Section 9.4. Still Images as Titles


9.4. Still Images as Titles

As noted at the beginning of this chapter, one of the best reasons to get to know the still-image importing feature is so that you can supplement, or replace, iMovie's built-in titling feature. By using still images as your titles, you gain the freedom to use any colors, type sizes, and positions you want.

GEM IN THE ROUGH
The Ken Burns Cropping Effect

You already know that the Ken Burns effect can animate a photo over time, slowly (or quickly) zooming, panning, or both, depending on where the picture is when you click the Start and End buttons .

But you can also zoom or shift the photo without animating it. In effect, you can use the Ken Burns tools to crop a photo as you place it into your Movie Track. This is a great trick for dealing with a vertical photo that you want to use in the horizontal orientation of a standard television. By zooming in until the black bars disappear, you've chopped off some of the top and bottom of the picture.

To try this out, click a photo, make sure the Ken Burns checkbox is turned off, specify the duration, and then zoom in. Lastly, drag to shift the photo the way you like it.

Here's a related trick that you may find useful. Suppose you've just Ken Burns-ized a photo. You change your mind. You want it to be still, but you like the way it ends.

In that case, Option-click the Start button (in the Photos panel), and then click Update.

Option-clicking copies the End position and zoom level into the Start position. The result is a clip that doesn't move or pan at all, but instead maintains the same zoom level and position for its entire duration. (You can Option-click the End button, too, if the Start position and zoom level are what you want to use for the entire clip.)


The only disadvantage to this approach is that you sacrifice the professional-looking animation styles built into the iMovie titling feature.

Even so, imported graphic title cards don't have to be still and static by any means. For one thing, there's nothing to stop you from animating your still-image titles by applying the Ken Burns effect to themto make the title zoom in from nothing, for example, or slide from left to right. (Just remember to prepare the title as a graphi with high enough resolution for Ken Burns to work with.)

Furthermore, consider the following title tricks.

9.4.1. The Freeze-Frame Effect

If you were a fan of 1970s action shows like Emergency!, you may remember how the opening credits looked : You'd be watching one of the starring characters frantically at work in some lifesaving situation. As she looked up from her work just for a moment, the picture would freeze, catching her by lucky happenstance at her most flattering angle. At that instant, you'd see her credit flashed onto the screen: "JULIE LONDON as Dixie McCall, RN." ( Queer Eye for the Straight Guy does the same kind of thing.)

That's an easy one to simulateand nobody will guess that it was created using a still image. To pull this off, you must first export the still frame from your footage that you'll want to use as the freeze-frame. (You'll find instructions for exporting a still frame in the next section.) Import the frozen shot into your graphics program, like AppleWorks or Photoshop Elements. Then add the text you want.

POWER USERS' CLINIC
The Fade-to-Black (or Fade-to-Puce) Secret

As noted in Chapter 6, it's easy to create a professional-looking fade-out at the end of your movie. Unfortunately, while iMovie does a great job at taking your film from the final footage to a black frame, it ruins the mood created by its own effectby ending the movie. Unlike professional movies, which fade to black and then hold for a moment, iMovie fades to black at the end of the movie and then stops playing, sending your viewers back to iMovie, your desktop, the football game, or whatever was on the computer or TV screen before you played the movie.

The solution is very simple, and well worth making a part of your regular iMovie repertoire . Here's the drill:

Just after the final fade-out, create a black clip. (Recap: Paste a random clip after the final shot of your movie, drag it rightward in the Timeline Viewer to make a black clip appear, Control-click the gap, choose Convert Empty Space to Clip, and then delete the random clip, leaving the freshly minted black clip behind.)

Then, instead of using the Fade Out transition described in Chapter 6, use Cross Dissolve. iMovie fades smoothly from the final footage of the clip into your black box.

As noted in Chapter 6, whenever you use a transition, iMovie splits the clip into two piecesone that includes the transition animation, and the unaffected half. Change the duration of the unaffected half of your black square to make the moment of blackness as long as you desire .

Nor should you be content to fade to black. In fact, you can fade out to whatever color you desirewhite, blue, gray, anything. Just change the black clip's color as explained on page 140.


Finally, import this touched-up image into iMovie as a still image. Place it at the precise frame in your footage from which you exported the still frame to begin with, and you've got your freeze-frame title effect.


Tip: If you don't need the added typographical flexibility of your graphics program, you can simplify this procedure by simply creating a freeze-frame, as described on the previous page, and then using iMovie's built-in title feature to add the text over it.

9.4.2. The Layered Effect

In many cases, the most creative use of still-image titles comes from using several of them, each building on the last. For example, you can make the main title appear, hold for a moment, and then transition into a second still graphic on which a subtitle appears.

If you have more time on your hands, you can use this trick to create simple animations. Suppose you were to create ten different title cards, all superimposed on the same background, but each with the words in a different size or position. If you were to place each title card on the screen for only half a second (15 frames ), joined by very fast crossfades, you'd create a striking visual effect. Similarly, you might consider making the color of the lettering shift over time. To do that, create two or three different title cards, each with the text in a different color. Insert them into your movie, join them with slow crossfades, and you've got a striking, color-shifting title sequence.



iMovie HD & iDVD 5. The Missing Manual
iMovie HD & iDVD 5: The Missing Manual
ISBN: 0596100337
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 209
Authors: David Pogue

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net