Videos appear as photos in iMovie

You cannot download directly from the Photos app into iMovie. You can, however, upload directly into the Photos app and then access the videos from within iMovie via the Photos item that displays in the iMove project side bar. Click on it and choose one of the display categories and your videos in the Phots app will display in the browser screen. From there you can drag them into a project. Otherwise, you would need to download from the Photos app to your desk top, and from there drag into iMovie.

An additional way is to download from your camera to your desk top using the Image Capture app on your Mac. Then drag the videos into iMovie.

The above being said, you should be able to download your videos directly from your camera into iMovie. I don't know why you are getting stills instead of videos.

-- Rich

I can't tell you why it happens, but if you import the videos into your Photos app, and then access them from the Photos item in an iMovie project sidebar, you videos should import as videos and not stills. Alternatively, you could use the Image Capture app on your Mac to import the videos to your desktop, and from there drag them into iMovie.

-- Rich