IMovie keeps ruining the timing of my slideshow, help!

Question

Okay, this is just about the most frustrating thing I've ever encountered... I have a 4 minute song, and 88 photos in iMovie.  The photos are timed and customized with the Ken Burns effect so I don't want to have to do re-do all that.  I've tried the transition settings in the menu, but no matter what I do the transitions add time to the project and it becomes too long for the song.  Mathmatically, it doesn't make sense, since I've calculated it out.  IF the transitions were to just overlap the clips it would come out to the perfect length, but it keeps adding time to the project no matter what I do.  There has to be a way to do lock in the timing of my photos, and the song, and just have it transition between clips without any time added.  Please help if you know.

Answer 1

iMovie is just a half-baked piece of software that only meets the needs of somebody who isn't trying to do anything precise.
That would be iMovie 11 then!
I only use iMovie 6 with iDVD 7.
There are many ways to produce slide shows using iPhoto, iMovie or iDVD and some limit the number of photos you can use (iDVD has a 99 chapter (slide) limitation).
If what you want is what I want, namely to be able to use high resolution photos (even 300 dpi tiff files), to pan and zoom individual photos, use a variety of transitions, to add and edit music or commentary, place text exactly where you want it, and to end up with a DVD that looks good on both your Mac and a TV - in other words end up with and end result that does not look like an old fashioned slide show from a projector - you may be interested in how I do it. You don't have to do it my way, but the following may be food for thought!
Firstly you need proper software to assemble the photos, decide on the duration of each, the transitions you want to use, and how to pan and zoom individual photos where required, and add proper titles. For this I use Photo to Movie. You can read about what it can do on their website:
http://www.lqgraphics.com/software/phototomovie.php
(Other users here use the alternative FotoMagico:  http://www.boinx.com/fotomagico/homevspro/ which you may prefer - I have no experience with it.)
Neither of these are freeware, but are worth the investment if you are going to do a lot of slide shows. Read about them in detail, then decide which one you feel is best suited to your needs.
Once you have timed and arranged and manipulated the photos to your liking in Photo to Movie, it exports the file to iMovie  as a DV stream. You can add music in Photo to Movie, but I prefer doing this in iMovie where it is easier to edit. You can now further edit the slide show in iMovie just as you would a movie, including adding other video clips, then send it to iDVD 7, or Toast,  for burning.
You will be pleasantly surprised at how professional the results can be!
To simply create a slide show in iDVD 7 onwards from images in iPhoto or stored in other places on your hard disk or a connected server, look here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1089