iMovie question

[Dennis R. Cohen]

On 7/23/03 at 4:12 PM, KathyMac! <Mac4Music at MusiCareOnline.org>
transmitted the following electronic message:

>
>When working with clips in the right pane of iMovie is there a way to 
>"merge" 2 clips together to form one? For instance, I have an 
>introductory screen for 28 seconds and then the intro to a show for 
>1:03. They are broken into 2 clips. Rather than have it that way, I 
>would like to combine both of those clips to form on that is 1:31 long.
>
>How do you do that? I don't see any merge feature. I know you're 
>probably thinking, "what does it matter how long the individual clips 
>are in the clip holder pane? You can build your movie timeline below 
>any way that you want."
>
>That's not the point though. I like my clips organized. I hate having 
>one that is a few seconds especially when it fits nice and logical at 
>the front of the next clip - hence, they should be one.
>Without reimporting, is there a way to manipulate clips like this and 
>reorganize them and customize them?
>
>By the way, I notice that when importing an hour or two of tape each 
>clip captured maxes out at 9:28 in time before breaking off to make a 
>new clip. That is the reason I am having some of these problems when it 
>comes time to cut things up accordingly. When I start cutting clips to 
>sort them according to scene and act 1, act 2, etc....I end up with 20 
>second little clips leftover that need to be merged with it's mother 
>clip!
>
>Someone help this neurotic movie maker....
>

Well, one thing at a time.

You can't really "splice" clips in iMovie.

Check your preference settings to see whether you have iMovie creating
new clips at "scene breaks" -- that means, when your camera detects a
scene break (such as when the record button is turned off, then back
on).

The 9:28 comes from a file-system artifact that isn't really germane any
longer (unless you store your project an HFS formatted disk rather than
HFS+), but was when iMovie was developed -- individual files couldn't be
over 2GB in size, which comes to 9:28 (or thereabouts) of DV data.

If you turn off scene break detection and manually control the Import
process, you can create clips the lengths you desire, as long as the 2GB
limit doesn't enter the picture. Start each "scene" a little early and
let it run a little long, then trim off the ends in iMovie, rewind the
tape a bit and import the next clip the same way. It's tedious, but
should get you the organization you seek.

If, as I suspect, you're bringing in your VHS Roseanne tapes, just
import directly to the Clip Viewer/Timeline rather than to the Clips
pane. That way, everything will be in order from the start. The Clips
pane is handier when you're going to be assembling a movie from
non-sequentially shot scenes or when you're going to pick and choose
from a collection of "takes" to get the ones you want -- for a bulk
import, go with importing directly to the Timeline and don't worry about
how long each clip is -- iMovie does the bookkeeping for you and the
clip breaks won't affect your output.

-- 
Dennis R. Cohen
Mac Digital Photography (Sept 2003)
iLife Bible
OS X Bible
and other titles