Create slide show - help needed to transfer from iPhoto

Question

I am an editing novice but a skilled Mac user with a programing background. I am trying to create a 20-30 minute slide show of approximately 250 photos to run in the background at my son's bar mitzvah on 61 inch plasmas. I have selected the photos and can produce something very basic in iPhoto. I would like to improve this in the following ways and hope Final Cut Express is the best too:
1) Ability to custom configure Ken Burns effects to the proper faces, etc, and hopefully add rotation of my choice.
2) Be able to create PIP and split screen effects. Concepts include having 2-4 photos in field simultaneously
3) No need for sound - this will run in background
4) Need to format photos to fit monitor best - assume this gets done best in iPhoto
Is the best thing to do to export a QT movie from iPhoto? Is there a better way to get the photos into FCE? Is there a good primer for slide shows in FCE either on web or for sale?
Sorry to pound the questions, but I did not see a direct response on the forum.

Answer 1

I just had to do a slide show with 190 pictures. I created it in iMovie so applying the Ken Burns would be less work, yet I still had control over the direction of travel. When I was done, while in iMovie, I exported as movie as the first choice under export (I can't think of the correct term) and selected the large option when it gave me the choices. It was exported to the desktop as an MP4 and I easily imported it into FCE with no loss of clarity. I also tried to export it as a Quicktime movie to see if it would work also and I was also able to import that into FCE. IMHO iMovie is the way to go for simple slide shows. Hope this helps.
PS. If you need 30 minutes of video, iMovie can easily adjust you photos. I know you said you didn't need music, but try this. Place all your photos into iMovie. Then place X number of songs, any songs, into iMovie until you have 30 minutes. I believe iMovie sets all clips at 4 seconds. You can then add cross desolve transitions between every photo buy going into project settings and clicking on the box to add dissolves. Then set the length of disolve between .5 and 1 second. You then call tell if you have enough photos to fill 30 minutes by seeing if the photos totaly fill up the music (highlight in iMovie)if you are to short, make the photos 5-10 seconds. If you are too long just make them shorter. When you import into FCE, just delete the audio track.
Message was edited by: vidoedude