Although I'm doing most of my video projects in Final Cut Express, I decided to give the "new and improved" iMovie another trial run the other day, just to see if my generally negative opinions of the program have changed (they haven't). In the midst of my test project, I wanted to do something that was simple in iMovie HD: display a photo for a second or two, then apply a Ken Burns move/zoom effect, then pause on the zoomed photo for a bit before moving on.
In iMovie HD, you could do this by applying Ken Burns to a still, then copying the start and end frames of that photo and inserting them before and after the Ken Burns'd still. You could then modify the duration of the still frames as you wished, leaving a seamless hold-zoom-hold effect. My efforts to do the same in iMovie, though, were met with frustration (you can't make a freeze frame from a still, for instance). Thanks to Twitter user @2mutch, however, I now have the solution.
In words, the process is a bit complex:
In iMovie HD, you could do this by applying Ken Burns to a still, then copying the start and end frames of that photo and inserting them before and after the Ken Burns'd still. You could then modify the duration of the still frames as you wished, leaving a seamless hold-zoom-hold effect. My efforts to do the same in iMovie, though, were met with frustration (you can't make a freeze frame from a still, for instance). Thanks to Twitter user @2mutch, however, I now have the solution.
In words, the process is a bit complex:
- Add the still to your project, and set up the Ken Burns effect as you'd like it to be.
- Duplicate the still twice, so you have a total of three copies of your still.
- In the "before" still, edit the Ken Burns effect so that the End effect is identical to the Start effect.
- In the "after" image, first flip the Start/End effects by clicking the small-arrows-icon at the top of the frame.
- Now set the End effect to be equal to the Start effect in the "after" image.
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