I’ve just uploaded the new version of the official site for the new book which uses a lot of video footage, some of which has been slowed down. Now normally to slow footage down you’d have to use something like Final Cut Pro, iMovie or something similar, which is kind of like using a sledge hammer to crack a nut, but I managed to find a quick and dirty solution using QuickTime Pro.
First open up the footage that you want to slow down in QuickTime. Lets say that footage is 20 seconds long. Now open up a sound editing program (such as Sound Studio if you’re on a Mac) and create a new document. In most sound editing software you can usually choose an option to insert silence at a required length. In this case insert some silence that lasts twice the length of your footage - 40 seconds. Save that out as an aif or a wav and the open it up with QuickTime.
Now for the cool bit. Select the original footage and do a simple Copy to the clipboard, either via the Edit menu or the usual Command-C (Ctrl-C) keyboard shortcut. Now select your open silence aif or wav and choose “Add to Selection & Scale” from the Edit menu. Your footage will now be stretched to fit the “sound”, which is twice as long, therefore giving the appearance of slow down - in this case its been slowed down by 50%. Now just save your movie and your done. You can of course speed up footage using the exact same technique but in reverse.
If you don’t have a sound editing tool handy that’s no problem. Just open up any sound file in QuickTime Pro, cut to length, do the Copy etc and then just delete the sound track when you’re done. You just got to love QuickTime Pro!
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Very interesting trick
vamapaull / 24/08/2006