Preview of Ken Burns Effect is a black screen!!

So, I am doing a movie for my parents, and I have 102 photos that I have loaded into IMovie. I loaded them in to the clips section, as I am not a huge fan of iPhoto personally. At first, no problems, but later, as I dragged photos into the playhead area, my photos wouldn't allow me to preview the Ken Burns Effect. I would drag them into the playhead, click on "Meda" button, and then select the Show Picture Settings button. The preview screen goes black as the effect scrolls through the process, disallowing me to see the preview. I have deleted the pictures from IMovie, re-inserted them, and started over (AAAARRRRRGGGGGG!), and it happened again.
Any Ideas? Thanks for the help!
Oh, and I have made no modifications to my machine (no new graphics card), and the pictures are all in .jpg format.

Hi Tonyy13.
I am presenting the same problem. I can set the Ken Burns' effect while I am with the pictures before placing them in the Clip or Timeframe viewer. After placing them there, if I try to edit the picture (either by right clicking and choosing -edit picture or by control clicking and doing the same, I ended up with a black background. If you change the setting in this black ackground and update this changes they will be effective. So, you can change the slide duration, and everything in the sliders but without an image.
I was running System 10.3.9 and I thought this was the reason. Today, I went and bought Tiger but it didn't sove the problem. I do believe it is a bug in the program. According to Apple's Help and David Pogue's "The Missing Manual" this shouldn't happen.
If you solve this problem reply to this posting. If I did I will reply to your posting. Thank You.

Similar Messages

Preview of Ken Burns effect doesn't work with some pictures

I just recently installed a new graphics card (ATI Radeon 7500) on my Sawtooth, 1.2 GHz, so I could utilize the Ken Burns effect in imovie HD. It works but only partly. It works great but with some pictures the preview pane doesn't show the photo. What I see is a what looks like bad reception on an old TV (fuzzies and the picture is distorted so bad you can't even make it out). With other pictures the preview shows up fine. I'm sure I've loaded the drivers. What else can I do?

Hi Tonyy13.
I am presenting the same problem. I can set the Ken Burns' effect while I am with the pictures before placing them in the Clip or Timeframe viewer. After placing them there, if I try to edit the picture (either by right clicking and choosing -edit picture or by control clicking and doing the same, I ended up with a black background. If you change the setting in this black ackground and update this changes they will be effective. So, you can change the slide duration, and everything in the sliders but without an image.
I was running System 10.3.9 and I thought this was the reason. Today, I went and bought Tiger but it didn't sove the problem. I do believe it is a bug in the program. According to Apple's Help and David Pogue's "The Missing Manual" this shouldn't happen.
If you solve this problem reply to this posting. If I did I will reply to your posting. Thank You.

Problem editing ken burns effects in timeline

All i'm getting is a black screen. Its not allowing me to preview the ken burns effects in the timeline. The only way i can edit pictures is from the media file. Anyone have any suggestions on why this is happening?

The only way i can edit pictures is from the media
file.
Sorry, I don't understand what that means. Please say more, if it's important.
There's a bug in iMovie 6 that makes it impossible to re-edit (Update) photo clips previously imported with the Ken Burns checkbox ON. The source photo, normally stored in the Media folder of the project, is (inappropriately) discarded when you empty the iMovie trash. The clips Update as black clips and the preview is usually black too, if I recall.
The workaround is to 1) drag the photo from the iMovie trash to the iMovie Clips pane; or 2) never empty the iMovie trash.
So, is the preview black on NEW photo imports, or just those clips you are Updating? If the latter, then it's that bug causing the problem.
Karl

Thmes and Ken Burns Effect

All images used are still photos at least 5x7 inches @ 300ppi. I like the "Themes" feature in iMovie, but when i drop the photos in, they seem quite "soft" as the Theme goes through its motion. Also; when I preview the Ken Burns effect, the photos look fantastic on the screen as I zoom and Pan. However, when I hit the "Apply" button, the images soften. Any explanation for these two questions? One more question please, would a more expensive software product produce sharper results? Thanks very much. Wayne from Studio 24

