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Cut Away to Photo while audio keeps playing

Hi there,


I am just learning about the ins and outs of iMovie, and as I have a project deadline I am in great need of help.


The idea is that I want to record a video and I want the original audio from the clip to keep playing while I cut away to photos and other video footage. Then I want the clip to come back to the original video where the subject is speaking and obviously I want the video and audio to stay in sync. I wonder what's the most effective way of doing this?


I can see that there's an option to drag and drop photos above the video track in which case it will cut to the added image, but if I want to add multiple images they won't transition into each other directly (it will briefly cut back to the original video before switching to the next image). Also, I found a video of this on Youtube but it's from 2014 and I'm using iMovie 10.1.14 which might have got many updates since then.


I hope I explained everything clearly.


Thank you very much in advance for your help!




Posted on Aug 4, 2020 4:05 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 5, 2020 8:24 AM

Unfortunately iMovie will not let you add transitions to clips in the upper timeline. If you put your cursor over a clip in the upper timeline that will reveal fade handles in the upper corners of the clip that you can use to apply a fade in or fade out, or both. You can move each slider individually by holding down the Option key. However, the problem with this is that as the fade cuts in it will reveal the clip in the lower timeline. You can try it to confirm.


There is a workaround that can do what you want. Create an entirely new project for this purpose. Put into the normal timeline the clips that you will want in the upper timeline of your original project. Add whatever transitions that you want. Then share out the movie to your desktop. From there drag it into the upper timeline of your original project.


-- Rich

5 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 5, 2020 8:24 AM in response to flrflr

Unfortunately iMovie will not let you add transitions to clips in the upper timeline. If you put your cursor over a clip in the upper timeline that will reveal fade handles in the upper corners of the clip that you can use to apply a fade in or fade out, or both. You can move each slider individually by holding down the Option key. However, the problem with this is that as the fade cuts in it will reveal the clip in the lower timeline. You can try it to confirm.


There is a workaround that can do what you want. Create an entirely new project for this purpose. Put into the normal timeline the clips that you will want in the upper timeline of your original project. Add whatever transitions that you want. Then share out the movie to your desktop. From there drag it into the upper timeline of your original project.


-- Rich

Aug 7, 2020 8:06 AM in response to flrflr

Yes, there are two ways that you can do that:


  1. The first way is to share out (export) the original project as a File to your desktop using the Audio Only setting in the share box. Then drag that audio file into your new project.



2..The second way is to Shift-click on the audio clips in your original project to select them as a range, and then Edit/Copy, Edit/Paste them into the new project. (Open the new project and Edit/Paste there.) If the audio in the original project is not background audio, but rather embedded in the video clips, then you will need to Shift-click on the Video clips that contain the audio, and do a Modify/Detach Audio. Then select the detached audio clips and Edit/ Copy, Edit/Paste them into the new project.


-- Rich

Aug 5, 2020 4:02 AM in response to Rich839

Hi Rich,


Thank you very much for this. Yes, if the images are touching there's no cut back. What I'm struggling with at the moment is that I can't seem to add transitions between the images in the upper timeline, the only option I have is to fade it back to the original video... Could you please help me with this?



Aug 7, 2020 7:45 AM in response to Rich839

Hi Rich,


Thank you for your help. Hopefully this is my last question: If I am to do the slideshows in a different project, is there a way I can import the audio from the original video into that project? I would need to be able to sync the images to the audio, so I would need to hear how long I'm talking about one specific topic.


Thank you.

Cut Away to Photo while audio keeps playing

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