Latest version iMovie: cannot see clips in project OR event browser, but they are there in both libraries! So cannot create/edit/publish ANYTHING.

Question

HI All. I have been having a HECK of a time with iMovie 11!!!  Converted a bunch of video to .mov format, imported into iMovie, and created a project. No problem. Finalized, and published to iTunes, no problem. Saves extra copies. No Problem. SO ... I want to create another project, and follow the instructions RELIGIOUSLY. I can import the video files into the event library, and can drag them into a newly created project, but I CANNOT see the clips in the browser pane for events or library! When I click the playhead in either the event library or the project library (where the clips are edited - supposedly), they play (ie, i hear the audio just fine) ... but NO real-time playback.  ALSO - the video no longer plays for the already completed project when I click the playhead - same deal - not in the project browser, not in the event browser. The playhead runs, but as it moves from thumbnail to thumbnail, each one goes black, and no video plays in real time in the other pane. I closed out of iMovie, did a restart, repaired permissions. No change. I get no error messages, and can find no way to 'reassociate' a project with a set of clips (like one can do in software like Illustrator etc).HELP!!!

Answer 1

I've spent 3 hours in Apple Covent Garden trying to have this fixed. Most of those were spent doing something to content in iPhoto. It didn't work. Then I left them my computer to reinstall software (Snow Leopard and iMovie) which they said they could do better than me and my discs. But I got back a computer with a new user profile and no files. When I used Time Machine to restore my files to my old profile the problem was just as before except now I've lost a week worth of photos, despite the Time Machine file having been saved just hours before I gave my Mac to the muppets in the Apple store.
If it's any clue, the other I get is that iMovie searches for four missing movie files when it tries to load. I've tried solving this by creating new files and changing the names to match the ones that are missing (as I read elsewhere in the community works) but it doesn't work.
So I've wasted hours, a day of Apple having my computer and no one replies to my thread here. What's to be done? Do I give up on iMovie and buy Final Cut pro? And how can I get my week's worth of photos back that have disappeared from TimeMachine, even though everything else in the restoration (e.g. mail and Firefox windows) are completely up to date?