Hi Wayne
I'm not so familiar with Ken Burns but can share some thoughts.
1 - If I would use KB in an iMovie project I would definitly NOT use the Share/Export
to iDVD function within iMovie BUT
a) Close iMovie
b) find the project icon/folder
c) Ctrl-click on it and Show package.
d) in this there are a folder -> Shared Movies -> iDVD
e) in this there is a QT movie nnnnnnn.mov
- You can test this with QT-player to see that it is OK -
START A NEW iDVD project - so that old material will not interfere.
f) drop this into an open theme in iDVD (just inside the edge of the
window) and save it as a desktop image
(if iDVD prior HD/5 You have to add a hack to make this possibly
named HPfurz and install it)
Test this with Apple DVD-player - OK then burn it with iDVD
or Toast if You have and don’t want to re-code the movie.
2 - I use more and more FinalCut Express HD 3.5 and in this there are no
Ken Burn as a function but there are a much more powerful function to lay
out motions by hand and in a very precise way. And here You have a really
super quality on Your picture.
BUT on the other hand FCE has a rather steep learning curve and to me lots
of trial and error. But it's much more fun than any coputer games I came across
to date. AND it costs !
Yours Bengt W

Video Slideshow Creation in iMovie (Ken Burns Effect)

I'm trying to create a slideshow video in iMovie. The process seemed pretty straight forward, and seemed to be going nicely. I got all the images imported into iMovie and added the music to the timeline as I wanted. When I previewed my results though, I was less than pleased.
After viewing the preview, the Ken Burns effect was the exact same zoom/pan for every picture--it wasn't randomizing the effect like it does when you do a slideshow from within iPhoto or Front Row. Any way to get it to randomize the effect? There's just way to many pictures in this compilation (250+) to go through and change it up a bit for each.
At this point, I figured I'd just go with the slideshow export feature in iPhoto since it does randomize the Burns effect. Yeah, that didn't go so hot either. Apparently, you can only add one music track, so I had to find a utility to combine the MP3s we were going to be using. Looked like this was going to work until we played it after the (LONG!) export process. Turns out, the slideshow somehow ended up a whole four minutes shorter than what I had in iMovie. Apparently the default transition speed of 5 seconds does not hold true to iPhoto slideshows. Plus, much to my surprise there is absolutely no fade-out in the music at the end--it just abrubtly stops. Not cool.
There's got to be a way to make that (very cool) Ken Burns effect randomize in iMovies I'd think. Any suggestions?

Although you cannot permanently remove the Ken Burns effect option, you can set your default to having it off.
You need to apply your settings to a particular photo and then the changes should be the new default.
Drag any photo into the timeline. Select 'show photo settings' and deselect KB effect and update that photo.
Close or hide photo settings. Click on something else. If you don't want the photo in your timeline, delete it.
When you open the 'show photo settings' again, your recent changes should be there.
If this process does not work for you, try deleting iMovie's preference file.
With iMovie closed, go to your Home file(YourUserName)/Library/Preferences/com.apple.imovie.plist
Drag this plist file to the trash. iMovie will create a new one when you reopen it.
Reopen iMovie.

Photos on timeline showing black when using ken burns effect

My photos in the project are not visible in the preview window when selecting'show settings' after the ken burns effect has been applied. The arrow moves but the screen is black.
Any ideas ??

Although you've posted in the iMovie 5 forum, that sounds like a well-known iMovie 6 bug. If you are using iMovie 6 you may have encountered the bug:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=714698&tstart=0
Karl

Black window when revising Ken Burns effects on photos

Can someone help overcome the black preview window when I try to revise settings for Ken Burns effects on photos in the timeline?
Many thx!
iBook 14 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Are you trying to edit a previously imported image
rendered by the Ken Burns Effect? If so, there's an
iMovie bug that prevents you from updating the clip
when you empty the iMovie trash. It also turns the
preview black.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=191
2675?
:)Sue
Yes, and thank you for the link to the thread. Since there are still varying results, I was hoping that Apple had published a patch or announced a new version that fixed this bug that is now very old. Fyi, my computer won't download the latest version, but my 'updater' says one exists.
Best regards.
iMac 17 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Black screen when trying to apply Ken Burns effect

I drag a clip to the timeline, click on media-show photo settings, then the box for ken burns effect shows up but the screen goes black and it says it doesn't recognize the file. I enlarged, dragged and it still doesn't work. It worked earlier in the day...? I defragmented and made more disk space. What could the problem be?!?!?

