I'm putting my 4:3 pictures into my HD movie but was thinking whether I could do anything about the black bars on the sides. Suggestions?

Thinking of some way to make the delineation between photo and background "softer". Played with blurring larger image in the background, but didn't help much though I'm probably not doing it to its potential.

Thought of making very subtle color in the black sides so soften the differences.

Anyone have any technique they use?

Photos to movie applications do a good job, if you want the pictures to keep the flow of the film.

Alex

"Ken Burns" style effects in iMovie help somewhat.
Meaning slow zoom and/or pan on the stills.

Just zoom your pics in till they cover the 16.9 area.

Go watch Wild Oceans the IMAX movie. There's some bad examples of animating a still photo in there.

Noise Industries has some excellent plug ins that enable you to use photos in several creative ways. Okay, off to catch the flight to DEMA, hope to see some of you there.
Steve

I don't think, you need many tools for an excellent effect.
1. Zoom in, until it fits into the 16:9
2. Then, set a keyframe to the start and end of the picture's "clip". On the ending keyframe, zoom a little more in and move the picture a little to the left/right/up or down. This together creates a nice effect, so that the picture is no longer "still" and matches the expectation of a movie.

Best g.

Yep, I'm a zoomer and then a mover if you get what I mean.
One tip is if you use FCP then things can go look funny if you make the key frames 'ease in / ease out' so I usually do it in either motion or After Effects. It isn't a problem if you are making small movements but it really stands out if you do big zooms or bigger movements.

J