iMovie HD 6 Drop Zones

[bowens]

I am new to Macs. I've been wanting one for years and finally purchased one last week. I got the higher end Mac Mini with the Intel Core Duo processor. I know it's not a powerhouse but it's still pretty nice. Anyway, I was doing some video editing using iMovie and used some of the themes. I dropped my first video clip into a drop zone and everything worked perfectly. But after that any other clip I placed in a drop zone magically turned into the first clip. I even tried deleting the first clip totally and still every clip that I put in a drop zone turned to that first clip. I even tried restarting the computer and reopening iMovie. Nothing seemed to work. I can put pictures in the drop zones but if I try a video they always turn into that same clip. Has anybody else ever seen anything like this?

 

[SpAtZ]

Do you have all the updates?
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/imoviehd602.html

 

[Texas04]

Make sure you arent splicing clips. Lets say you have your Drop Zones
A B C D

okay and you wish to place clip 1 in A and Clip 1/3 in B. Well Clip 1/3 will automatically start out as clip 1 did. Because it was spliced iMovie takes the clip file and ignores any splicing between clips... really sucks...

 

[bowens]

Make sure you arent splicing clips. Lets say you have your Drop Zones
A B C D

okay and you wish to place clip 1 in A and Clip 1/3 in B. Well Clip 1/3 will automatically start out as clip 1 did. Because it was spliced iMovie takes the clip file and ignores any splicing between clips... really sucks...

How do I separate clips then? When I imported my movie it brought it all in as one giant clip. I thought it was supposed to automatically separate it. I'm sure that's the problem because I had to splice the whole thing.

 

[bowens]

OK. I think I just found the answer to my question on the Apple website. I need to go into Preferences and tell it to "Start new clip at each scene break." Does this mean that I have to start totally over if I want to use videos in my drop zones? I have already put quite a bit of work into this video. I guess I could just stick with pictures for this one.

 

[bowens]

No, I checked and it was set to automatically create clips. Does anyone have any idea why it would not have done this. It created one giant hour long clip. So now I can't put videos in any of my drop zones.

 

[theBB]

You probably need each clip to run for a few seconds before the theme is over. In that case,you could take one of your clips into another iMovie project, keep the first 10-20 seconds of it and export it as a high quality .mov file. Then drop that short .mov file into the drop zone and see if it works. If it does, repeat this procedure for the other clips.

 

[hyperpasta]

No, I checked and it was set to automatically create clips. Does anyone have any idea why it would not have done this. It created one giant hour long clip. So now I can't put videos in any of my drop zones.

Select the video clip you want to split, drag the playhead where you want to split it, and press Command-T.

 

[bowens]

I did split it like that but then any time I try to drag one of those clips into a theme drop zone it starts from the first clip. I have been having to use nothing but pictures in my themes because they always use the same clip.

 

[theBB]

I did split it like that but then any time I try to drag one of those clips into a theme drop zone it starts from the first clip. I have been having to use nothing but pictures in my themes because they always use the same clip.

Any luck with what I suggested?

 

[bowens]

Any luck with what I suggested?

I'll try that tonight and let you know tomorrow. If I do have to do that everytime though that would be kind of a hassle. This is something that should work.

 

[bowens]

That will work doing each clip as a separate movie, but it would take a looooong time to do all of my themes like that. Does anybody have any idea why iMovie didn't create clips from my movie automatically? I tried it with another video too and it still didn't work.

 

[theBB]

I've never imported a long movie from a camcorder, so I cannot help you there, but I have another workaround idea for you. If you will eventually turn that movie into a DVD, you could instead use "themes with movies" inside iDVD menus, instead of your iMovie project. Of ocurse if you want a "theme with movie" to come on in the middle of a movie (instead of the beginning), then you can throw my suggestion out the window.

In iDVD, you can actually move the cursor of the timeline forwards and backwards to set exactly which point you want your little movie inside the theme to start. I am surprised that iMovie does not give you that option.

 

[Texas04]

As of now there is no fix except to splice your clip, drag it to another project, and than re-import it.. gay? yes... and try going into prefrences in iMovie and have it break the clip every 4-5 minutes... helps me when im doing video editing on big 2hr or so projects...

I understand your grief... Complain to apple is the only hope

 

[bowens]

Thanks, I guess I could have it split every few minutes so I don't have too many splices to do.