Ok, I've read what has been posted, but it doesn't work for me. My situation: Macbook Pro, 2.16 ghz, 100gig drive mostly filled up. So, I've attached a USB Western Digital 1 tb drive to do video work. I previously used a WD 500 gb drive. I don't remember, but this may be the first movie that I've done since upgrading to OS 10.
Anyway, using the WD drive, the first time I tried using KB effect was 2 wks ago and got the black picture after applying KB. So, I did without. Same thing happened again yesterday. I perused the subject here, did all those things, and the same thing happened again.
Then, I moved the iMovie file to my computer and tried it and it worked. I moved the file to the external drive and it still worked. BUT, it wouldn't let me apply KB using the file on the WD drive. Back to the computer and it worked again.
So, any one got any ideas as to why it will work on the computer but not on the external drive, at least in the application phase?
Thanks for your attention.
Mac

I have an older version of imovie. After I change the photos using the Ken Burns effect and save them, the next time I open the file and click 'show photo settings' to change the zoom, the picture appears black and I can't change the zoom?

I have a five year old version of imovie that generally works fine. However, when I add a photo using the 'Ken Burns' effect then save the movie, the next time I open the file and click 'show photo settings' the picture appears black and I cannot change the zoom. Any suggestions?

Have you rendered both iOS 7 and iOS 8 (both of which will work on your iPhone 5) out of the question entirely without trying every possible configuration? The animations can be disabled entirely, if that's the problem. And if the whiter-brighter user interface is the problem, there's reverse-contrast modes that darken everything. You can expose accessibility controls to gain immediate access to these functions to toggle them on and off. I guess my point is you may have decided against upgrading the OS based on an early experience with iOS 7 when Apple has since made changes in later revisions to address some of the usability complaints.
Now, Apple's instructions for downloading older versions of apps is to do so from the Purchased list, not from the app's product page.
See here:
Install the latest compatible version of an app on an earlier version of iOS or OS X - Apple Support
Let us know how that works for you.

Photo Settings not showing up; cannot remove Ken Burns effect

Hello,
Earlier today, I selected the photo setting button and a little box showed up with the Ken Burns effect options in it, however now when I select photo settings, the only thing that shows up is the preview of the of photo zooming/panning. Please help... how do I get back to that little box so I can remove the Ken Burns effect from my photos! Thanking you!

Also having the same problem. When going to show photo settings, it shows black screen. Un checking Ken Burns and updating does nothing. All photos in slide show have same super zoom of Ken Burns with no way to remove it or alter it.
iMovie HD broken, iMovie 08 ***... The only reason I purchased Mac was for handling media and I end up doing projects on my old pc using photoshop elements.

IMovie 6.0.3 won't render Ken burns effects or Themes

I'm working in iMovie 6.0.3. Whenever I try to apply a Ken Burns effect or a theme, the red "render" bar completes, but then I just end up with a frames of empty black the same length as whatever I had tried to put there.
I tried deleting the com.apple.imovie file in the Preferences.
I used the disk utility to restore permissions.
I emptied my caches.
I've restarted my computer.
Do anyone have any suggestions of what I could try?
Thanks!

Just saw this June thread - I have iMovie 6.0.4 and am having this exact problem. I can't believe that there aren't more threads about it. This is the first video I've done since upgrading to OS 10.5 and iLife 7 and then importing the old iMovie 6.0.4 for obvious reasons.
I filled the timeline with photos, set them to the music, then previewed Ken Burns Effect and it looks great. But when I tried to update using KBE and all I get is a BLACK clip that acts like a blank in my timeline. If I apply KBE directly to a photo in the photo tray the same thing happens. KBE is completely unavailable to me!
Let's keep this thread going until we find a solution. It's not the version. Thanks!

How do I remove ken burns effect?!?!

