Inserting Black Frames

When you add clips to your movie, they're inserted end to end without any gaps. But sometimes you want to start a clip at one specific point. While you're experimenting with the timing of your movie, you can insert placeholder clips consisting of black frames to pad sections of the movie.

To insert black frames:

1. In the Timeline Viewer, select the clip that immediately follows the section where you want to add black frames.

2. Click and drag the clip to the right. A black clip appears (Figure 8.24).

   Figure 8.24. Dragging a clip to the right adds a clip composed of black frames before it.

   

3. Continue dragging until the black clip is the duration you want.

   or

   After the black clip has been created, double-click it to bring up its Clip Info dialog box, then change the time in the Duration field. That said, this should work based on iMovie 2's behavior, but it's broken in iMovie 3.0.3 (the latest version available at this writing).

Tips

• If a transition precedes the clip you need to move, you'll need to delete the transition first.

• Black-framed clips don't need to be just placeholders. If you need some black footage longer than what's available using a transition such as Fade In or Fade Out, for example, insert a black clip. You can even paste the clip over footage to keep the audio playing while the screen is dark (see "Pasting Clips over Clips" earlier in this chapter). Another benefit of this is that, unlike using black footage you shot with the camera, black clips don't occupy hard disk space.