Using iMovie 09 with stereo pairs?

Question

Talking to the geniuses at the local Apple store, it seems clear that iMovie 09 saves Ken Burns pan/crops to the images, not as separate data. This makes it difficult to create identical moves on matching stereo pairs, as the camera pans and crops would have to be exactly the same for the right and left views of the pair.
I'm thinking there's a work around for this limitation but I need to learn more about how iMovie saves its files.
Consider the case where a transition and pan/crop is created for successive right view images, then this is exported as a Quicktime movie, then iMovie is closed. If it is possible in Finder (not in iMovie) to substitute the left view image source files for the right view image source files, using precisely the same file names, then when iMovie opens again it would not know the difference and could export a left view Quicktime movie.
But I can't investigate this hypothesis because I can't find the source files that iMovie uses. Performing a swap out with the original files has no effect (at least, I saw no change in the thumbnails and the playback when using well marked test files. So are there hidden copies of the source files that iMovie uses? And if so, how do I locate these so I can swap them out?
I hope I'm making myself clear here. When I explained what I was trying to do at the Apple store today, the geniuses required several reiterations before they got it, because my intent is so unconventional and they had no reference point. But they did get it, as far as using iMovie as it was designed to be used, and said, no, you can't do this with iMovie because swapping out images within the program removes any Ken Burns pan/crops you have set for them. And there is no way to numerically set these parameters so they are identical in a new movie to those in a different movie.
I didn't ask them about a workaround that would fool iMovie when it is reopened into thinking it is using the same images, but I'm asking here. If I know how to locate those source image files, I can do the rest.
Or am I completely missing something that should be obvious?
(There's software for Windows called ProShow Gold that allows saving camera movements separately from images, and this is used for making stereoscopic slide shows with Ken Burns pan/crops. But I want to do this on a Mac.)
Thanks.
SMcQ

Answer 1

Karsten,
Thanks for that link! I think your arrows will point me in the right direction.
In my effort, the images for stereo projection are placed side by side as a pair in a shared frame, 2800x1050 total resolution. Quicktime Pro can make these and show these, and also a free stereo avi editor called Stereo Movie Maker for Windows. For stereo 3D from start to finish, it is important to be cross platform proficient. Of course, the Mac can make this OS switch, but I'd like to see more stereo 3D options in Mac native software, because right now, there aren't any. Our projection software is a custom build by programmers at UC Davis and our projection system runs from an Intel Mac Pro feeding dual Hitachi projectors.
I made a movie of a slide show with iPhoto, using 19th Century stereocard views, but wanted to take the presentation into Ken Burns territory with camera moves that are coordinated between the right and left views. I think iMovie 09 can do this with some, as you say, (ab)use. Hackers are the bleeding edge, right?
Our stereo theater is at Lake Tahoe, Incline Village, Nevada, within the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center located on the Sierra Nevada College campus. The building is too new to see on Google Earth (or Google Earth imagery is too behind to show a building four years old).
http://terc.ucdavis.edu/education_outreach/educationoutreach.html
Thanks for your help!
SMcQ