Desktop Movies with iMovie HD

My previous experience with iMovie HD involved simply importing pictures and setting them to music in a slide show type presentation, which was generated automatically. It was simple, but I had not used any of the more "advanced" features like adding an introduction, credits, transitions, and effects.

Learning from previous experiences in EDCI 505, I decided to watch a few short tutorials on iMovie first before beginning my project. However, the tutorials listed in Module 7 were made for iMovie HD 09. I was using an earlier version, so I looked up some tutorials on YouTube specific to my needs. I opened up the first tutorial I came to, and I hope I'm not exaggerating when I say, I think the kid was 8. This cute as a button little 8 year-old boy was teaching me how to create a introduction using iMovie HD. It was really too much to take! I decided that if a third-grader could figure this thing out, then I could too.

I chose to create an educational movie on the skin, its layers and their functions. I reasoned that because I would need a lot of text and detailed drawings, I would first create my project in PowerPoint. PowerPoint was simple to use and I had many tools from which to create interesting text and graphics. I was then able to save my PowerPoint presentation and import it in its entirety to iMovie. My presentation appeared in individual slides in my work space area. I was then able to choose each slide individually and place them wherever I needed within my iMovie presentation.

Creating the introduction, credits, and transitions could not be easier. Even laying the sound track into the presentation was as simple as clicking on the selected soundtrack and dragging it to the desired location. The trickiest part was finding a way to change the length of each individual slide within the movie. This actually turned out to be quite simple as well. I simply had to click on my slide, then click on "Show Photo Settings." From this point I was able to manually change the timing of each slide.

I adjusted my slide lengths multiple times before the finished product was published on YouTube. Initially I felt my presentation was too fast to be able to process the text and images. Then, I'm afraid I went too far the other direction. Hopefully, on my final attempt I was able to reach a good balance, keeping the presentation moving while still being able to process the information.