Movie titles weren’t always easy to create, which is probably why a movie with a title looks more polished than plain video footage. iMovie gives you several options for adding titles that can appear anywhere within your movie.
Click the Titles button to view the Titles pane.
iMovie’s titles come in three varieties:
Single shows two lines of text at once.
Multiple shows one text pair, then another.
Text block is used for longer titles.
Use the duration sliders to set the time that the title will appear onscreen.
Speed is the time it takes for the title to appear; Pause is how long it stays before disappearing.
When the title looks as you want it to, drag the title’s name from the list to the Timeline (either the Clip Viewer or Timeline Viewer).
Titles work a bit differently than regular video clips. Think of a title as a clip that’s been laid on top of its source clip. Deleting a title restores the original video clip.
Before
After
iMovie remembers the last text you entered, so if you click another title name, you don’t have to re-enter your text.
When working with titles that feature multiple text pairs, click and drag the pairs to rearrange the order in which they appear.
Some titles include additional controls. For example, Bounce Across features a Wave slider to control how bouncy the text is. Feel free to experiment with the settings.
Several third-party companies have developed other titles that you can add to iMovie. See Appendix B.
The size of the title depends on the font you use and the number of words you type. A title of “Star Wars” will appear larger than “The Empire Strikes Back,” even if both are set to the same size.
With the Colors palette visible, you can click the Preview button to see what the title looks like; you don’t need to close the palette.
After adding a title to the Time-line, don’t be surprised if the text looks jagged. When viewed on a television, the letters look better.
You can overlap more than one title if you want. For example, suppose you want a timestamp in the lower-right corner of the screen (using the Music Video title) and a main title in the center (using Centered Title).
As with transitions (described in Chapter 7), you can change the settings of an existing title. Click the title in the Timeline, make your adjustments in the Titles pane, and then click the Update button.
To delete a title, select it in the Timeline and press
. The title clip is removed, leaving the original clip(s) it overlapped in the same condition as before the