Editing Transition Settings

Configure a transition's behavior before you add it to your movie.

To choose a transition:

1.

Click the Editing button and then click the Transitions button to view the list of available transitions (Figure 11.1). Figure 11.1. Choose a transition type from the Transitions list in the Editing pane.

2.

Click a transition name. The Monitor automatically plays a preview version of the transition. Using the Preview controls, you can (Figure 11.2): Click the Play button to start or stop playback of the preview. Click the Loop button to start or stop continuous playback. Drag the Preview playhead in the preview's scrubber bar. Click the Hide Preview button (marked X) to cancel the transition. Click the Apply button (marked with a checkbox) to apply the transition, which adds it to the Timeline. Figure 11.2. Use the Preview controls in the Monitor to see how the rendered transition will appear.

To change a transition's duration:

1.	Select a transition, either in the Transitions list or one that you've already added to the movie.
2.	Drag the Speed slider or type a value into the Speed field. Transitions can be as short as 1 frame or as long as 10 seconds.

Tips

• iMovie creates a preview based on the location of the Playhead. If it's near the beginning of the clip, iMovie transitions the previous clip into the current one; if the Playhead is near the end of a clip, it transitions the current clip to the next one.

To set an effect's direction:

1.	Select the Push transition for an example of this type of setting. Billow also uses a directional control.
2.	Click a button on the directional controller to specify how the effect plays (Figure 11.3). Using Push, the control indicates where the old clip exits the frame and the new clip enters (by default, the new clip "pushes" the old clip from left to right). Figure 11.3. Push is one transition that features a directional control.

Tips

• If you click the name of the Push transition, it reverts back to the default left-to-right push, even if you specified a different direction.

• Transitions can also blend between movie footage and still clips. For example, you're editing an interview and you want to dissolve to an embarrassing high school photo of the interviewee. You can also achieve some low-tech special effects: suppose you want to end your video with a still image overlaid with styled text. Save one frame as a still image (explained in Chapter 9), and add the text in Photoshop or a similar program. Then, import the changed still image, and add a Cross Dissolve or Overlap transition before it (Figure 11.4).

  Figure 11.4. Use Overlap to slowly dissolve from a clip to a modified still image.

  

• iMovie includes the most commonly used types of transitions, but you may be looking for a different kind of effect. If so, check out transitions and plug-ins offered by third-party developers. Although I can't honestly say I'll ever use a transition that draws video within a heart shape, for example, other transitions range from the beautifully subtle to truly psychedelic. See Appendix B for a list of iMovie plug-in developers.