Can you turn off optimization while splitting events?

Question

I want to move all my many thousands of iPhoto clips down to intermix with my other clips stored on an external drive. All seemed well, I drug them down like the apple tech told me to, but they appeared in a single event, which is bad enough, and the sound is missing, which also *****, but I've found that if I split the EVENTS back into their original date periods the sound comes back. (And I have to do that anyway so they will sort/intermix properly in the event area anyway which was my original goal.)
The PROBLEM is that every time I choose "split event before clip", it takes a minute or so for imovie to OPTIMIZE MOVIES after splitting the event.  Since I'm really not planning on doing anything other than splitting these **** events for the next month or so, is there any way to turn that feature off for a while?
For that matter is there any way to speed this process up? Any way at all?  All the movies are still in iPhoto, if there was a better way to do it I would.  I would just export them and import them directly, but then I lose all the original dates (Though I'm starting to wonder if that would be faster.)  I would be willing to buy external software if that would help.
And yes, I realize I could just drag them all down event by event, but that would take longer, because I believe I have to first create an event to drag them into. If that is incorrect let me know.  But at least on my computer, creating the event takes just as long as splitting the event, so this method saves me half the time.
It seems like there has got to be a better way to do this. 
Or is there any way to split at multiple points?

Answer 1

Flip the mute switch.