Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Getting Photos Prepared for iMovie

It is my experience that preparing your photos for an iMovie is the most important and potentially timesaving task in the iMovie process. I prefer to work with the photos in the iPhoto program before I even think about clicking on the iMovie icon.

I would first open an new album in iPhoto and place the photos for your iMovie in that album. Then I would put the photos in the same order that you would want to see them in the iMovie slideshow. At this time I would do any cropping or editing of the photos in iPhoto. Now when you click on iMovie and select the theme, you just need to open the album from the photo icon, hit Select All and drag them into the work space in the upper left hand section of the iMovie screen. It you want to change the order of a few slides after you view it, it can easily be done by selecting the picture and dragging it to the desired place on the timeline.

Easy peesy, lemon squeezie!

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

A Word About Photo Order

When I first started making iMovie photo presentations I tried to painstakingly put all of the photos in chronological order. This seemed logical to me because people usually want to see how a person or family evolved over time. Then after creating the same basic presentation for a friend several different times, I tried putting the photos in random order just to see what happened. It turned out that the presentation became more interesting because the viewer did not know what photo from what timeframe was going to come up next. I have even made in chronological order and one with random ordered photos for the same person and let them show whichever one they choose. Give it a try to shake up your photo slide presentations.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Father Pete Lentine Turns 92

Father Peter Lentine, pastor at St Philomena Catholic Church turned 92 last week. He is the oldest servicing priest in the Detroit area Archdiocese and is also a great guy. I have had the great fortune to put together a few iMovie projects for Father Pete over the last few years. I will post the iMovie that was showed during his birthday celebration yesterday. (actually an updated version from his 90th birthday) But until I post that, this is an interesting video that was shot by the Detroit Free Press when he turned 90.

A Word About Transitions

Transitions are the visual effects that take place between photos during a slide show. The transitions help smooth out the presentation because jumping from photo to photo without transitions can look harsh. iMovie offers many different kinds of transitions that can be as simple as a fade-to-black transition between photos, to a ripple effect that looks like pebble being dropped into a pool of water.

Even though it is tempting, I caution against going wild with the transitions. Too many fancy transitions can be distracting and make the slide show look amateurish.

iMovie gives you the option of starting each movie with uniform standardized transitions. I highly suggest selecting that option. If there are a few photos that could use the extra punch of a 'fancy' transition then go ahead and add it separately. Just be forewarned that once you add a transition that is different than the initially standardized transitions, you need to manually add each transition from that time forward because iMove will turn off the standardized transition function.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Photo Slide Show Survey

I am considering starting a business to provide photo slide shows for special occasions. Photos to be provided by the client in either paper or digital format. Paper photos would be scanned as part of the service. Music could be provided by the client or I could use royalty-free music. Is this a service that you would pay for? How much would you pay?

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Father Solanus Center Video

I have posted the latest version of the Father Solanus Casey Center video below. It features the phone number of the center and the web address. Enjoy.

Father Solanus Casey Center 1 (Apple iMovie Format)

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Father Solanus Casey Center

I have added a link to the Father Solanus Casey Center in Detroit Michigan. They are doing some great work there so click on the link and have a look.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Skyline Pan

The Ken Burns effect is when the camera slowly 'pans' across a picture creating an interesting effect that is more effective than looking at non-moving picture straight on. I found a good way of creating a dramatic skyline pan last week when I was putting together a iMovie to show off the pictures from New York City.


I started with a normal digital picture of the New York skyline.













I then cropped the photograph to eliminate as much ground, people's heads, and sky as possible. This creates a long and 'skinny' picture. I then imported that picture into my iMovie.





Next click on the crop icon inthe upper right hand corner of the picture.










There will be a greensquare and red square. The green square represents the beginning of the Ken Burns effect and the red square represents the ending of the Ken Burns effect. Until last week I always thought that the two squares needed to overlap to work, but I was wrong. Take the green square and push it the left hand side of the picture and push the red square to the right hand side of the picture. This will create a pan the will go from the far left of the picture to the far right hand side of the picture. Make sure to click on the time icon and increase the time that the slide is shown on the screen. (I used 9.6 seconds) The more time that you give the slide, the slower and more dramatic the effect will be. I'll post an example. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Father Solanus Casey Center iMovie

Take a look at the newly up loaded iMovie that I put together for the annual Father Solanus Casey Center silent auction fundraiser. It was the first iMovie that I created with royalty-free music. That music was purchased from My Pond 5. Link attached.

Father Solanus Casey Center

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Welcome to my blog site for the popular Apple iMovie platform. I like to create projects for family and friends and I would like to share what I have learned over the years. I am not associated with Apple, just a person who enjoys using this platform.