Changing Video Speed
Sometimes a scene plays out too slowly and you want to speed it up, or you want a dramatic slow-motion moment. Bolide Movie Creator lets you change the playback speed of a clip in three ways: pick a preset from the right-click menu, set an exact value in the Change Speed window, or stretch the clip right on the timeline.
Speed presets in the right-click menu
- Right-click the clip whose speed you want to change.
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Hover over Speed to open the list of presets: 0.125, 0.25, 0.5 and 0.75 slow the clip down, 1.25, 1.5, 2.0, 4.0 and 8.0 speed it up. To return the clip to its original speed, choose Normal in the same list. The clip block becomes shorter or longer, and its speed factor is shown on the block.
- The Speed menu is also available for audio clips.
Set an exact speed in the Change Speed window
- Select a video clip on the timeline, click the Operations on visual blocks button on the timeline toolbar and choose Speed change.
- In the Change Speed window move the slider toward Slower or Faster: the speed can be set from 0.1x to 10x. The window shows the chosen factor and the new block duration, and the preview updates when you release the slider. The 1x button returns the normal speed.
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Click OK to keep the new speed or Cancel to leave the clip as it was.
Change speed by dragging the clip edge
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Hold down Ctrl and point at the left or right edge of the clip on the timeline. When the cursor changes to
<-||-> , press the left mouse button and drag the edge. The clip is stretched or squeezed to the new length, and the new speed factor is shown on the block. This is handy when a clip has to fit an exact duration, for example the length of a music fragment.
Keep the voice sounding natural
- When you speed up a clip, voices sound higher; when you slow it down, they sound lower. To prevent this, click the small wave icon next to the speed factor on the block: it switches Do not change the tone of the sound on and off. In the Change Speed window the same option is a checkbox; it is available only for speeds from 0.5x to 2x.
Slow motion and other tips
- For smooth slow motion, use a video shot at a high frame rate. If your project has a single 120 fps clip and you slow it down with the Speed menu by 2 times (0.5) or 4 times (0.25), the project frame rate is switched automatically to 60 or 30 fps (see Project Video Resolution and Frame Rate). You can slow down an ordinary 30 fps video too, but the motion will not be as smooth.
- Two related effects: Freeze frame in the right-click menu of a video clip holds the current frame for 1 to 30 seconds (see Freeze Frame), and Reverse video in the Operations on visual blocks menu plays a clip backwards (see Reversing a Video).
- To save the result, click Save as Video.
Back to Video Editing Guide.
