In the world of video production, making my video smaller (shorter) took more painstaking time than making my original rough cut. Usually, my take on first drafts is that it's better to go a little overboard, and then cut stuff out. In this case, however, I may have been in for an easier ride if I had started with the bare minimum, and then added on. I wonder: if I were a more experienced video producer, would I prefer to start with shorter drafts or longer ones?
The good thing about spending so much time trying to shrink my original footage is that iMovie and I got to know each other on a deeper level. I'm getting more familiar with splitting scenes, detaching audio, speeding up, and fading out. All these are tricks of the trade that I knew were possible, but that I hadn't practiced much beforehand.
The two remaining bits I need to complete are filming myself talking, and adding the concluding shot and thank yous. I won't be filming myself until I can be "on location" in my classroom next Wednesday. I am in the process of creating that concluding shot and thank yous, using the same two trailer templates I used for the first 2/3 of my video. I like that I'll be able to reference those themes one more time at the end of my video, for a sense of completeness.