Adjusting the Direction and Speed of the Clouds

We'll be adjusting our superhero so that he flies towards us from the distance. Unfortunately, our clouds in the ACB101.mov clip were filmed moving in the wrong direction (away from us). This would work fine if our superhero were flying away from us, too. No problem, though. With Premiere Elements it's a simple thing to reverse a clip. In addition to reversing this clip, we want to slow the clip down just a bit so that it lasts as long (actually, just a bit longer than) the superboy.avi clip. Otherwise, he'll be flying against the sky background for awhile, and then suddenly against a mysterious black background.

Use Time Stretch to Make the Changes

Right-click on the ACB101.mov clip in the Video 1 track on the Timeline.

From the contextual menu, select Time Stretch.

In the Time Stretch dialog box, set the Speed to 50%.

Mark the Reverse Speed check box.

Click OK.

Tip

Since the ACB101.mov clip does not contain any audio, we don't need to worry about the Maintain Audio Pitch setting.

Did You Know?

You decrease speed to increase duration. It may seem a bit counter-intuitive at first, but when you want to make a clip last longer, you enter a smaller number for the Speed setting. This isn't as odd as it may first seem if you think of a lower Speed number as a slower speed. So, when adjusting a clip's speed, up is down and down is up. For example, increasing the Speed of a clip to 200% will increase the clip's speed but the clip's duration will now be cut in half. Decreasing the Speed to 50% will increase the clip's duration and the clip will last on screen for twice as long.