Apple Final Cut Pro 6 - Manual (Page 1130)

Chapter 17 Changing Clip Speed and Time Remapping 345
II
Making Variable Speed Changes
Variable speed changes are made by assigning a frame in a clip’s media file to a new
time in the clip. All the other frames are repeated or skipped accordingly to
compensate, which causes fast or slow motion. This is known as time remapping,
because you are changing when during a clip the frames play back.
Time remapping parameters can be keyframed. When you add a time remapping
keyframe, you choose which frame from a clip’s media file is shown at a particular time
in the clip. You can add keyframes directly in the keyframe editor in the Timeline or the
Motion tab in the Viewer. You can also use the Time Remap tool to drag a clip’s media
file frame to a new time in the clip.
How Time Remapping Works
The goal with time remapping is to make a particular frame from your media file
occur at a specific point in the Timeline. For example, suppose you have a clip at the
beginning of a sequence in which a diver hits the water at frame 100 of the clip’s media
file. Suppose you have a musical cue at frame 300 in the sequence. You can use time
remapping to move frame 100 of the clip’s media file to frame 300 of the sequence clip.
To compensate, Final Cut Pro must slow down the media frames to make 100 frames
last for the duration of 300. You only need to remap a single frame in time, and
Final Cut Pro adjusts the rest of the clip’s speed accordingly.
Frame 100 of the
clip’s media file...
...is remapped to line up with
the musical cue at frame 300
of the sequence clip.
Fast motion Slow motion
Musical cue at frame 300