It’s 1:15 AM, and I’m spending the fourth night in a row agonizing over my video sketch for IID. For those who aren’t familiar with the design class I’m taking, we are currently creating a video sketch to showcase the every day use of a digital music player designed for a particular demographic (Young Modern, in my case).

I figured, iMovie comes free on a Mac. I had used it to compress recorded video before, so why not use it to make my own? BIG mistake:

1. iMovie crashed on me a total of seven times through the course of making the movie. Once, it even disregarded saved changes, and I lost 2 hours of work.
2. iMovie mangles photos horribly, and no miracle compression setting can undo what it does to my teammate’s meticulous Photoshop work.
3. Beware of putting your own sketches or images as the first photo in your sketch. Merely editing your movie will cause iMovie to mangle your first photo (only if it’s hand-drawn), and you’ll have to replace it before publishing.
4. There are a handful of transitions that hook on to two photos instead of one (e.g., a Cross Dissolve that fades one photo out to reveal another behind it). Say I have a 10 second Cross Dissolve effect. iMovie takes 10 seconds from each of the photos the effect hooks to. See the error? If it takes 10 seconds from two photos, my movie is short 20 seconds. The effect only adds 10 seconds back. This is Math I was doing when I was 7, folks.

Don’t get me wrong, ever since I bought my PowerBook I’m quite the Mac enthusiast. But this experience has left the ultimate of sour tastes in my mouth. If I ever come across an iMovie developer, the red marker will come out with a vengeance.