How to Set Images to Beat Markers - Existing Project

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Level 1

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How to Set Images to Beat Markers - Existing Project

I've given up with the Snap to Beats setting. Here's what I need to do:

Have an existing project with lots of images in a particular order.
Added music to the project.
Added appropriate beats to the music.
Need to align the existing images to the beat marks.

Please help me or point me to a source. I have been trying this for four hours and can't get it to work.

Thank you.

2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Dec 2, 2010 7:20 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 3, 2010 3:51 AM in response to AlphaSmith

I have not tried it with photos but I think it work similar to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tju6lCdsIBs if not I will put it on the list.

--
Daniel C. Slagle
Keeper of the "Unofficial" iMovie FAQ I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link

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Answer 2

Dec 3, 2010 4:13 AM in response to AlphaSmith

I probably should re-do that video to show once the meat markers are in place you can drag/move them around.

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Answer 3

Dec 3, 2010 4:31 AM in response to AlphaSmith

In playing with this on an existing project it is near impossible to set the duration right. I would Print that project off for the photo order and start a new one.

Once you have the audio in you can do your beat markers in the clip editor. Once you have the beat markers turn on Snaps to Beats and drop your photos in.

iMovie makes this seem harder than it should be IMO. Not sure if hiding the audio with no photos or video is "intuitive".

--
Daniel C. Slagle
Keeper of the "Unofficial" iMovie FAQ I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link

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Answer 4

Dec 3, 2010 5:00 AM in response to Daniel Slagle

I think once you have put in clips of your own, before the beat markers, iMovie assumes you put it there for a reason and does not want to move them around. Beat markers work best when put in in advance.

It seems to me that a workaround might be to use the storyboard animatics. I am not sure if I would do this with beat markers or comment markers. I would have to play with it.

Another workaround would be to SHARE the existing project using Export Using QuickTIme in Apple Intermediate Codec. Import this clip back into an iMovie Event.
Then start a new project with the beat markers. After finishing adding the beat marker material, add back the AIC clips that you need from the event you just imported.

Message was edited by: AppleMan1958

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Answer 5

Chiloe

Level 1

4 points

Feb 11, 2011 10:20 PM in response to AppleMan1958

This is frustrating and seems like an oversight (no matter how great of an idea snap to beats was/is). Ive got many photos all painfully arranged, decide a song, mark the beats I want, snap to beats, but it won't adjust the clips to match the beats. Seems stupid that one would have to first load the song into the project, choose your beat markers even before knowing what photos/vids you will load, then load them?

ANY help on people who have encountered this?

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Answer 6

Feb 12, 2011 6:02 AM in response to Chiloe

I have found it works best for me to import the song first. Set the beat markers. [Good Tutorial here|http://www.kenstone.net/fcp homepage/imovie_09stone.html#markers]

In iPhoto, I create an album that contains the photos in the order that I want them. (Important: you want an iPhoto Album, not an iPhoto Event)

Then in iMovie, I go to the Photo Browser and navigate to the album I created in iPhoto. I drag the little icon for the album into the iMovie Project. The pictures come in in the right order and snap to the beats.

Here is a [recent project I did this way|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYNk42iqxD4]

Here is a [great example project from Ian Parkinson|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Crs1Mx92js]

I have tried putting in the photos first, but I get frustrated and go back to this way.

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Answer 7

Mar 27, 2012 3:41 PM in response to AppleMan1958

I have been beating my brains out also trying to get this to work. The only way I can get it to work is to start a new project, but I don't want to start my project with a bunch of stills or vids. Instead I have an opening with a bunch of short clips and titles, then when I try to ad music and snap photos to the beat, it just ignores the beat marks. I don't know why Apple made this such a hard to use feature, makes it pretty useless.

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Answer 8

May 29, 2012 12:32 PM in response to AlphaSmith

I agree on the difficulties of snap to beat. I have been working on an eight minute slide show with music for over six hours with no success. I have watched five or six tutorials and they all show the same basic approach.

1) Import audio first

2) set beat markers

3) make sure Snap to Beat is checked

4) Import photos.

I've changed music and gone to a shorter slide show with less slides and less music. Nothing works.

If there are limitations, they should be listed. But if I can't get snap to beats to work with a less than three minute song and 20 pictures, I think that is a Imovie issue.

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Answer 9

Jul 16, 2012 10:57 AM in response to garyfromeugene

I agree with GaryfromEugene here. The steps outlined in his post above. If you want to place a number of different photo/video sets into your iMovie Project then the only way I've found is to:

Follow Gary's steps:

1) Import audio first

2) set beat markers

3) make sure Snap to Beat is checked

4) Import photos.

THEN:

A) Goto Share/Export and Export this as a Movie;

B) Start a New Project then put all of the stuff in as you want then:

C) Import the Beat Mapped Movie as a whole (the one already exported at Step A).

This way you preserve all of the Beat Marks and Imaging just as you'd wanted in the first place.

It's a bit of a work around and requires some pre-planning because you really need to set-up all of your beat-marked files first, then amalagamate them all in a final video sequence.

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