iMovie HD 6 and iDVD 6 for Mac OS X

14. Scoring Your Movie in GarageBand

A movie's soundtrack doesn't need to consist of popular musicin fact, most films are scored instrumentally, according to the needs of each scene. If you have musical leanings, you may want to do your own scoring. With the inclusion of GarageBand in Apple's iLife suite, you can (even if you're not particularly musical, like me).

With a musical instrument and some hardware to get the audio into your Mac, you can perform your own music. Personally, I like GarageBand because I can choose from hundreds of existing background loops and create segments that are just as long as I need them to be. Those loops are also copyright- and royalty-free, so I don't need to worry about securing rights if I decide to release the movie in public.