Give your video project that professional edge by adding extra clips and images. Here’s how you can simply add a cutaway in iMovie!

You might be working on a video for a college project, or maybe it’s your next piece of content for your YouTube channel. Whatever it’s for, you’ll want your video to look the best it can. Even if the main body of your video looks awesome, the image is high quality and the content is on point, it may still be missing something.

Adding B-roll to video really elevates it to that next level. This is the footage that is technically secondary to the main footage, however it is still incredibly important. B-roll is what helps to splice all the main shots together, creating a smooth and cohesive video or film.

A cutaway is similar in concept, but usually plays more of a specific role. Rather than working as filler, a cutaway tends to help demonstrate a point. For instance, if you’re conducting an interview and your guest references a particular event, you may want to add a clip or image of said event to your video. This helps to illustrate the point, and makes for much more interesting for your audience.

Although this editing technique may make your video look advanced and professional, it doesn’t mean the process is complicated. If you’re putting together a video using the free Apple software iMovie, adding cutaways to your projects is a total breeze. Here’s how you can do it!

Add a Cutaway in iMovie

  • Firstly, have the main body of your video loaded up in a project in iMovie. You’ll want either the image or clip you intend to use as a cutaway imported to the My Media section. Do this by simply hitting Import Media.
  • Once you have your clip imported, just drag it down into the timeline of your project, above the main video footage. You can drag it to the exact position in time you would like it to play.
  • If it is an image, the length will default to 4 seconds. You can adjust by widening or shortening the image in the timeline.
  • With the imported media selected, you can head to Video Overlay Settings on the far left above the preview window. This looks like two rectangles layered one over the other. Make sure that Cutaway is selected from the dropdown.
  • You can head to Cropping, again above the preview of the video, to adjust how your cutaway appears. Having the Ken Burns effect selected will result in a gentle zoom and movement with your image cutaway. If you would like a stationary image, select Fit. If you would like to focus in on a particular area but not have it move, you can use Crop to Fill.

And there you have it, one professional looking cutaway without any fuss or complicated editing tools!