After Effects Time Remapping Tutorial

This tutorial will introduce you to the Time Remapping feature of After Effects. The Time Remapping feature can be used for various timing effects such as freeze frames, speed ramps, slow motion, and more. The tutorial will take 10-20 minutes based on experience with After Effects.

Files

1. Start off by importing the footage and dragging it to the new composition icon. You can use the test footage I’ve provided or recreate what I have on screen.

2. Select the layer with your footage in the Timeline and then go to Layer > Time > Enable Time Remapping (Ctrl+Alt+T). The Time Remapping properties will appear.

3. You should have 2 keyframes on your Time Remap. One at the start of your footage and one at the end. Drag your keyframe from the end until it’s at 6 seconds or if you’re using your own footage, 50% of the composition duration. When playing back the video you will notice the 15 seconds of footage have been compacted into 6 seconds.

4. Undo your change so your last keyframe is back at the end of your video. Now we’ll use Time Remapping to create a freeze frame. Move your playhead to around 4 seconds. Right click Time Remap and create a new keyframe.

5. With the keyframe you made at 4 seconds selected, go to Edit > Copy, or Ctrl+C. Move the playhead to 6 seconds and then go to Edit > Paste, or Ctrl+V. When you playback your movie it should move from 0-4 seconds, then hold until 6 seconds, and then continue playing from 6 seconds to 15 seconds.

8. Lastly we’ll use the Graph Editor to make some more tweaks. First turn on the Graph Editor and enable it on your Time Remap layer.

9. Move your points around so it looks similar to what I have.

Here’s the breakdown of what this is doing:

From 0:00-0:04 seconds it will play my whole clip, which is 0:15 seconds long. This means it will be playing at around 400% speed.

From 0:04-0:08 seconds it will play my whole clip, which is 0:15 seconds long. EXCEPT it will now play it backwards. It will still be playing at around 400% speed.

From 0:08-0:15 seconds it will play my whole clip, which is 0:15 seconds long, but because it playing over a longer period of time it will playback at around 200%.

There’s many uses for Time Remapping, but there’s 2 uses which I’ve found to be most useful. One is using the freeze
frame use on logos/endtags etc. Sometimes you may realize the logo you’ve used is not holding on the screen long enough. You can create an extra 1 second hold using a freeze frame without changing the duration of your whole video. Although, other parts of the video will play slightly faster it most likely won’t be noticeable.

The other great use for Time Remapping is if you’re using any 3D applications or high end camera. Instead of rendering/shooting your video at 30fps you can try 60fps. This will give you the ability to manipulate your footage much more than when shooting at 30fps.

Two warning when doing Time Remapping…

One is, Time Remapping will effect audio so be careful that you’re only using it on video. Put your audio back once you’re finished.

The other warning is, Time Remapping isn’t going to solve all timing issues. There’s a limit to how much you can slow down footage. If you have footage shot at 30fps you can make it so it plays back at 1000% with no issues, since you’re simply throwing away frames/data. Going the other way isn’t as simple. If you have footage shot at 30fps you will be very limited to how much slower you can make the playback before it start to stutter, especially if there’s a lot of motion. This is why you may want to consider shooting at a higher framerate when possible.