.
Finding an audience: Aspiring moviemakers can export their masterpiece to tape for high-quality standard or high-definition TV playback. Or they can save it as a QuickTime movie for posting on a web page, emailing to friends, burning as a Video CD, or even uploading to a Bluetooth cell phone.
Mastering DVDs: Using a Mac with a DVD burner, readers "can preserve their movies on home-recorded DVDs that look and behave amazingly close to the commercial DVDs they rent from Netflix or Blockbuster." They can distribute their movies at much higher quality than VHS tapes or QuickTime movies by creating Hollywood-style DVDs--even in widescreen.
Well illustrated and in full color throughout, iMovie HD & iDVD 5: The
Missing Manual contains hundreds of undocumented secrets for extending
iMovie HD and iDVD design tools and countless little-known tips of the
pros so that anyone can create and distribute professional-quality films
from the comfort of home.
Praise for the previous edition:
"Perhaps it's a good thing that Apple doesn't include manuals with their
products, as they simply wouldn't be this good."
--Kirk Hiner, Applelinks
"An absolute 'must-have' for getting the most out of iMovie 4 & iDVD
software, highly recommended for amateur and professional moviemakers and
movie editors working on the Macintosh."
--Library Bookwatch
Additional Resources:
iMovie HD & iDVD 5: The Missing Manual
David Pogue
ISBN: 0-596-10033-7, 516 pages, $29.95 US, $41.95 CA
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938; 1-707-827-7000
Return to: O'Reilly Missing Manuals Press Room
