Joining video clips to make a composite movie in iPhoto
Tuesday, March 02 2010
By: chrisb
Make a Movie without using iMovie
Slideshow on YouTube
If you take video clips with your digital photo camera, the clips will import into iPhoto along with the still photos. You might like to join those clips together to make a longer movie to share but don't want to mess with iMovie.
iMovie is a great tool for turning video clips into a movie, but it does require some time and effort to learn. If you plan on making many movies, I suggest taking the time to learn it. However, there is an easy way to join video clips into a movie that uses the slideshow feature of iPhoto.
Once you have created your movie, you can publish it to a DVD, a MobileMe gallery or to YouTube.
Note: I have not tested this in versions of iPhoto earlier than '09 so I don't know if it will work in older versions or not.
The trick to this tip is to create a slideshow that is made up of video clips. When iPhoto plays the slideshow, each video clip will play in its entirety in the order you have selected.
There are two things you can't do when making a slideshow of video clips. If you want to do these things you will need to use iMovie:
You can't trim the beginning or end of the clip. It will play its entire length in the slideshow. This can be a problem if the beginning or the end of the clip have lots of movement such as trying to find and focus on the subject.
You can't control the audio of the clips. Depending on the format your digital camera records video clips in, you may or may not get the sound from the clip in your exported movie. (You may hear the clip audio when you preview the slideshow in iPhoto, but not in the exported movie.) If the clip audio comes through and you add music to the slideshow, both will play.
That said, I'm going to give you some general instructions and then head you over to the tip on publishing your slideshow. Really all you are doing is creating a slideshow of video clips instead of still photos.
When you select your clips to add to the slideshow, note the length of each clip. (The clip length shows in the bottom right of the clip thumbnail in Photo Thumbnail view.) In the Slideshow Settings panel, set the length to play each clip longer than the longest clip. This will allow each clip to play its full length and then move to the next when completed.
Test different Themes to see which one looks the best. Personally, I favor the Snapshots theme. As you preview the slide show, you may see it stutter or stop for a few seconds when it is playing. The exported version will play smoothly.
