iMovie and iLife, Kicking and Screaming
I’ve been using iMovie to assemble the screencasts and the intro movie in the ‘Welcome’ panel. I haven’t tried the new version yet; I’ve been sticking with iMovie-HD most because I’m more familiar with it, and I like having a time line. The problem is, iMovie is rotten at doing slideshows. There are two slideshows in the intro movie; one at the beginning and one at the end.
The problem is that, although the slideshow looks fine in iMovie, it somehow gets messed up on the export to QuickTime. I finally found a solution that involved almost all of the iLife suite. I assemble all the images I need in an iPhoto album, and import my narration track into iTunes. Then I create a slideshow in iPhoto, and add the narration track as the ‘music’ from iTunes. I set the slideshow to run for the duration of the audio track, and disable the ‘Ken Burns’ effect. (Apple, or more precisely, Steve Jobs, must love that ‘Ken Burns’ effect. It’s set as the default in iPhoto and iMovie-HD.) Finally, I export the slideshow to QuickTime, and add it to my iMovie project.
Although it seems like a lot of steps, it’s actually rather quick, and gives you more precise timing. I really must learn the new iMovie sometime soon, though.
Stumble it!