Hi,
I have iLife 6.0.3 and I'm experiencing 2 problems.
1. iMove keeps on crashing on me, it seems like I have to close my eyes and pray that it doesn't crash before I get to save my project, which is most often than not.
2. Probably the most frustrating, is the Kens Burns Effect. I can not REMOVE, DELETE, GET RID OF IT! (I don't know any other way to put it) I just want it out of my original clip! I did everything the iMove Help suggested I do.
But there's no "Apply" it's "Update" and it did not work, and I did delete the transitions before and after the clip.
With the older version of iMovie this was not a problem!
Please please please help!!!
PowerBook5,6 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Aha. That sounds like a different problem. There's a bug in iMovie 6 that affects the Updating of clips of images we imported with the Ken Burns checkbox ON.
Normally when we import an image iMovie keeps a copy of the image inside the project. It's retained so we can update the clip later.
Trouble is, when we empty the iMovie Trash iMovie inappropriately discards its copy of the image. Later, because the source image is not available, the Update button fails to update the clip selected on the Timeline.
The first sign of pending failure is that the Preview screen is black instead of showing the image. A moment later, when we press the Update button, nothing changes in the Timeline clip. iMovie fails to Update the clip, but with no error message.
There's no good workaround. One solution is to never empty the iMovie Trash. Then iMovie won't discard the image. (We can still select large clips in the iMovie Trash window and discard them individually.)
Another is to use the Finder to lock the image file inside the project so iMovie can't discard it. That's pretty inconvenient, however. (When I REALLY want to empty the iMovie Trash I use an AppleScript to lock all the images in the Media folder of the project before emptying the iMovie trash. More convenient. Most of the time, however, I just individually discard large items in the iMovie Trash.)
Does that sound like what you see?
Karl

Can't get rid of the Ken Burns Effect!!

Not sure why, but when choose Show Photo info when working on the clips in iMovieHD, in Preview, I don't see the photo. It's just black. I also can not get rid of the Ken Burns Effect. I click the X so it won't be applied to the photos, but it does it anyway. This is becoming very frustrating. Is there some sort of bug that's causing it to do this? I started over several times seeing if that would help, but it hasn't. Any suggestions??

Cathy,
that yellow star, you gave Sue were the last 5 points to make her an honorable
LEVEL 4
forum member...
CONGRATS, SDILLINI!
hooray... ;-)))))
from the working pits down here in Level3....
(probably, she doesn't hear me, hanging out with the other Big Boys in The L4 Lounge...)

Ken Burns Effects Don't Work in iMovie HD (I've Tried Everything)

Version:
OS X 10.4.10
iMovie 6
*Hardware 1:*
PowerMac G4 Dual 500 Mhz, 1GB RAM, Internal 40GB HDD and Internal 320 GB HDD
*Hardware 2:*
PowerBook G4 500 Mhz, 512MB RAM, Internal 20 GB HDD
Problem:
This problem occurs on both of my G4 Macs. In iMovie HD, I imported a JPEG from iPhoto with Ken Burns Effects on. The still photo appeared properly in the Clip Viewer initially, but appeared as a black screen in the iMovie Monitor. Once the imported photo with the Ken Burns Effects completed rendering, the clip in the Clip Viewer turned white and appeared as a white screen in the iMovie Monitor. I have tried almost everything I read about in these forums in search of a resolution.
*Resolutions that Failed:*
1. The photo is definitely a .jpg
2. Tried importing the actual .jpg file as well as importing from iPhoto.
3. QuickTime and all other Software updates have been applied and are running on the most current release.
4. Repaired disk permissions.
5. Created, saved and manipulated the iMovie file in the standard Movie Folder on my main internal hard drive. (i.e. – I'm not saving to an external HDD)
6. Created, saved and manipulated the iMovie file in the standard Movie Folder on my secondary internal hard drive. (i.e. – I'm not saving to an external HDD)
7. Deleted the 'mac.imovie.plist' file and created a new one.
8. Attempted to do apply the effects logged on as a different user.
9. Saved file, restarted machine and reopened numerous times but the problem persists.
10. Tried a lower resolution photo and the problem persists.
11. Attempted to import all the photos I planned to use, added transitions to all of the clips and rendered completely. Saved the file, restarted the machine and reopened the file with no change to the blank clips.
12. The iMovie trash emptying issue did nothing to help.
*Additional Notes:*
1. The problem is confined to the Ken Burns Effects in iMovie. I am able to work with true video clips without incident.
2. Ken Burns Effects operate properly in iPhoto 6 using the slideshow functionality.
3. I would use iPhoto, but it seems like it would be easier to line up specific sections of an audio track with certain Ken Burns Effects in iMovie. (i.e. – a crescendo at the 16 second mark of the audio track coincides with the end of a 'zoom' on a photo, transition from second 16-17 second mark, new photo at the 17 second mark and pan left to right from 17 second mark to the 25 second mark.) Point is that it lines up precisely with the markers on the audio track, which seems far easier to do in iMovie than iPhoto.
4. Please help me, I'm going nuts troubleshooting this bug! I can't find any resolution that works.
Thanks in advance for the help.
Message was edited by: Charlie Brown Jr.

