So you’ve seen the spooky.. heartracing introductions in movies.. yet how are they done? Whilst this is in no way an example of how to make a professional one, it is the perfect introduction to really set the scene in your home made movies.
So, why did I choose to demonstrate this in iMovie HD as opposed to iMovie ‘08? Googling the latter will give you the answer for that.. iMovie ‘08 gives you very limited control and was most certainly a “backwards step”
from Apple Inc. If you have recently bought a new mac with leopard and iLife ‘08.. you can download the older version of iMovie free, whilst keeping the newer version also.
First we open up iMovie. We’ll start with the sound effects. Click on media in the navigation, followed by audio until you reach two menus. We will choose “Skywalker Sound effects”
from the top menu. As you can see, a handful of options appear.
We’ll now drag “Scary accent”
from the second menu to the second line of audio.
We’ll add a “heartbeat”
to it also. We’ll add this to the top audio line.
As you can see in the screenshot above, our accent is currently 31 seconds. This is way too long. We want it to go for 5 seconds only. We’ll trim the heartbeat first. Navigate the timebar to 5.00 seconds and then click on the heartbeat audio wave. If you can’t use the mouse to get exactly five seconds, you can use your arrow keys to be more accurate.
Now we will click Edit->Split Audio Clip at playhead or use Applekey+T. This splits it in two. Click the second half, and press your delete key. Do the same for the second clip, so it should look like this:
Now we want the heartbeat to be heard. If you haven’t already done so in another project, right click on one of the clips and click “Show clip volume levels”
.
Now, we drag the accent’s volume level lower, and the heartbeat’s should go a little higher.
Play your movie. You should hear your introduction. Now let’s add four seconds of just dots appearing on the screen, to add to the effect.
Select Editing, then titles. We’ll use drifting, with six periods (.’s). Select the speed as four seconds, and when you’re happy, drag it into the video timeline.
Now, after the introduction, we’ll add a thunder clip on the second audio line. It is found in the skywalker effects also. I chose to clip my thunder clip twice (one each side) so that it is only the bit I want.
I can also tell that my movie is now 08:18. I need to make a text clip as my intro last for 3:18. I chose to use red Eccentric Std for effect, but you may choose another.
Play your movie. Perfect introduction! Add your normal photos afterwards. You can change the length of your introduction and other details. Have fun!
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