Apple Final Cut Pro X 10.1.2 User Guide

							 Chapter 10    Advanced editing 3 01
Constant speed changes also usually alter the duration of a clip. By default, if a constant speed 
change causes the duration of a clip to become longer or shorter, all clips coming after it ripple 
forward or backward. If you change the speed to 50 percent, your clip becomes twice as long, 
and subsequent clips are moved to the right; if you change the speed to 200 percent, the clip 
becomes half as long, and subsequent clips ripple left. For example, if you set a 5-second clip 
to play back at 50 percent speed, Final Cut Pro adds frames to the clip so that the clip becomes 
10 seconds long and plays back more slowly. If you increase the clip’s speed to 200 percent, 
Final Cut Pro removes frames and the clip plays back in only 2.5 seconds.
Same clip with speed 
changed to 50 percent 
(now 10 seconds long)
5-second clip
 1 In the Timeline, select a range, a whole clip, or a group of clips whose speed you want to change.
 2 Do one of the following:
 •To apply a preset speed setting: Choose Slow or Fast from the Retime pop-up menu in the 
toolbar (shown below), and choose a speed from the submenu.
 •To apply a manual speed setting: Choose Show Retime Editor from the Retime pop-up menu (or 
press Command-R) to display the Retime Editor above the selection in the Timeline, and drag 
the retiming handle.
67% resize factor     
						

							 Chapter 10    Advanced editing 302
If you drag the retiming handle to the right, the speed of the selection decreases, the duration 
of the selection increases, and the bar above the Timeline selection turns orange.
Drag the retiming handle to the right to create 
a slow-motion effect.
If you drag the retiming handle to the left, the speed of the selection increases, the duration of 
the selection decreases, and the bar above the Timeline selection turns blue.
Drag the retiming handle to the left to create a  fast-motion effect.
 •To apply a custom speed setting: Choose Custom from the Retime pop-up menu, and in the 
Custom Speed window that opens, select a direction (forward or reverse) and enter a rate 
or duration.
Apply a constant speed change without rippling the sequence
You can also create speed changes that don’t cause the downstream clips to ripple. In this case, 
if you slow down a clip (which ordinarily makes the clip longer), the clip remains at its current 
length, but a shorter piece of the action will be seen. For example, if you slowed a 5-second 
shot of a football being thrown and caught to 50 percent, you would see the ball being thrown 
(slowly), but because the action would now take twice as long, the clip would end before the ball 
was caught.
Note:   If there is a gap to the right of a clip that is being slowed down, the clip’s duration is 
lengthened to cover the gap.
When a clip is sped up, the duration of the clip is shortened and a gap fills the space between 
the changed clip and the remainder of the project.
67% resize factor 
						

							 Chapter 10    Advanced editing 303
 1 In the Timeline, select a range, a whole clip, or a group of clips whose speed you want to change.
 2 Choose Custom from the Retime pop-up menu in the toolbar.
 3 Select a direction (Forward or Reverse), deselect the Ripple checkbox, and type a percentage in 
the Rate field.
 4 Press Return. 
The speed effect is applied to the clip, and the rest of the project remains in place.
Preserve audio pitch in retimed clips
By default, Final Cut Pro is set to preserve the audio pitch of a clip that has been retimed. 
However, if you want to accentuate the retiming adjustment’s effect by allowing the pitch to 
change in accordance with the retiming adjustment, you can turn this feature off.
 1 In the Timeline, select a range, a whole clip, or a group of clips whose speed you plan to change.
 2 Choose Preserve Pitch from the Retime pop-up menu in the toolbar.
A checkmark to the left of the command name indicates that Preserve Pitch is turned on. Choose 
Preserve Pitch again to turn it off.
Conform a clip’s speed to match the project’s speed
If you’ve applied speed effects using your camera, the native speed of the source media may 
not match the native speed of the source media for the rest of the clips in your project in the 
Timeline. However, you can change the clip with the differing native speed to match the rest of 
the clips in the Timeline.
67% resize factor         
						

