iRiddles – iMovie Riddles

David Muir, d.d.muir@strath.ac.uk, February 2008 Page 1

iRiddles

This handout is based on an idea by Jennifer Gingerich. An iRiddle is a simple movie, madewith a single image and some free music. They are movies where pupils can research a topic,show what they know and have fun challenging friends to guess the answer to a riddle.Jennifer Gingerich says:“

Students can make riddle movies around any unit of instruction - animals, famous people in history, states or countries, etc.

”

http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=b13224cbd47863a34fc5

She also says that both teachers and pupils can benefit from creating the riddles. Have a look at some examples and then look at the description here, which will help you create your own.

Landform iRiddle:

http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=b13224cbd47863a34fc5

Computer iRiddle:

http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=5fc5bee3b98ced83963b

Step 1: Decide a theme and choose a picture

As a teacher, you would probably collect a set of pictures on an appropriate topic and musicfor the children to use. The collected files could then be made accessible for the children, perhaps on a school network. The iRiddles described here will be thirty seconds long. A goodsource of music, in a variety of lengths is Freeplay Music (http://freeplaymusic.com/). Youshould read the license agreement carefully, for example, they cannot be posted on theInternet but in classroom use of the music should be free of charge. If you a more flexiblelicence, you could create your own thirty second clip in GarageBand.

iRiddles – iMovie Riddles

Page 2 David Muir, d.d.muir@strath.ac.uk, February 2008

If you decide to use music from Freeplay, make sure you give an appropriate credit at the endof the piece. Also, if you use a photo that you did not take yourself, make sure you note thesource of the image so that you can give proper credit for it too. (Remember that Flickr is agood source of Creative Commons licensed images.)Once you have found the image (or images if you are collecting them for a class) import theminto iPhoto. The easiest way to do this is to drag them into the iPhoto window. Once the photos are imported, you can close iPhoto since iMovie will be able to pull the pictures inwithout having to open the iPhoto application.

Step 2: Add photo to iMovie

Start iMovie and, since you want to add a photograph, click the Media button at the righthand side of the screen.Drag your chosen image up to the project area near the top left hand side of iMovie.In the project window, click on the photo on top of the crop icon.The preview window at the right hand side will now show a few options.Click on the

Fit

button to make the photograph fill the whole frame, thenclick the

Done

button.

iRiddles – iMovie Riddles

David Muir, d.d.muir@strath.ac.uk, February 2008 Page 3

Every image you add to this project should be shown for three seconds, so go back to thethumbnail of the image in the project area and click on the clock icon in the lower left of thethumbnail. In the dialog box that appears, set the

Duration

to 3 seconds and choose to

Applyto all photos

, then click

.Your riddle is going to give three clues and then reveal the whole picture as the answer is given. Each clue will display a portion of theimage. To show a portion, click the crop icon on the photo again butthis time click the

Crop

button. Resize the green rectangle and dragto show only a section. In the example, I have shown only the hem of the t-shirt. Click the

Done

button to continue.Drag another copy of the photo up and add it to the right of first image, crop again, for example, show the neck. Drag a third copy and shop a sleeve. Finally drag a fourth copy andthis time click the

Fit

button to show the whole image.

Step 3: Add titles

Click on the

icon on the middle bar at the right hand edge of the window to bring up theTitles browser.Choose the

Centered

option by dragging the icon up to the left of your first picture. (A green bar shows you where the titles will be inserted. A titles screen, lasting three seconds should be placed at the start of your movie. Type the title of the riddle on the top line and thecreators name on the second line of the title. For example:

Clothing iRiddleBy David Muir

When you have entered the text, click the

Done

button.Drag the same title style up again – make sure you place the pointer on the grey area betweenthe title screen and the first photo. On this title, you only need one line of text, for example:

Do you know what I am?