Newbie advice needed re: creating new project on iMovie

Question

I have tested the iMovie with some test video. I only used part of it and am impressed and may want to input the rest of it later on. In the meantime I want to create a new project of an old video I did in Alaska. I set up the new project but find that I still have the video clips of my old project in the lower area, where I expect the Alaska clips to go, before dragging into the work area.
How can I get rid of the old clips? Do I just trash them, if I do it says that I will not be able to play the video again! I am confused, can someone please advise me what I should be doing, so That I have a clear area for my new project?

Answer 1

A project only organizes information, it does not store the actual data for that project. The clips for that project are in the events area. If you make a project by dragging event clips into the project window, and then trash the event clips, you will not have a movie anymore.
If once you make a project and need to free up the harddrive space from the events (say you use only a % of the events in your project) you have options. Or you could export your project to various media and eg save the movie as a QuickTime movie, and then trash the video. but once you toss that video you will not have access to it again in iMovie. Or you could save the events on an external HD, but tis has to be done a certain way for iMovie to access it. Sound like this "old video" is on tape? if so you just keep the tape and you dont necesarily need to keep the event files. BUT dont toss them until you have made an actual movie out of your project.
post back with questions
roger