Plus, splitting a clip at the playhead is really useful for other things, like when you want to make audio level changes to part of a clip. Why should I have to chisel my video out? (Not to mention, 'Wait, did I delete the wrong bit?') This isn't a rock sculpture. To get at a bit in the middle of clip, you have to trim off the front, delete the bit you trimmed, then trim off the back, then delete the other bit you trimmed. The truth is that it is an awkward way to edit. Most of us who have been in iMovie for a long time learned to edit with the 'Split Clip at Playhead' command. (By the way, you really shouldn't hold out any more. Only the telltale slashed number ('/1) on the second part of the clip lets you know that you're actually looking at two different clips side by side.This Quick Tip should make a lot of iMovie HD holdouts happy. If the clip started out in the Movie Track, the Monitor window still lets you scroll all the way through the original clip. If the original was called 'Split Me Up,' iMovie calls the resultant clips 'Split Me Up' and 'Split Me Up/1.' (To remove the highlighting, click anywhere else on the screen, or choose Edit Select None.)

After you split a clip, you wind up with two different clips, both highlighted. Then choose Edit Split Video Clip at Playhead (or press -T) the results are shown in Figure 5-8. Use Shift-arrow keys for 10 -frame jumps. (You can press the right- or left-arrow keys to nudge the Playhead one frame at a time to the right or left. Just click inside, or drag along, the Scrubber bar until you find the spot where you want to split the clip. The Split Video Clip at Playhead command is exactly what you need in that case. For example, suppose you want to create the classic 'Kid jumping into the pool and bouncing out again, thanks to the Reverse Motion effect.' You'd want the reverse motion to begin partway into the clip. Sometimes, however, it can be useful to split a clip into two separate clips without deleting footage in the process. The techniques described in the previous section work well when you want to remove some footage from a clip.

How to split clips in imovie