October 3, 2013
It really is possible to make nice audio slideshows with iMovie
My first effort at creating an audio slideshow with iMovie began with the discovery that one of our photographers had taken 16 pictures for a spread in our entertainment magazine — a behind-the-scenes look at the Kamloops Symphony Orchestra.
That got the gears turning. There were lots of great photos, but what could I use for audio? At first, I thought some symphonic music would be appropriate, then I wondered about commentary from the conductor. After a bit of consultation with the KSO, I wound up doing both. I downloaded music from archive.org that matched what the orchestra was playing in its upcoming concert and I invited the conductor to come into the office to record some commentary. He’s a good sport — in fact quite used to helping out with publicity.
After dragging the photos (all horizontal and cropped to the same size) into iMovie, I bumped up the duration of each to six seconds from four seconds and left on the default Ken Burns effect. I added a nice title from the built-in collection. Next I dragged in the music, and finally the commentary. I tweaked the audio so that the music ducked discretely under the commentary.
I’ve made dozens of videos with iMovie, so working with the program to create an audio slideshow wasn’t much of a leap. Of course, what really makes it succeed are the wonderful pictures. I’m hoping that once the photographer sees it, we can find more events to collaborate on.