Simple Animation In iMovie

You can use Picture-In-Picture and keyframes to animate object movement in iMovie. Once you add an overlay you can set one or more keyframes and the object will move over time to match each keyframe. You can import transparent graphics to use this feature to highlight a moving element in your video.

Comments: 11 Responses to “Simple Animation In iMovie”

    Donald Keys
    10 years ago

    This is an excellent tutorial on how to use Picture-In-Picture and keyframes to animate object movement in iMovie. I did not know you could do this. Since I do some semi-professional video for my business, I will definitely incorporate this keyframe animation in some of my future videos. Thank you Gary.

    Matt
    10 years ago

    great video....is there a way to dim the background and brighten the object in the keyframe?

      10 years ago

      It would be difficult, but you could process each video/picture first and then bring them together in a new iMovie project. Probably take a lot of work. If it is something you need to do often, it might be time to move to a more pro-life editor like Final Cut or Premiere.

    Sue
    10 years ago

    Thanks for this video; I would never have found out about this by myself...I will use this on my next video!

    Linda Taylor
    10 years ago

    Is this new to iMovie 10 or can it be done in 9? I've used picture-in-picture, but not been introduced to this type of animation until now. I'm not sure what you mean by keyframes…are they the frames of the video you want to accentuate, like the duck? As always, you're fantastic, Gary!

      10 years ago

      I can't remember if it is available in iMovie '11 (version 9), and not sure about '09 (version 8) either. A keyframe is an animation term. Say you were to walk from point A, to point B, to point C. A, B and C would be keyframes in your walk. You would take steps in between to get from A to B and then B to C.

        Linda Taylor
        10 years ago

        Thank you Gary. I'll just have to try, with '11. like you often say.

    Joe Shirk
    10 years ago

    Could you expand on creating a semi-transparent graphic that you created in Pixelmator with just a circle and a transparent background.

    I would like to know how this is done - especially in CS3 (if possible) - not familiar with Pixelmator.

    Thanks

      10 years ago

      I don't want to get into doing tutorials for each and every graphics app. I'd do a search on Photoshop and 32-bit transparency or get a friend who knows Photoshop to show you.

    Piet van 't Zelfde (Pete)
    10 years ago

    Can these keyframes as you just showed also be implemented in FCP 7?

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