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Jul 21, 2010

iLife Tutorial – Use time lapse techniques in iMovie

by iCreate Team

Shoot a series of stills at regular intervals, then turn your footage into a high-speed movie

MainSpecsIt’s easy to forget when watching a movie that we’re actually viewing a series of still images. Because these images whiz by at a rate of 25 images (or frames) per
second, the footage appears to run in ‘real time’. However, if you capture just one image every second (instead of the usual 25) then play the shots back at the usual rate, you’ll see a dramatic increase in the speed at which time passes. This technique is called time lapse photography, and you can produce it using an iPhone and iMovie. You need to capture a series of shots at regular intervals so they flow smoothly. Here’s how to capture and edit your time lapse sequence.

Screen shot 2010-07-21 at 10.20.16Screen shot 2010-07-21 at 10.20.30Screen shot 2010-07-21 at 10.20.42Screen shot 2010-07-21 at 10.20.56Screen shot 2010-07-21 at 10.21.09Screen shot 2010-07-21 at 10.21.20Screen shot 2010-07-21 at 10.21.38Screen shot 2010-07-21 at 10.21.46Screen shot 2010-07-21 at 10.21.57Screen shot 2010-07-21 at 10.22.14

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    14 Comments »

    • ferry dermawan said:
      21 July 2010 at 11:01 am

      Woohhooo tons of thank :)

    • Ben said:
      31 July 2010 at 1:20 am

      Thanks for this. I have a problem when I try to set the duration. iMovie seems to prevent me from setting a duration of less than 0.1 seconds which leaves the timelapse a bit slow. Any suggestions on what I am doing wrong?

    • Dale Mead said:
      7 September 2010 at 5:33 pm

      Thanks for this tutorial; it’s much needed. However, a lot of what you say to do isn’t obvious; you may be assuming familiarity with iPhoto I don’t have. Can you please ID which version this is? I’m working with 6.0.3, which comes with 10.4.11.

      I don’t see the Precision Editor. When I try to drag the photos down to the work area, I get the window Photo Settings. It has two unexplained sliders and won’t let me move them till I click Apply. I guess I do so even though I don’t know what they do?

      Pressing “i” doesn’t get me the Inspector; furthermore, I see no menu listings for it, and iMovie Help doesn’t come up with anything relating to Inspector. That’s where I’m stuck.

      Any ideas? Suggestions? Other time-lapse tutorials for (I’m guessing) my older version?

    • PyleStyle said:
      20 December 2010 at 8:51 am

      I can not find the inspector either….anyone?

    • Az said:
      2 March 2011 at 4:09 pm

      Amazing post, easy to use and effective. Thank you!

    • Kevin said:
      18 April 2011 at 4:53 am

      @Ben: try systematically removing frames. For example, remove every other frame.

    • Simone said:
      6 September 2011 at 9:07 pm

      Great post. Very useful. Thanks!

    • Astrid said:
      7 September 2011 at 6:34 pm

      @Ben: I had the same problem. I tried Kevin’s suggestion, and found it works pretty well. Another option is first exporting the sequence of photos (without the music) – and then importing it to iMovie again. Then you get the video inspector by double-clicking on the clip, and you can speed it up, to up to 8 times the original speed. It looks pretty cool. You get to keep all your pics in there and get a smooth time lapse that isn’t too long ;)
      Then add the music and export again.

    • Periko said:
      9 October 2011 at 8:09 pm

      @Astrid, thats a coool idea. Although it is quite simple, I did not realize I could do that. Thank you!!!

    • Ray said:
      10 December 2011 at 1:11 am

      Has anyone else noticed a significant drop in picture quality when doing this?
      I have taken the pictures from iphoto and put them into imovie.
      Next I changed the duration to .1s per still.
      I then exported the stills and then Imported the video in order to speed it up even more.
      Yes, the time lapse is much faster and smoother, however it looks much worse and more pixilated.
      Any solutions?
      Thank you
      Ray.

    • Jennifer said:
      9 January 2012 at 1:15 am

      First of all, thank you for the tutorial!! @Ben and @Astrid, I also had the same issue changing the duration, however, after spending a few minutes digging around I found a much easier “fix”. Just go to your iMovie Preferences and click the “Display time as HH:MM:SS:Frames” option and you’ll be in business. You might also want to ensure that your “Show Advanced Tools” box is checked at this time.

    • John van der Kieft said:
      8 April 2012 at 4:59 am

      DUDE!!!!! AWESOME post! Thanks!

    • rozailan said:
      17 April 2012 at 4:43 pm

      hi all,
      i have a problem to remove the KEN BURN option, how to do it?

    • Stephen Ashby said:
      18 April 2012 at 11:24 am

      Hi Rozailan,

      Thanks for getting in touch. When you click on a section of your video and hover your mouse over it, you’ll see a small blue button appear with a cog. Click that and choose Cropping & Rotation. At the top of the preview window on the right you will see some buttons appear, including Ken Burns. You can choose either Fit or Crop depending on the dimensions of your video, and this should remove the Ken Burns effect.

      Let us know how it goes!

      Steve

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