When we first open the Retiming Editor, there is a green retiming bar, green denotes that the clip will play at normal speed. We can change the speed to any amount that we want. When we change the length of the clip, faster or slower, all of the clips that follow the affected clip in the timeline, will ripple to adjust for the speed change.Įven though the Retiming Editor provides several speed options for both Slow and Fast, we are not limited to these preset speed changes. Making a clip run faster will shorten the length of the clip and the timeline. Making a clip run slower will lengthen the duration of the clip and the timeline. It is important to point out that changing the duration of a clip will change the total length of the timeline. This will open the 'Retiming Editor' at the top of the clip.Ĭlick on the twirl-down in the Retiming Editor to reveal different speed options.Īs shown below, Slow is given as percentages and Fast is given as speed multiples. Control or right click on the clip in the timeline and slide down to 'Retime'. First we'll look at making Constant speed changes right in the clip in the timeline.

In FCP X we even have the option to 'Preserve Pitch' when changing the speed of a clip, for example, if we speed up a clip with 'Preserve Pitch' enabled, our audio will not sound like a bunch of chipmunks.Īpplying a Constant speed change to a clip, either speeding it up or slowing it down, can be done from several places in the FCP X interface. Normal renders quickly, Frame Blending takes longer to render but produces better quality and Optical Flow which takes the longest to render but gives the best quality. We are also offered the ability to choose the process for rendering our speed changes, Normal, Frame Blending and Optical Flow. FCP X provides a few additional speed effects, 'Hold' (freeze frame), 'Reverse Clip', 'Instant Replay' and 'Rewind'. In FCP X a variable speed change is called 'Speed Ramp'.

In FCP X, this process is called 'Retiming' and there are two basic Retiming effects, Constant speed, which uniformly changes the speed that a clip plays out, and Variable speed, which will change the speed of the clip over time. There will be times when we want to change the speed of a clip to achieve an effect, either speed it up or slow it down. Download the ePub iPad/iPhone version of this article.

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