							 Chapter 10    Advanced editing 304
 1 In the Timeline, select the clip whose speed you want to change to match the rest of the clips in 
your project.
 2 Choose Automatic Speed from the Retime pop-up menu in the toolbar.
Smooth out a slow-motion clip with video quality presets
To smooth out the apparent motion of a clip playing back in slow motion, you can apply frame 
blending or optical flow analysis to the retimed clip.
 1 In the Timeline, select a range, a whole clip, or a group of clips whose video quality you want 
to change.
 2 Choose a Video Quality setting from the Retime pop-up menu in the toolbar.
 •Normal: The default setting. Frames are duplicated, and no frame blending is applied to the 
slow-motion clip. No rendering is required.
 •Frame Blending: Adds in-between frames by blending individual pixels of neighboring frames. 
Slow-motion clips created with Frame Blending appear to play back more smoothly than 
those created with the Normal (duplication) setting. Rendering is required.
 •Optical Flow: Adds in-between frames using an optical flow algorithm, which analyzes the clip 
to determine the directional movement of pixels and then draws portions of the new frames 
based on the optical flow analysis. Only the portion of the clip used in the project (the media 
between the clip start and end points) is analyzed. Rendering is required.
Note:  The more motion contained in a clip, the longer the analysis and rendering takes.
Create variable speed effects
In addition to constant speed changes, you can create variable speed effects in which the 
playback speed of a clip changes dynamically. For example, a clip might start in slow motion, 
speed up to fast motion, and then slow back down to regular speed. You create variable speed 
changes by identifying ranges of a clip as speed segments, each with its own constant speed 
setting. Speed segments can be set to any speed value, forward or backward, and you can create 
abrupt shifts between speed segments, or gradual transitions (also called ramps).
Note:  You can’t create smooth transitions between a speed segment set to a forward speed and 
a speed segment set to reverse speed (and vice versa).
67% resize factor         
						

							 Chapter 10    Advanced editing 305
Apply a preset variable speed change
You can apply preset variable speed effects that break your clip into multiple speed 
segments automatically.
 1 In the Timeline, select either a range within a clip or a whole clip to which you want to apply a 
speed ramp effect.
 2 Do one of the following:
 •To ramp the speed down: Choose Speed Ramp > “to 0%” from the Retime pop-up menu in 
the toolbar.
 •To ramp the speed up: Choose Speed Ramp > “from 0%” from the Retime pop-up menu in 
the toolbar.
The selection is segmented into four parts with different speed percentages, creating the 
ramp effect. If more precision is required, you can manually drag any one of the four retiming 
handles to set the speed you want.
Drag a retiming handle to modify the speed percentage 
of a speed ramp segment.
You can modify the transitions between segments to control how fast each segment transitions 
to the next. For more information, see Add transitions between speed segments
 on page 307 .
Change the end frame of a speed segment
You can change the end frame of a speed segment in the Timeline.
When you drag the retiming handle of a speed segment, you’re adjusting the speed of the 
segment, not trimming it. The Change End Source Frame command allows you to trim the end 
point (end frame) of a segment.
 1 In the Timeline, select a clip that has speed segments.
 2 Choose Show Retime Editor from the Retime pop-up menu in the toolbar (or press Command-R).
 3 Double-click the transition between two speed segments in the Retime Editor in the Timeline.
67% resize factor         
						

							 Chapter 10    Advanced editing 306
 4 In the Speed Transition window, click the Edit button.
A filmstrip icon appears over the end frame of the speed segment.
 5 To change the end frame, drag the filmstrip icon left or right.
Filmstrip icon
As you drag, the Viewer displays the current end frame.
Create custom variable speed changes
You can manually divide a clip into segments and assign each segment its own speed setting.
 1 In the Timeline, position the playhead or the skimmer at the frame where you want to begin a 
new speed segment.
 2 Choose Blade Speed from the Retime menu in the toolbar (or press Shift-B).
The Retime Editor appears above the clip (If it wasn’t already shown), and the clip is divided into 
two speed segments.
 3 To set the speed for the newly created segments, do one of the following:
 •Double-click the Retime Editor above one of the speed segments. Then, in the Custom Speed 
window, set a new speed by selecting either rate or duration and entering a speed percentage 
or a duration. Click anywhere outside the Custom Speed window to close it.
 •Drag the right edge of the speed segment in the Retime Editor to change the 
segment’s speed.
 4 To create and modify additional speed segments, repeat steps 1 to 3.
You can modify the transitions between segments to create smooth adjustments from one 
speed to another. For more information, see Add transitions between speed segments
 on 
page 307.
67% resize factor     
						

