Time-Warp Editing: A New Trend in Video Storytelling

For emphasis

You can use time-warping as a way to emphasize any part of your video. It should ideally be an action, as slowed-down dialogue doesn't make for engaging content. If your characters are running towards each other, chasing something, or even falling down, slowing down the moment can sell the impact.

Action

Action sequences can contrast slow and fast moments to create a compelling effect. Slowing down footage just before a big jump or explosion can highlight what follows. You can also slow down reaction shots after a significant event to let its effects sink in.

Flashback

Time-warping (as a concept) is embedded within flashbacks. After all, most flashbacks take liberties with time. When a character remembers something, the narrative stands still as the flashback plays out. That is a way of warping time.

But you can also use speeding up and slowing down effects to visually warp the time. If a character is recalling her first kiss, then slowing down the sequence would make sense. And if she’s trying to recall something that happened after she drank too much, speeding up the flashback with excessive motion blur would make sense.

Montage

Some videographers change the video speed during montage sequences. This practice isn't very common, though. Still, you can reserve a degree of time-warping for montages. Just remember to slow the video subtly, as montage sequences are meant to be glossed over.

Manual

Manual time-warping lays the foundation for all other kinds of time-warping. So, you need to understand this regardless of whether you're interested in stylistic or narrative warping. To time-warp edit a video manually, you must follow these steps:

1. Drag the clip to the project timeline - Almost all video editing programs have a project timeline.

2. Highlight or isolate the portion you plan to slow down (or speed up) - You can usually split each specific portion into its own clip on the timeline.

3. Adjust the speed - Different editing programs have different speed manipulation shortcuts.

4. Enable blending (if available in the editor) - If the editor has an option to blend frames, then you should enable it.

Time-Warp With Your Script

Time-warping with your script is a storytelling tool. It doesn't require video editing mastery. You just need to control the pace of your narrative to slow down moments of depth and speed up those of thrill. You can also slow down certain scenes to build tension.

To time-warp your script, you should write different scenes in different settings. You can also spend more time writing one scene and less on another. Many authors use their plot outlines to adjust how much time they give different beats of their novels to shine.

Time-Warp With Your Voice

As a narrator or presenter, you can create a hypnotic effect by altering your pace of delivery. Try sneaking a slow sentence after a high-speed delivery. Or try speeding up your pace when describing a high-octane scene. You will draw your audience in.

Hybridize

So far, you've learned how to technically time-warp an edit and how to use tools like The Foundry's TimeWarp effect to smooth things out. You have also learned how to speed up and slow down the actual narrative of your story with script timing and delivery.

Now, it is time to consider hybrid-warping. Try mixing up different hybridization techniques for stylistic and narrative impact. Below are a few suggestions for hybrid time warping:

• Quick-paced narration with sped-up footage

• Longer sequence description with slowed-down footage

• Slow motion with high-speed music

• Slow music with high-speed action

You can always mix and match different time-warping tools to get the creative result you're looking for. And if you're unsure about which ones to go for, don't worry. The section below will help you.

Flashback

One of the most consistent uses of time-warp editing is in the flashback portions of videos. Usually, the flashback is slowed down, or the narrative is sped up. Both these choices play with time and are, therefore, examples of time-warping.

Flashforward

A flashforward refers to skipping to a future point in the narrative. This, like a flashback, entails warping the passage of time from a storytelling perspective. Slowing down or speeding up footage in flashforwards is not that common, but it is still an opportunity you can exploit.

Illustration

You can time-warp certain scenes to make a point. Director Zack Snyder is famous for using slow motion in his videos. And in almost every instance of a Snyder slow-mo, the desired effect is illustrative. By dragging out the scene, every aspect of it gets a significant shine.

Thrill

The opposite of an illustrative slow-mo is a thrilling speed-up. Pick up the pace of the footage at just the right time, and you'll heighten its thrill. Many YouTubers use fast-paced editing purely to hijack and hold their viewers' attention. Since boredom is synonymous with time moving slower, you can give people the opposite experience by making it move quicker.

Tension

Slow down the footage at any point where there's some tension, and you'll create a lot of tension. Horror films often use narrative time warping to slow down a reveal. The characters might not be moving in slow motion, but they're experiencing reality unfolding at a slower pace.

All in all, you can use slow motion, slower storytelling, or fast-paced editing at any point in your video as long as it serves a purpose.

Black And White

Suppose you're using slow-motion to exaggerate something like a ball being launched towards someone's head. You can make the entire scene black and white except for the ball. Simply isolate the color channel of the ball and let it be the only one displayed with any saturation.

L And J Cuts

L and J cuts in video editing refer to instances where the video cuts before the audio and the audio cuts before the video, respectively. We have a blog post about lesser-known video editing tricks where we discuss these cuts.

Here's how you can use them alongside narrative time warping. You can switch from a regular-paced visual to a slower-paced one before the audio has a chance to catch up. You can also speed up the footage while cutting to a slower-paced audio.

These cuts are great for creating curious contradictions that increase audience engagement. Just make sure you don't use them too often. Excessive L and J cutting can become obvious and lose its magic, as can excessive slow motion (you hear that, Zack Snyder?).

Music/Sound Slow

Switching to slower music when you slow down the footage can create a very convincing illusion of time slowing down. A great example of that is this scene. It is from X-Men: Days of Future Past and shows how time moves from the perspective of Quicksilver (alternative to The Flash).

Leverage Creative Transitions

Aside from slowing down the music or speeding up the audio track, you can also play around with video transitions. Creative transitions can make rapid cuts less distracting. They can also create momentum that keeps viewers engaged as shots change.

Add Motion Blur

Motion blur is considered a band-aid solution for missing frames. When footage is slowed down, motion blur has a filling effect similar to the Time Warp node. Where the Foundry's Time Warp effect blends frames to fill the gaps, motion blur creates a lagging trail of blurred frames that hides the gaps between captured frames.

Overuse

As a general rule of thumb, you should avoid using one type of warping effect more than once in a ten-minute window. Of course, this also depends on the context of your content. For instance, The Slow Mo Guys will definitely use copious amounts of slow-mo because that's literally what their audience wants. Overuse is defined by your audience's tolerance. And often, your audience is patient for one time-warp every ten minutes.

Not Using Time Warp

A much less egregious sin compared to overuse of time warping is not using time warping at all. It doesn't hurt your video's consumability, but it does lower its engagement potential. Basically, your video can be engaging without a time warp, but not using a time warp is a missed opportunity to make your video even more engaging.

Usage Without Purpose

Using Time-warp just to use time-warp can break audience immersion. Time-warping works best when it doesn't draw too much attention to itself. You might have noticed that before you read this post, you missed most instances of time-warping in the videos you watched. That's how it's supposed to be. Time-warping should have a purpose other than to draw attention to itself.

Artifacting And Jerky Footage

The last mistake that most people make in time-warp editing is not using tools that eliminate artifacting and jerkiness. Twixtor and The Foundry's TimeWarp node exist, so there's no reason you should not be using those or other tools to make your time-warps look smooth. And remember, even if you don't use custom plugins and effects, you can always blend frames to achieve a relatively smooth look.