I love using the keyframes and the Pan/Crop tool. They gave me hell at first, but now I totally understand how they work and I can do exactly what I want to do VERY quickly. I was just like you. I could only do cool stuff with them by accident. LOL! However; once you understand how they work, you will love them.

Practice something simple first, like a regular zoom-in on a still picture. Select the Pan/Crop tool, then move your cursor somewhere towards the middle of the "timeline" within the tool. Now, zoom-in on your picture to your desired effect and press the "add keyframe" button. That's it! You're done! You have just created a cool zoom-in!

To make sure you did it correctly, put your cursor at the beginning of the "timeline" within the Pan/Crop tool. The picture in the preview window should be full size now. If it is not, right click on the picture within the tool and select "restore." Now click on the keyframe where you added the zoom. The picture in the preview window should be zoomed-in. If so... everything is right.

Close the Pan/Crop tool and play your clip to see how you like your zoom. You can slow the zoom down or speed it up by repositioning the keyframe on the timeline. If you move the keyframe further to the right, the zoom will be slower. Move it to the left to speed it up. The degree of zoom you added to the picture will also affect the speed. You have to play with those 2 a bit until you get your desired results.

That should get you started. There is so much more you can do with the keyframes and the Pan/Crop tool... but I think once you get this basic task down, you'll be able to figure out the rest... like using multiple keyframes, rotating pictures and such.

Good luck!