How to Use Green Screen in iMovie

Tutorials Video Tutorials
May 30, 2018

How to Use Green Screen in iMovie


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What’s more fun than the endless possibilities of green screen video? Luckily, iMovie has the full capability to use green and blue backgrounds to transform footage, replicating your wildest movie dreams.

Since iMovie is green and blue screen compatible, you have the ability to record over a green or a blue background, then “cut out” that background to reveal other footage you’ve taken or sourced from our library. For example, you could place a weather map over a broadcast. Or, you could put a dating app on a phone screen.

In this tutorial, we’ve unleashed asteroids onto a moving ship—and we’ll show you exactly how we created this cinematic space adventure.

Step 1. Import Media

First things first, you’re going to want to import any footage or audio you’ll be using for your project. Just go to File > Import Media or hit Command/Ctrl + I on your keyboard. For our space voyage, we used this green screen asteroid clip over this space shuttle footage.

how to use green screen in iMovie

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Step 2. Drag Non-Green Screen Footage onto Track

After you import all of your footage into iMovie, you’ll want to drag the footage that was not recorded over a green screen onto the video track. This will be your bottom track.

how to use green screen in iMovie

Step 3. Drag Green Screen Footage onto Track

Next, you’re going to drag your green screen footage onto the top video track.

how to use green screen in iMovie

Step 4. Adjust Video Overlay Settings

When you click on your top footage, a small “Video Overlay” tab should appear that looks like two overlapping boxes:

how to use green screen in iMovie

Click on the Video Overlay button and a drop-down menu will appear. To activate the green screen setting, you’ll want to select “Green/Blue Screen.”

how to use green screen in iMovie

Once you click “Green/Blue Screen,” the green space in your overlayed clip should dissolve, showing the footage you first imported.

how to use green screen in iMovie

how to use green screen in iMovie

And there you have it, folks! A full on Sci-Fi movie set-up right at your fingertips. Green screen footage is a great resource to create effects that you wouldn’t be able to access otherwise. Our video library is full of green screen footage, plus plenty of footage to overlay on your own videos!

Go Green

Gina Fuchs

Gina is a Social Media and Blogging intern at Storyblocks, as well as a student at the University of Maryland. There, she majors in Communication Studies and minors in Creative Writing. When she’s not at Storyblocks, she’s playing with her Pug (Rocky), scrolling through Twitter, or finding a new book to read.