how to change video clip speed in iMovie 11 project

I think you might need to turn on the 'Advanced Tools' in iMovie '11. Go to iMovie Menu>Preferences> Show Advanced Tools. This should turn-on the turtle icon when you open the Inspector for any video clip. There's also a way to create a Picture-in-picture effect by dragging one video clip onto another then setting the size of the video frame for the P-i-p effect then set the Opacity slider to make it a bleed/ghost image.

Okay, it may be the case that the clip needs to be converted. I have video I shot with a Flip camera. iMovie can play it and I can edit it, until I want to change the speed. So when I go to the Inspector this is what I see:

Speed: Convert Entire Clip! This means I need to convert the clip to the iMovie's Apple Intermediat Codec format to do speed adjustments. Once converted, then the Speed slider should show up the next time you look at the Clip through the Clip Inspector. Do you see this button in your Inspector window? Also make sure you have the clip placed in a Project in the Project Library. Some functions will not appear until the clip is in a project ready to be edited.

Picture in Picture won't appear as an option until you drag a clip onto another clip inside the Project Browser. When you do drag a clip and drop it onto another clip you will see this pop-up menu:

Once you pick the Picture-in-Picture option, you will see your dropped in clip show up in the preview window to position and resize it. Drag it around and make it as big as you would like. On the Project timeline this is what the two clips will look like:

It looks a lot like a Cutaway, but you can make the frame of the second clip bigger smaller and drag it around. On the Clip inspector window you can also make it fade in and out by setting the dissolve effect for the Picture in Picture and get a kind of ghostly appearance and allso set the Video Effect for the second clip to Dream. So I quickly put this into a video clip to show you what the result looks like when you try to do what you describe in iMovie: Picture in Picture Example on Youtube Anything more refined/sophisticated than this would require Final Cut Pro X I think.

I'm not running iMovie at the moment (about to hit the sack), but I think Cutaway has an Opacity slider (after opening the Inspector). Using that should give Bird212 the desired effect.

By the way - great post!

John

John is absolutely correct, opacity adjustment is on Cutaway, skip the the Picture in Picture, that's not quite going to do it. Cutaway is definitely WAY closer to what you're trying to do. Somehow I got PIP and Cutaway mixed up in my head.

(Thanks for catching that John!)