Open your iMovie application. You will see three boxes on the top-half of the iMovie screen. The far left square is the Project Library box, where you store your many movie titles. The middle box is where you do most of your movie editing. The far right box is where you do further editing, such as typing text and cropping photos. In the lower half of the iMovie screen below these three boxes are two more boxes. The lower left-hand box is your Event Library, that archives such things as your last movie or picture import. The lower right-hand box displays what footage you have available on a connected video or still camera. Between these two halves of the screen are various editing buttons, such as a cropping tool, color adjustment tool and sound adjustment tool.
Connect your camera to your computer to import your content into iMovie. If your pictures or video footage are already on your desktop, simply choose an Import option from the file menu in your toolbar on the upper left-hand corner, or drag and drop your footage or pictures from your desktop directly into the upper-middle box of your iMovie screen.
Hover your cursor above each of these thumbnails, where you will see little icons on each. These icons include a cropping tool, video adjustment tool and time duration tool, which allows you to crop in seconds how long you want the picture displayed in the movie. Click on these icons to adjust your footage and pictures to your desired needs. Your footage and pictures will sit in your upper-middle editing box as small thumbnails.
Add special effects such as transitions or text to your video via the four editing buttons on the far right middle portion of your iMovie screen. The farthest right button of these four is a Transitions button. Clicking on it will display many different types of transitions below the button that you can choose for your video. Once you select one, drag and drop it into the footage in your upper-middle editing box. You can drag your transition within the footage to place it where you desire.
Add text to your video through the Titles button on the immediate left of the Transitions button. Clicking on the Titles button will display a selection of titles below the button. Choose one and, like the Transitions effect, drag and drop into your footage in the upper-middle editing box. Drag it within the footage to adjust where you want the text displayed. To edit the text within the footage, click on the text box itself. The right box next to your editing box will display the type, which you can change directly on the screen.
Add music with the Music button to the immediate left of the Text button. Clicking on the music button will allow you to browse your Mp3s below the button and choose one to accompany your footage. Drag and drop your desired song into your footage.
Double-click at the beginning of your video project in your upper-middle editing box to play back the video in editing mode. Your video will play in the upper right-hand box.
Choose Share from the iMovie tool bar in the upper left-hand corner of your computer to export your video. From the Share menu, there are three "export" options depending on whether you want to publish to a site such as YouTube, or whether you to publish as a QuickTime file for your desktop only.