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Time Lapse in iMovie 10.0.3

I have been searching for this answer for 2 days now and I cant find it...How do I change the speed of a clip in iMovie 10.0.3? In previous releases, I could doubleclick on the clip and the inspector window would pop up and I could change it there. Not so in iMovie 10.0.3. I can change the effect (crop) but I cant change the duration. I know I am doing something wrong but I cant for the life of me figure it out.

MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2012), iOS 7.1.1

Posted on May 31, 2014 6:37 PM

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7 replies

Feb 18, 2015 9:39 AM in response to ajzpop

I agree with all of you who are irritated by how difficult it is to get to this setting -- if you compare the way iMovie has developed in recent years, it's clear that Apple is removing functionality more than it is making the user experience easier. I saw a Youtube video on how to do this in iMovie 9 and it's incredibly easy. Not only that, but you can get it down to less than 1 second per photo. I'd like to get to 0.1 seconds per photo. Can anyone help me with that, or is it impossible in iMovie 10?

Thanks!

Sep 19, 2015 4:39 PM in response to ajzpop

I followed the tips in this thread, today, and managed to make a time-lapse movie from over 3,000 photos at 0.1 second per frame. I'm using iMovie 10.0.9.


I think it went like this:

  • Import the photos into iMovie as a new event.
    • Your view should now be of the clips (photos) in that event.
    • Ensure the View... Sort Clips By... shows Date so the clips are ordered in time sequence.
  • Create a New Movie using the No Theme style, within that same event.
  • In the Clips pane, Select All (cmd-A) to select all the clips.
  • Add To Movie (press the "E" key).

    Hopefully you will not see any transitions between clips! That happened to me on my first attempt, in which I dragged the clips into the timeline. Maybe my approach (press "E" to Add To Movie) avoided those automatic transitions. I can't find any magic setting or preference that controls the addition of automatic transitions, but maybe I stumbled across such a setting and don't remember it.

  • Click one of the clips in the Timeline pane, then Select All (cmd-A) to select all the clips in the timeline.
  • Choose Windows... Movie Properties (cmd-J) and click Settings in the Preview pane.
    • In Photo Placement choose Fit.

      If you don't see Photo Placement click on the crop icon (a rectangle with extended sides).

    • Click the information icon (an "i" with a circle around it).

      You should see a Duration box; erase what is in that box and type 0.1 (for a tenth of a second) or whatever duration you want each photo to consume in your video.

  • Now you have the core of a time-lapse movie!
    • Add titles if you want.
    • If you want to add a transition, like a fade to black after the last clip, or a fade between clips, you'll need to select the neighboring clip(s) and extend their duration longer than 0.5 seconds (the default duration of a transition). After the transition is inserted you can fiddle the duration of the neighboring clip(s) to get the effect you want.
  • See my timelapse video on SmugMug.

    These photos were captured with a Nikon D300 camera on a tripod and set to Interval mode with a 20s interval. I used iMovie to present them at 0.1s each (200x real time), to add titles, and to add a pause and fade-to-black at the end of each day's photo sequence.

Time Lapse in iMovie 10.0.3

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