Final Cut/iMovie Formatting Help - Urgent

Hey guys I could really use some assistance here.

I'm filming a movie for spanish class and we're almost done filming and are about to start editing. It's due a week from today but we'd like to get it done by thursday so it can be in my school's film festival.

Here's my problem: I have all the clips on my laptop (in .mov format) but when I import them into final cut express 4 and then render them, the playback is really messed up. So I figured that the rendering settings were off, but I tried every setting and none of them work. I think it's because the compressor for my sequence is different than my clips, which are H.264.

I also tried iMovie but the playback is still messed up. All the clips run fine when I play the file in QuickTime or VLC.

P.S. I'm new to final cut so any tips may help.

Major karma to anyone who helps!