Do you sometimes want to add a bit of easy fun to your cat videos? You might have silly clips from your cats at home or, like me, a local cat cafe. You want to give them a new look so what can you do? Let me suggest a simple idea.
Grab your smartphone and try creating a video with your cats in slow motion.
How to Create Slow Video Clips
Look for an icon on your sidebar (or ‘phone app) that looks like a stopwatch, or a tortoise and hare. They are similar in size to the dodge and burn tools I wrote about here.
Check out the screenshot from my iPhone version of iMovie. You can see the icons under the ‘speed adjustment’ text. There is a slider and below this a stopwatch icon.
All you have to do to change the speed of a clip is:
- Highlight a video clip.
- Use the slider to slow down (or speed up) your clip.
- Play the clip and adjust the speed further if you want to.
- Check to see if the software allows you to select more than one clip at a time if you want to edit multiple clips at once.
Most apps and software work in similar ways.
Where Would I use Slow Video?
You can use your cats in slow motion video to:
- Show off your athletic or beautiful cat shamelessly on social media. Half a minute of gorgeous leaping cat on Instagram anyone?
- Showcase the benefits of a cat product – spotlighting a healthy cat in graceful movement. A lingering shot of your cat enjoying (or near) a product speaks volumes.
- Spotlight a rescue cat or kitten in need of a home. Capture their character is a slow cheeky look or a paw wave, and capture an adopter’s heart.
The video I shot of cats at my local cat adoption cafe is all about feline fun, showing how cats twist and leap as they play. For me, it made sense that the whole video is slow motion, and it’s an interesting experiment on how far you can push the ‘slowing things down’ idea.
- TIP: You are slowing down your video to emphasise a point or spotlight a moment.
Give Slow Motion Cats a Try
Your videos may be short and you may only need to add a small clip of a cat in slow motion but it might make a difference. Experiment and have fun, slow things down and see if there is space for cats in slo-mo in your next smartphone video.
Marjorie is a blogger, award-winning photographer and smartphone moviemaker who loves cats.
Hi Marjorie,
Thanks for this awesome idea. I did try some time to make slow motion video but i can’t. I think this trick will work for me. Do i have to use slow motion camera for this purpose?
You should be able to shoot in slo-mo on a smartphone or reduce the speed of your clip in a movie editing app.
I have some ancient videos of MJF, Minko and Pipo…made on a little pocket 35mm camera…have not made others…
More things to learn and do when I am in retirement…whenever that might be, MOL!
Very interesting! We have never actually tried out iMovie but maybe we should, we’ve always used something else. Thanks for joining the Thankful Thursday Blog Hop!
That does seem like a fun idea!
I never thought of slowing down a video. XO