Remember when iMovie was the most user friendly video editing software available to me. Somewhere in the past couple of years, Apple has tried to make iMovie more powerful. With each iteration, it seems to just get more cumbersome. Maybe my frustration this week lies more in juggling multiple software versions. The software on my home computer is my constant. I know it well. I am getting better at supporting the iOS version. At school, we use a computer in the AV office to produce the Friday videos. After stumbling through changes this fall, I am finally comfortable to know how to import video, add transitions and titles, and semi-smoothly complete a project.
Then, I have my work computer. This fall, I made a couple of videos for our Success Week on digital citizenship and tech use. Since then, we must have had another update. Over the past week, I’ve worked on a video for the Follett Challenge. I ran into so many small issues. Features were not where I expected them to be. About half the time I couldn’t find my media files, video or photos, despite having them organized in iPhoto. One time, they would be there. The next time, I couldn’t find the album at all.
I think my most panicked moment (other than yesterday’s post) was the sudden disappearance of my microphone icon. I was 99% done with hours to spare. But, I had one audio clip that needed to be recorded. I started by looking for it where it SHOULD have been. Then for ten minutes, I looked in every possible location that it could have moved. After restarting the program and still not seeing the mic, I shut down iMovie and walked away for fifteen minutes. When I relaunched, the microphone was back.
Each time a new version of a program I love comes out, I am one of those who mourns what was once so comfortable.
After this week’s video production, though, I am back on speaking terms with iMovie. I used it tonight to help edit my daughter’s Girl Scout cookie promo. 
I was able to put this video together with minimal frustration. I went digging before this post to try to find resources to explain where features are in each iteration of iMovie. Apparently that doesn’t exist. Yet.
Are you uncomfortable when your familiar software changes? Have you had moments like this where you wish to turn back time (or at least the software version!)