iMovie iMovie includes several styles of maps—both still and animated—that you can add to your projects as video clips. These maps add graphic interest to travel videos. For example, you could add a globe map that indicates travel from New York to Paris between video clips recorded in each city.
To add an animated world map to your project:
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With your project open in the Project browser, click the “Map, Background, and Animatic” button in the toolbar below the viewer.
The “Map, Background, and Animatic” browser appears. There are three types of maps, each of which can be rendered in any of four design styles: Old World, Watercolor, Educational, and Blue Marble. All twelve map choices appear in the first three rows of the window.
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Drag a globe map from the first row or a flat map from the second row to your project, and release the mouse button when you see a green Add (+) symbol.
iMovie inserts the map between clips where the vertical green line appears.
In the inspector that appears, type a new duration if you want to change how long the map remains onscreen.
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To apply an interesting visual effect to the map, click the Video Effect button (labeled None).
In the window that opens, move your pointer over any effect to preview it in the viewer. You can also press the Space bar to play the preview in a loop. As the preview loops, you can move the pointer over other effects to preview them. (Press the Space bar again to stop the preview.) Click the effect you want.
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To set the start location for the map’s animation, click the Start Location button (labeled with the name of a city).
In the window that opens, scroll to find a city, or type a location in the field at the top of the window to narrow your search. iMovie knows the locations of thousands of cities, airports, and points of interest around the world.
Select a location by clicking it, and then type the name you want to appear on the map in the field at the bottom of the window. This feature is useful if you want, for example, to use the name of a friend you’re visiting in that city instead of the name of the city.
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If you want the map to show travel from one location to another, select the End Location checkbox, and click the Choose End Location button. Specify a location as described in step 5, above.
When you’re done, click OK.
If you added a flat animated map, instead of a globe animated map, click Done.
If you want iMovie to show a somewhat magnified view of the map, select the “Zoom in” checkbox.
If you want to show an animated route line connecting the two locations, as well as their names, select the “Show route lines/cities” checkbox.
If you added the Blue Marble Globe map, select the “Show clouds” checkbox to add realistic-looking clouds to your map.
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If you want to swap the start and end locations for the map (so that the map animates from Paris to New York instead of New York to Paris, for example), click the Swap button to the right of the location buttons.
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Click Done.
You can change the start and end locations at any time by double-clicking the map in your project and entering new locations.
You can treat the animated map just as you would any other video clip, applying the Ken Burns effect to it, cropping it, adding sound clips to it, and so on.
To add a still map to your project:
The Ken Burns effect is applied to still, or flat, maps. This effect makes it look as if the camera is panning and zooming slightly across the surface of the map while it’s onscreen.
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With your project open in the Project browser, click the “Map, Background, and Animatic” button in the toolbar below the viewer.
The “Map, Background, and Animatic” browser appears. There are three types of maps, each of which can be rendered in any of four design styles: Old World, Watercolor, Educational, and Blue Marble. All 12 map choices appear in the first three rows of the browser.
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Drag a still map from the third row to your project, and release the mouse button when you see a green Add (+) symbol.
iMovie inserts the map between clips where the vertical green line appears.
Double-click the map in the Project browser to open the inspector.
Type a new duration for the map if you want to change how long the map remains onscreen.
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To apply an interesting visual effect to the map, click the Video Effect button (labeled None).
In the window that opens, move your pointer over any effect to preview it in the viewer. You can also press the Space bar to play the preview in a loop. As the preview loops, you can move the pointer over other effects to preview them. (Press the Space bar again to stop the preview.) Click the effect you want.
Click Done.
You can remove or adjust the Ken Burns effect applied to a still map and crop a still map just as you would a photo. If you want to change the style of the still map, first delete the existing map and add a new one in the desired style.
To change the style of an animated map:
This process works with animated maps only, not with still maps.
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With your project open in the Project browser, click the “Map, Background, and Animatic” button in the toolbar below the viewer.
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Drag a different style of animated map from the “Map, Background, and Animatic” browser to the location of the existing animated map in the Project browser.
The new map replaces the old map but retains its locations, duration, and other specifications.
To delete a map:
In the Project browser, select the map so that it has a yellow border around it.
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Press Delete, or choose Edit > Delete Selection.
The Edit menu appears in a light gray bar across the top of your computer screen.