I know this may be a simple task, but this feature is kind of hidden.
If you start a project in iMovie ’09, don’t do anything with it, and then go back into iMovie ’09 later, you’ll be working under the same project name that you just created, not a new one. It saves whatever you’ve been working on automatically, which is great. That way you don’t lose your work. You just have to be aware of what project you are adding to when you go back into the program.
If you are starting a new project and you’ve already been working on some projects in iMovie in the past, then you need to go to FILE>NEW PROJECT and name the new project. Then any work that you do from that point on will be saved in that new project.
However, you may have already started to work on the project under a project name that you created earlier, but didn’t do anything with. If that’s the case, then you’ll want to rename the project to what you are currently working on.
Here’s how: