Problems pasting clips into another imovie

Question

I am trying to paste a clip from one imovie project to another. I copy the clip from project A, open project B, and hit the paste command. I get the importing files box and the preparing message, but it takes forever and I am just trying to import a 6 second clip. If I force quit imovie, when I reopen it, it has placed a 9.24 GB file in the trash of the project B, called clip01_1. This is not what I copied or tried to paste. Why does it do this? What needs to be done to correct this situation? I have tried pasting with no clips in the timeline, several clips in the timeline, one clip in the timeline. I have successfully moved clips in the past, but I can't do it now!

Answer 1

Thanks. Your description helps.
I converted and imported dozens of analog video tapes
into iMovie. They contain various events in a
disorganized manner, as I would leave the same tape
in and just keep recording different events, until it
was full. My goal was to open each imported "tape"
in iMovie, edit and sort out the clips, name them,
and place them in various folders on my desktop.
If the suggestions made in a moment don't work, please answer these questions to make sure I "get it"...
1. Each imported analog tape arrived in one very long clip, right? And you want to split up that clip into several smaller clips, and keep just some of those clips?
---Keep and name accordingly, yes.
2. Will you have gazillions of small clips in the project, or just a few? (If there are many, many clips you need some sort of automatic method for handling the clips. If there are only a few, a manual method will work.)
--Many clips. I will put this in caps just to emphasize my goal. It will be a common theme throughout. I JUST WANT TO SAVE INDIVIDUAL CLIPS TO A FOLDER ON MY DESKTOP.
3. Are all the tapes in one iMovie project or did you import each tape to its own project?
--Each tape is in its own project. and there are numerous clips of my dog (as an example) spread over all the tapes. This is why I JUST WANT TO SAVE INDIVIDUAL CLIPS TO A FOLDER ON MY DESKTOP.
4. Do you have QuickTime Pro? If not, are you willing to buy it? ($30 from Apple.)
---I would rather not add yet another layer of convoluted nonsense and expense to this situation, if I can help it. What will QTP do that QT 7.03 can't?
5. Is it crucial that you end up with one file for each clip, or is a collection of topic-related clips sharing the same iMovie project sufficient?
---1 file for each clip is necessary. As an example, on 1 analog imported tape, I may have video of my dog, video of a friends BBQ and a fishing trip. Within each "theme" (BBQ, fishing trip etc..) , I may want to split up the video of my dog into various clips and name them accordingly. Such as "dog chasing ball", "dog swimming". The friends BBQ might have clips such as "friend puking", "friend stepping in puke", "friend putting cheese on burger" etc... On my Desktop I would have folders called "Dog", "BBQ", "Fishing" etc.. As I go through each project, I would extract and name all clips and either "share, export, massage, excise, resect, snip, cut, paste, incise, remove, chop, crop, trim etc..." or whatever magic word it takes to get that F^&%ing clip, AS NAMED, into a folder on the desktop that I choose. This, I was silly enough to think, could be done with a simple "Save As"/Desktop/<Folder> command. So, after wasting my money on iLife '05 which is supposed to "simplify my digital life", I now need to find some way to engage in a frustrating game of software masturbation, and possibly, additional cost, to accomplish this otherwise simple and benign task. How might I proceed?
Basically my destop folder structure should end up looking like this.
DOG STUFF FOLDER
dog running clip
swimming
dog chasing ball clip
playing with frisbee
in car
playing guitar
VACATIONS FOLDER
FISHING
big fish
small fish
stupid fish
MEXICO
drinking tequila
drinking more tequila
falling down
getting up
....and so forth
Now, all I would have to do is import DOG STUFF FOLDER clips into a project called DOG PROJECT. Then, go to VACATIONS FOLDER and import FISHING and MEXICO into their own, or the same, iMovie projects, depending on space. Etc...
Here's the big problem: unlike digital video, analog video may not have a timecode. Without a timecode, iMovie can't separate it into clips when you import it to a project. As important here, you can't define the clips, export the project to the camera, then re-import it without losing the clip separations.
--Not my goal anyway to re-import anything to tape. I don't mind large 40 minute clips, as long as I can break them up as I see fit. And.. SAVE INDIVIDUAL CLIPS TO A FOLDER ON MY DESKTOP.
If it's okay to lose your clip separations, then that's an easy solution. Split the large clip into smaller ones, discard the clips you don't want to keep, export to the camera, then re-import to a new project. Discard the old project. The new project will contain only the video you want to keep.
---I could do the same with a VHS deck and my camcorder. So, what do I need iMovie for? Again, not my goal. I just want to SAVE INDIVIDUAL CLIPS TO A FOLDER ON MY DESKTOP.
Instead of exporting to the camera you could export to a Full Quality DV QuickTime movie that you either store on the hard disk or import to a new imovie project.
--This doesn't work well if I want to first parse all my clips from all my tapes that contain my dog in them and then import them all into a new project all at once. Or am I missing something?
There is a way to convert each (split) clip into its own Media file. When you apply a special effect to any clip iMovie creates a new file containing just the special-effected clip. If doesn't matter what the effect is. So, try this: Select a clip, activate the Effects tab, configure a Sharpen filter with the minimum sharpening, then Apply. Double-click on the sharpened clip and note it now has its own file. When you Copy and Paste that clip THAT's what gets copied, not its original source file.
---Ok..but I don't want effects on the clip. I just want to SAVE INDIVIDUAL CLIPS, AS IS, TO A FOLDER ON MY DESKTOP
You can apply a special effect to all the clips in the whole project at the same time. Drag all the original clips to the Clips pane. Option-drag each back to the timeline, which copies it (without duplicating its source file.) Split the timeline clip as you like. Discard the parts you don't want to keep. The timeline now contains all the clips you want to keep.
Select All the clips and apply the minimum Sharpen filter to all together. Wait. Rendering will take a while. Save. Now Copy and Paste the clips to whichever projects you want. A single file will arrive with each Pasted clip. Or you can drag them to Finder folders.
--Precisely.. This is another form of wasted time, effort and software masturbation that I was describing. I do not want to sit for hours while my clips render, just to accomplish something else that had nothing to do with applying effects to the clips in the first place. Once I have all the raw clips in a project, I plan on giving them to a professional video person to make a video. That's why, ALL I WANT TO DO IS SAVE INDIVIDUAL CLIPS IN THEIR RESPECTIVE FOLDERS ON THE DESKTOP.
Karl, I do appreciate your help and my tone has nothing to do with you. I'm just hoping you might be able to help me. I'm just steaming out of my ears that I gave up the PC world to use Macs precisely for the very reason of getting away from all this crap of doing a million stupid things to accomplish a goal. It's like scratching my right ear with my left foot. If I wanted to do that, I would stick with a PC!! At least, this way, I can be just as frustrated for a lot cheaper.
(Be sure to pretest this method to make sure the video you create with the special effect is okay. If a DVD is your goal, burn a DVD of the special-effected clips. You want to make sure the special effect doesn't change the appearance of the clip.)
Karl