							 Chapter 10    Advanced editing 307
Add transitions between speed segments
When two adjacent speed segments are set to play at different speeds, you can control how 
smoothly the video switches between the playback speeds. When there’s no transition between 
the segments, playback shifts suddenly from one speed to another. By adding a transition 
between the segments, you can create a more gradual, or ramped, effect. You can also control 
how quickly that transition takes place.
When you apply effects that automatically create speed segments in a clip (such as Speed 
Ramp, Instant Replay, and Hold), transitions are automatically added between the newly 
created segments. A transition appears as a shaded bar on either side of the border between 
speed segments.
When you create speed segments manually, you can add speed transitions individually, or you 
can add them to all the speed segments in a clip at once.
Note:  You cannot add transitions between forward-playing segments and reverse-playing 
segments (or vice versa).
Add transitions between all speed segments in a clip
 1 In the Timeline, select a clip that has speed segments.
 2 Choose Speed Transitions from the Retime pop-up menu in the toolbar, so that there’s a 
checkmark next to the menu item.
67% resize factor     
						

							 Chapter 10    Advanced editing 308
Transitions are automatically added to the boundaries between speed segments.
Remove transitions from all speed segments in a clip
 1 In the Timeline, select a clip that has speed transitions.
 2 Choose Speed Transitions from the Retime pop-up menu in the toolbar, so that the checkmark 
is removed.
Speed transitions are removed from all speed segments in the clip.
Remove individual speed transitions
To add transitions between some speed segments in a clip and not others, you must turn on 
Speed Transitions in the Retime pop-up menu, and then remove the transitions you don’t want.
 1 In the Timeline, select a clip that has speed segments.
67% resize factor     
						

							 Chapter 10    Advanced editing 309
 2 Choose Speed Transitions from the Retime pop-up menu in the toolbar, so that there’s a 
checkmark next to the menu item.
Speed transitions are added to all speed segments in the clip.
 3 To remove a transition between speed segments, double-click the last frame of the outgoing 
speed segment in the Retime Editor.
 4 Deselect the Speed Transition checkbox in the Speed Transition window, and then click 
anywhere outside the window to dismiss it.
The transition is removed.
Change the duration of a speed transition 
After a speed transition is applied, you can change its duration. The shorter the transition, the 
more quickly the speed ramps from one value to another. The longer the transition, the slower 
the ramp.
 1 In the Timeline, select a clip that has a speed transition.
 2 If the Retime Editor is not showing, choose Show Retime Editor from the Retime pop-up menu 
(or press Command-R).
67% resize factor     
						

							 Chapter 10    Advanced editing 310
 3 Drag the left or right edge of the shaded bar in the Retime Editor. 
Reverse or rewind clips
In addition to changing the speed of a clip, you can also add directional effects:
 •Reverse: Reverses the order of frames in the clip, so that the last frame plays first.
 •Rewind: Appends a duplicate of the range selection or clip as a segment, rewinds the 
duplicated segment at 1x, 2x, or 4x speed, and then plays the original clip segment again in 
forward motion at normal speed.
Reverse a clip
 1 In the Timeline, select a clip or a group of clips whose contents you want to reverse.
 2 Choose Reverse Clip from the Retime pop-up menu in the toolbar.
The green bar with arrows pointing to the left above the selection in the Timeline indicates that 
the clip is reversed.
 3 If you want to adjust the speed of the reversed clip, drag the retiming handle to the left to 
increase the speed or to the right to decrease it.
Reversed segment
Drag the retiming 
handle to change 
the speed of the 
reversed clip.
 4 To see the reverse effect, play back the reversed clip or selection.
67% resize factor