Imovie crops my video after I move it to the project

Use the Rotate, Crop, Ken Burns Tool and select FIT.

I have the same problem and "fit" doesn't fix it either.

Imovie is cropping my scene when I move it from the event window into the project window

You've indicated that FIT (as recommended by AppleMan) doesn't fix the problem. Try this method, probably in conjunction with FIT:

In iMovie's menu go to File>Project Properties and change the Aspect Ratio. Swap between Widescreen (16:9) and Standard (4:3). Hopefully, one or the other will fix things for you. You may still need to use FIT.

John

I tried your suggestion many different ways, but it does not solve the problem. *BUT* I should mention that, before trying the various remedies, and in between having this problem, I was able to do an 8 minute project from the same video shoot (absolutely the same conditions) without suffering the cropping problem.

Right-click (or Control-click) on one of your clips in the Event and choose Reveal in Finder. In Finder, open the clip in QuickTime then from the menu select Window>Show Movie Inspector. What does it show against Format - in particular, the size (for example 960 x 540)?

John

Is this DV? Maybe the anamorphic flag was removed.

One of the clips which is being cropped shows:
FORMAT: DV, 720 X 480 (853 X 480), Millions
CURRENT SIZE: 853 X 480 pixels (Actual)

Yes, this is DV, but I have no idea what an anamorphic flag is.

The anamorphic flag tells applications that support it that the media should be played in widescreen.

I don't know what to do about that. All I know is that the clip plays fine in the "Event" window, but when I move it to the "Project" window, it is clipped (presumably to 4:3) when I play it. The thumbnails look good in both windows, but when I play the project *MOST* of the project (a 7 minute clip) plays back cropped.

I should NOT have said "presumably to 4:3". No, instead, it seems to still be in 16:9, but cropped all around. this particularly annoying since the top of the head of a subject is gone.

Could you post screenshots of the viewer with the clips from events and from the project so we can see what's happening?

I don't know how to do that. I *DO* have two YouTube examples. These are two songs in the same set, same camera, same conditions.

"FANTASIA CUBANA" is the one with the problem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p4VmjHOpBo
You can catch a glimpse of the uncropped view in the first second or two. Then the rest is cropped. (The first second or two was from one clip and the remainder from another clip.)

I did "THEIRS' TEARS" (same vantage point) after that and BEFORE trying any of the solutions to the problem and for some unknown reason, that project worked just fine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzQLIgXTNJM

There was no zoom involved at any time in either of those projects. Now, having moved on to two more songs from the set, I can't fix the cropping problem and I also want to go back and fix "FANTASIA CUBANA". Help !!

To post an image on the web just take a screenshot, Cmd-Shift-4 and drag a box to select an area. Put it on flickr or imageshack or something and post the URL here.

Perhaps we could see the project properties as well from the File menu. What happens if you make a new project in widescreen and copy and paste the content to the new project?