Create stills within video sequences

1 Import clips

Go to Projects. Click Create New. Choose Movie. Click ‘OK’. Click on imovie Library. Choose File>new Event. Click on the Event. Click the Import Media icon. Import our clips.

2 Add to timeline

Click and drag to select all four clips in the My Media bin and move them to the timeline. We’ve trimmed the clips for you so they’ll cut together smoothly as an edited sequence.

3 Find a frame

Tap the spacebar to play the sequence. Tap it again to pause the clip as the dog starts to shake off the water in clip one. Use the left or right arrow keys to fine-tune the best frame.

4 Freeze!

Choose Modify>add Freeze Frame. This freezes the action. Click the hand icon in the frozen portion of the clip. Type a duration of one second in the Viewer’s Freeze Frame field.

5 Alternative options

The frozen section remains part of the clip. For more creative options we can add a camera-flash-style freeze-frame effect. Scrub to around 20s where the dog grabs the stick.

6 DSLR effect

Choose Modify>flash and Freeze

Frame. This creates the frozen frame as a separate six-second chunk. It also adds a Ken Burns-style zoom out from the frozen subject.

7 Modify the move

Click on the frozen frame. Click the Crop icon. Select the Swap Start and End icon. Drag the end frame to make the camera zoom in on the frozen dog at the left of the screen.

8 Change durations

Drag the end of the frozen clip’s trim handle left to shorten it to two seconds. Double-click the Transition icon and type in 0.2. This creates a shorter burst of camera flash.

9 Add sound effect

To complement the flash transition go to the Audio browser’s ilife Sound Effects folder. Search ‘Camera Shutter’. Drag the sound effect below the flash frame effect.