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Picture the quintessential video description of a sunflower’s growth cycle as it breaks through the soil and rises to full glory, sun and moon flickering in the background with rapid speed. That’s what’s called a video time-lapse, an effect of speeding up a video.  There’s a touch of professionalism that comes with increasing or decreasing the pace of a video and knowing how to speed up a video is one of the first steps toward mastery in the video editing sphere.  So here’s a walkthrough for video editors looking to learn the rudiments of increasing and reducing video speeds for a powerful effect on viewers.

Why’s Video Speed so Important in Video Editing?

As mentioned earlier, an increase or decrease in a video pace can have quite a telling effect on a viewer. Professionals know how to speed up a video and also use slow motion to create emphasis and suspense. 

But there’s more

Experts have discovered that increasing a video’s playback speed can save students lots of time and may potentially increase learning capacity.

Hence, it becomes obvious that not only can video speed increase and reduction improve entertainment, but it can also improve education. (1)

Quite interesting, isn’t it?

So here comes the walkthrough.

How to Speed up a Video on iPhone

Generally, most iPhone users learn how to speed up a video on iPhone using the in-built photo app

And, here’s how.

  • Click on the Photos app.
  • Open the Albums.
  • Navigate and select media types, then click on ‘Slo-mo’.
  • Next, select the desired video to begin editing. 
  • At the screen’s bottom, there are straight lines that tell a video’s pace with close-paced lines indicating normal speed and wide-spaced lines indicating Slo-mo.
  • Long press on the wide-spaced lines and drag until all the lines connect to attain normal video speed.

Alternatively, there’s another process to know how to speed up a video on an iPhone. And it’s by using the iMovie app.

  • Dash to the iOS store, get the iMovie app then launch it. 
  • Click on ‘Create Project’ followed by ‘Movie’ then ‘Media’ then ‘Video’ and finally ‘Slo-mo’. 
  • Select the Slo-mo video to be sped-up and from the pop-up menu, click the checkmark.
  • Next, click on ‘Create movie’, then by first tapping on the video timeline, select from the editing options that pop up at the screen’s bottom.
  • Among the editing options is the clock icon, the feature acting as the playback speed controller. Click on it to either increase or decrease the video speed. 
  • Upon achieving the desired speed, save the video by tapping the ‘Done’ icon at the top left corner of the screen.
  • To share or export the saved project, look for the action icon below the screen, the one with an arrow sticking out of a square, and click on it.

And that’s that.

Two simple steps to learn how to speed up a video on iPhone wrapped up. 

Unto the next.

How to Speed up a Video in Premiere

Adobe Premiere is one of the most popular video editing apps on the internet. Hence, learning how to speed up a video in Premiere is a skill that’d be repeatedly beneficial in a video editor’s career. 

Listed below are two ways to alter a video’s pace in Premiere. The first shows the reverse and slow-motion process, the second shows how to speed up a video in Premiere.

Speed Reversal in Premiere

  • Launch the Premiere application and select the desired clip.
  • Scroll to the topmost part of the screen, and hover on the ‘Clip’ icon.
  • From the dropdown menu, click on ‘Speed/duration’, then tap on ‘Reverse speed’. 
  • At this point, an indication will pop up showing the clip’s speed as -100%.
  • The next step here is to adjust the video’s pace as desired by entering a specific number into the bar.
  • After completion, save and export the media file.  

Speed Increase in Premiere

  • Launch the app and pick a video file. 
  • Scroll to the menu list at the top of the screen and hover above the ‘Clip’ button in the menu. 
  • On the drop-down menu scroll down and select ‘Speed/duration’.
  • When the speed bar appears, enter any number and watch for the corresponding effect in the video’s pace.  
  • Alternatively, the automatic speed settings can be de-linked, and the video’s speed regulated manually.
  • Additionally, the possibility of adjusting the speed of multiple clips is also available on Premiere. 

One last thing.

There’s another way to learn how to speed a video in Premiere and it’s by using the ‘Rate Stretch Tool’ feature.

