Basic Animation using iMovie

Animation is simply a series of still pictures that, when viewed

rapidly one after the other, create an illusion of movement.

The pictures can be obtained several different ways:

Drawing or painting on sheets of

paper.

Creating digital drawings on the

computer.

Taking photos of paper cutouts, clay

objects or other 3-D models.

Animation SOL-ation

1

2

3

When you are taking photos, remember to use a tripod so that your

camera always stays in the same position. Then connect your

camera to iPhoto and Import the pictures.

Click the + sign in the lower left corner of iPhoto to create a new

Album and give it a name.

Next open iMovie and click on the Media button to locate your

pictures.

Click on Photos and you will see all your iPhoto albums listed.

Click on the one you just created for your pictures. Then click on

Show Photo Settings at the bottom to set the speed to about 0:03.

(Also remember to uncheck the Ken Burns Effect).

Now drag your pictures down to the

timeline. If they are still not fast enough,

you can highlight them all, click on the

Editing button, and use the Fast/Slow/

Reverse filter to speed it up further.

Once your animation looks right, you can add titles....

...and drag down music and sound effects to your movie or

record your own voice using the record button.

If you want additional sound effects try these free sites:

www.findsounds.com! ! ! ! www.soundsnap.com

If you have several songs and sound effects, you may need to

decrease or increase the volume of different tracks. Here, I have

reduced the volume of the song to 20%.

Lastly you will need to Export the movie to QuickTime. Usually the

best choice is to compress it for CD-ROM.

Now you have completed an animated learning video that you can

post to a website or just save on the computer.

If you want to create your own digital pictures on the computer

you can use AppleWorks Painting (or some other paint program).

Choose the size of your document by going to Format > Document

Then start drawing your picture using the painting tools.

Remember in animation to build on your previous picture.

You can save time by using the lasso tool to copy objects.

Finally, you will need to save each picture as a JPEG file. Go to

File > Save As... Then click JPEG from the list of choices.

Give each picture a name with a number so they stay in order

when you put them in iMovie (like Seed01.jpg, Seed02.jpg,

Seed03.jpg, etc). Choose the Quality you want (Medium is fine).

When you are done with all the pictures drag them into iMovie.