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MillimeterNavigating Apple Final Cut Pro's Speed Options, Part 1
Mar 16, 2010 12:00 PM, By Jan Ozer
Figure 1. The narration is too long for the captured screencam.
Speed changes are one of the most commonly used effects, and Apple Final Cut Pro has multiple interfaces and tools to speed up or slow down your footage. This month, I'll take a task-specific view of Final Cut's speed-related tools, so you can match the best tool for the job. In the first installment, I'll look at the two simplest alternatives: the Timeline Speed tool and the Change Speed tool. Next time I'll discuss keyframing on the timeline and working in the Motion Tab.
Figure 2. You can use the Speed tool to stretch or shrink your footage to fit the necessary duration.
Scenario 1: stretch (or shrink) to fit
I do a lot of screencam production in Final Cut Pro, so I couldn't live without this first tool. The typical problem is shown in Figure 1; I have more audio than I need for the captured screencam. What I need to do is stretch the screencam by slowing it down so that it fits the duration of the audio.
To do so, I choose the Speed tool from the Tool palette, as shown in Figure 2, or simply click sss to select it.
Figure 3. Stretching the screencam video to fit the audio.
Then I click the edge of the video I'm resizing, and drag it left or right to make it shorter or longer. I'm showing that in Figure 3, though the pointer will look like the Speed Tool itself, not the pointer shown in the screen capture.
Figure 4. The video clip's duration now matches the audio; it's a lot easier to use the Speed tool than to guess the rate necessary for the video to fit the audio.
Figure 4 shows the adjusted video, with the video duration now matching the audio duration. I've also opened the Change Speed tool which we'll discuss next.
The rate of the clip is now 76 percent, and I could have matched the video duration to audio duration by opening the Change Speed tool and entering 76 percent. Unless you're a math whiz, however, this would involve lots of trial and error. My general rule is that if you're matching the duration of another object on the timeline, use the Speed tool, otherwise, use Change Speed.
You can also use the Speed tool like the Roll tool, where you adjust the edit point between two clips. Rather than changing the in and out points of the clips, however, the Speed tool will change the speed of the two clips. This is useful when you want to move the transition point between the clips while continuing to show all frames from both clips.
Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.