This option is a quick alternative when a video editor is not looking to adjust the speed of a video by any percentage.

This is it.

  • With the app opened, tap the letter ‘R’ on the keyboard to activate the Rate Stretch Tool Feature.
  • Once done, click either the front or the end of the video timeline and drag across the screen.
  • When dragged forward and extended, the clip slows down, and when dragged backward, and shortened, it speeds up.

Also read: How to Crop a Video

How to Speed Up a Video on iMovie

iMovie is another major editing app, particularly popular among Apple users. Video editors, and by extension, all Mac users looking to produce and edit video content should know how to speed up a video on iMovie 

 Begin the process by,

  • Opening up the iMovie app. 
  • Import the video file to be edited and drag the clip onto the timeline. 
  • Next, while hovering over the clip in the timeline, right-click.
  • Select through the pop-up display and click on ‘Split clip’ to divide the video file into as many clips as desired.
  • When the clips have been split, click on the desired clip so that it appears on the right side of the screen. 
  • Hover above the clip and click the ‘Speed’ button in the menu to reveal a drop-down with several options
  • To speed up, select the fast option and a rabbit icon will appear on top of the selected clip in the timeline.
  • The clip speed can be further increased by scrolling to the top of the video at the right-hand side of the screen and selecting from among 2×, 4×, 8×, and so on.

The same process of learning how to speed up a video on iMovie can be reversed and used to slow down the video speed:

  • Click on any of the split clips.
  • Go to the video display on the right side of the screen.
  • Click the speedometer icon and select the slow option from the speed drop-down menu.
  • The split clip in the timeline should indicate a turtle icon showing that the video pace has been reduced.

With the steps above the ‘how to speed up a video on iMovie’ manual is complete and ready for use.

Quote Box

Speed-adjusted videos can sometimes turn out crappy. Therefore, adding features like Frame Blending, Optical Flow, and Ripple Edit, can really smoothen out the video playback and confer it with a touch of professionalism.

Also read: How to Compress a Video on iPhone

How to Speed Up Video in After Effects

Adobe is a major player in the image and video editing industry. Learning how to speed up a video in After Effects—Adobe’s special offering for adding dazzling effects to videos— is another great option in perfecting the art of video editing.   

  • Launch the After effects app
  • On the bottom left of the screen, click on ‘Timeline’ to import a video.
  • After that, go to the top of the screen and click on ‘Layer’ to show the drop-down menu.
  • Scroll all the way down and click on ‘Pre-compose’. 
  • Make sure the setting is set to ‘Leave all attributes’ then tap on the okay button.
  • Return to the bottom left of the screen and right-click to show options from the precomposed layer
  • Scroll up through the options and select time, and further select ‘enable time remapping’.
  • The action should activate new keyframes that border the beginning and end of the clip at the bottom of the screen.

It gets simpler from here on out.

  • Simply click on the keyframe that borders the end of the clip and drag it back to shorten the timeline and quicken the video pace.
  • Conversely, by dragging the same keyframe further away from the start of the video timeline the clip lengthens in size and slows down in speed.

And that’s everything on how to speed up a video in After Effects highlighted in simple steps.

F. A. Q

Yes, you can learn how to speed up a video without altering the speed and pitch of the audio.  You can do so by adding an audio clip on the top of the video timeline and muting the original video clip.

No, you cannot learn how to speed up a video in After Effects for free because Adobe provides After Effect as a premium service for $21/mo. However, a free 7-day trial exists that editors can try their hands on.

Conclusion

Every experienced video editor understands that a video’s storyline and impact can be dramatically improved just by adjusting the frame rate and pace. And that’s why it’s always the number one priority for video editors to learn how to speed up a video. 

Have you sped up or slowed down a video before? What for? Are there any other special tools used to adjust a clip’s pace that we didn’t mention in this article?

Feel free to share your thoughts with us by commenting below.

References:

  1. US National Library of Medicine. (2017, December 5). Does the Podcast Video Playback Speed Affect Comprehension for Novel Curriculum Delivery? Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5785174/