POINT your internet browser to video-sharing website YouTube today and you invariably get the feeling that almost everyone out there is armed with a video camera and a prerogative to upload.

From the bare-to-the-bones, unedited, one-take videos of someone belting out his favourite singer's repertoire, to the meticulously-scripted and directed, cinematic-looking short films - everyone in cyberspace seems to be clamouring for their 30-seconds of fame and attention.

The neat, user-friendly layout in iMovie makes it easy for first-time users to start making movies right away.

Apple's iLife '08 and its accompanying overhaul of iMovie could not have arrived on the scene at a more opportune time. Launched worldwide on Aug 7, iLife '08 contains souped-up editions of its wildly popular creative suite - Garageband, iWeb, iPhoto, iDVD , and for iMovie, a totally revamped layout and interface.

With an innovative skimming function, easy-to-browse filmstrips, and a drag-and-drop interface, the new iMovie offers users a stylish, non-intimidating means of making movies.

iMovie is a one-stop solution. In addition to its video editing capabilities, it is equipped to handle the importing of various video formats and sources, and when your movie is ready - the publishing or exporting into YouTube, iPod, iWeb, and iPhone formats.

Browse through your entire library by event, year or the last imported video. Skim and preview the 'filmstrip' thumbnails on-the-fly and make selections using a click-and-drag.

A filmstrip-like layout

Importing videos into iMovie works on a plug-n-play system - Users simply need to hook up their video cameras and Mac computers, and iMovie will begin launching a series of dialog boxes to help you decide how to import your video.

iMovie handles everything from digital to tape camcorders, digital still cameras, existing videos, and even a direct input from your iSight camera!

All videos are imported into iMovie's nifty library, which can be quickly sorted by 'Last import', 'Year' and 'Events'. Library videos are displayed in the lower half of the screen in a filmstrip-like manner - little thumbnails that contain bite-sized portions of the entire video.

Using the frames-per-thumbnail slider found in the lower right area of the screen, users can adjust the video length of each thumbnail - either to get broad overviews of entire videos, or the nitty-gritty, blow-by-blow details.

The filmstrip and thumbnails concept parallels the way films were manually edited and physically 'cut' in the past from rolls of filmstrips, helping first-time users to understand and navigate through their footage with relative ease.

The 'ever-seeing' mouse pointer

Perhaps one of iMovie's most innovative features is the skimming function. Just by running your mouse pointer over the thumbnails in the library, the footage will start to playback in real-time - without any skips or lags.

Besides adding a cool, 'look-at-this' element, skimming helps break the traditional linearity of film reviewing and editing. Because the filmstrips are arranged in a wrap-around format, users can jump across sections of the video and watch them instantaneously.

Putting iMovie through its paces

The upper-half of the iMovie screen is where you put together your video. Similar to the filmstrips, video clips added to this section roll from left-to-right in a wraparound manner.

Drag-and-drop your way to adding video, audio, text and transitions to your movie project - then watch it take shape on the large preview screen.

To select footage from the thumbnails (in the lower-half of the screen), simply click and drag across the portion of the video that you want.

A yellow-bordered rectangle appears over the selection, which you can further modify by clicking and dragging at the start and ends of the rectangle.

Add a selection to your movie project by dragging and dropping it into the upper-half of the screen.

You can choose to add selections before or after existing clips by dragging and holding the selection in the desired location before dropping it.

Skim through the project to preview your movie and hit spacebar at any point in time to set the movie playing on its own. Hit spacebar again to pause.

By employing a similar look-and-feel for both the library and movie creation windows, iMovie cleverly reduces tiresome learning steps for the user - helping you get off the ground in double quick time to making your 'directorial debut'.

Sights and sounds

The drag-and-drop routine does not stop with visuals. It works with audio, text, and transition effects as well. Your arsenal of editing tools is 'lock-and-loaded' in four icons found in the middle-right section of the screen.

Click on the music-and-sound effects button to access your iTunes and iMovie/ iLife audio library. To see which sound clip fits the mood of your movie, double click on it to get a preview. Get the desired audio into your movie by dragging in into your project area. Drop the audio over a specific section of a video clip if you wish for it to start playing there. To apply for the entire movie, 'land' the audio in the unused portions of the project area.

Try out the professional-looking transition and text effects. Like audio, transitions and text can be edited anytime along the way by selecting it, and its position fine-tuned by dragging it along the movie timeline. So nothing is cast in stone - leaving you with the flexibility of experimenting and adding that special finishing touch.

If you need more space for your work, the 'genie-effect' exchanges your movie project and library spaces!

Your wish is the genie's command

Once users get the hang of the iMovie interface, it is inevitable that their movie projects will become more complex, and the workspace will soon transform into a clutter of video, picture, audio, text and effects - each screaming out and competing for space.

If more space is what you need, then click on the double-arrowed icon found in the left-middle section of the screen. In a genie-like fashion, the library and movie projects get sucked into the centre and switch places! Besides serving a functional purpose, the 'genie-switch', as I like to call it, provides for a visually impressive feature to show off to non-iMovie users.

Show-and-tell

You laboured through the wee hours of the morning to put your movie project together and now it's time to show the world. iMovie offers a multitude of export options, allowing you to share your movie on iPods, iPhones, and Apple TV.

If you have a YouTube account, iMovie allows you to upload and publish your video directly from within the program. The tedious hassle of opening the internet browser, logging into YouTube, and choosing the video from your local drive now becomes a thing of the past.

Conclusion

iMovie's overhaul with the launch of iLife '08 could not have come at a more opportune time. There are millions of moviemakers out there looking for a one-stop, graphical, and user-friendly application to edit and tweak their videos.

With drag-and-drop, skimming, thumbnail-like filmstrips and a seamless integration with YouTube, iMovie may be the answer to the prayers of many budding filmmakers.