Hmmm. You seem to have tried, without success, most if not all of the methods of resolving a Ken Burns black screen issue.
Some thoughts that have occurred to me:
1. Perhaps your G4 500mhz Mac is not fast enough. I think that the minimum spec for iLife '06 is 733mhz. Might have nothing to do with this problem, but I just mention it.
2. Are the sizes of your images too large, as can happen with some of these new high def cameras? iMovie has trouble working with very large images.
3. Do you have any 3rd pary plug-ins, particularly in Quick Time, that could be causing a conflict?
4. Do you have enough disk space for the project to operate?
5. Have you done a recent Quick Time update? Some users have reported a problem with that.
6. From your post, it appears that you have continuously worked within the same iMovie file that exhibits the Ken Burns problem. If this is true, try creating a new iMovie project and experimenting with a few clips to see if the problem persists in the new project.
Ken Burns issues can be very frustrating. I think that you will need to keep trying things until something works. Wish I could be more help, but perhaps some of the tech experts on this forum will have some workable suggestions.
There is an application called Photo to Movie that reputedly has a far better Ken Burns type of effect. If you can't resolve your problem, you might try downloading that app. I believe that it offers a demo download.
Good luck.

I need to do non-constrained crops for Ken Burns effect in photo slide show

I am making photo slide shows in imovie '09. I understand the Ken Burns effect and how to set a start and an end point. I want to use the effect on vertical or portrait mode photos. i would like to have the entire photo displayed in portrait mode and have it zoom in a bit. The problem is The start and end points seem to only be horizontal or landscape mode. I can't ever get the entire image selected. How can I do this?
Thanks,
Tim

You need to add the letterbox (black space) in another application. iMovie's Ken Burns effect will not do it for you. You can do it in Photoshop if you like.
However, there is a way to do it in Automator, and you can do hundreds of vertical photos very quickly. That is the way I do it.
Here is more detail:
There is also a quick way to pad your images without using Photoshop. This method will pad hundreds of images in just a few seconds.
You do it with a tool that comes with OS/X called Automator. It should be in your Applications/Utilities folder.
Automator is basically a workflow tool. It allows you to string together commands and actions into a workflow and then execute the entire sequence at once. If you have Snow Leopard, you can even add these workflows to your contextual menus that come up when you right-click.
There are many workflows that would work to pad your images. Here is an example:
In Automator, start a photo workflow and drag the following actions into the workflow from the Action palettes on the left.
You should have something like:
1)Ask for Photos (You must select one or more photos and hit Select - you can make this easier by putting them in an album beforehand)
2) Copy Finder Items (give it a folder to copy to- so you can find them easily)
3) Pad Images. (put a check mark in "scale image before padding" Pick the pixel dimensions of your project...like 640x480 or 960x540. or 1920x1080
Hit Run and a dialog box will come up asking you to select photos. When you are finished, press SELECT and the Automator script will keep running.
Then at the end you should have padded images in the folder you created in step 2.

Preview of Ken Burns Effect is a black screen!!

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