Cutaways – introducing overlays in iMovie

An overlay is one clip sitting on top of another. As we know from looking at the magnetic timeline in Chapter 4, overlays in iMovie are treated as connected media, rather than being their own track. This means that overlays:

• Aren’t attracted to the start of the project
• Don’t move to the side when you hover a clip over them (in fact, they get overwritten entirely, because you can only have one connected video at a time)

Overlays are available in Movie mode for both iOS/iPadOS and macOS. However, in each version, overlays are added in different ways. Before you add an overlay, you will need a clip in the timeline. Now, here’s how to add a clip as an overlay.

For iOS/iPadOS:

1. In the Media Browser, tap on the media you want to use as an overlay.
2. Tap the three dots next to the play icon.
3. Choose the type of overlay you want to add to the video.

To change the overlay type after...