Creating a Fast-Motion Clip

[ This article was first published in the April, 2009, issue of
Larry’s Final Cut Pro Newsletter. Click here to subscribe. ]

Karen Irvine writes:

One thing you didn’t touch on in your training is how to create a fast-motion clip.

Larry replies: There are four ways to change the speed of a clip:

• With a freeze frame
• With a Fit-to-Fill edit
• With a constant speed change effect
• With a variable speed change effect

To create a fast motion clip – sort of like a poor-man’s time-lapse:

• Create a new sequence and edit the clip that you want to turn into a time-lapse clip into it
• Select the clip
• Choose Modify > Speed
• Set the percentage to, say, 900
• This is too fast to play properly without dropping frames, so select File > Export > QuickTime movie
• Export the clip as a self-contained QuickTime movie
• Import that new file and edit it into your sequence.