Ideas for reversed video
Playing a clip backwards turns ordinary moments into something surprising. Water flows up into a glass, a broken tower of blocks builds itself, a jump into a pool ends with the swimmer flying out of the water. Reverse video is also popular for:
- "magic" tricks, where an object appears to jump into your hand;
- hair, makeup and room makeovers shown from the result back to the start;
- cooking clips where a finished dish turns back into ingredients;
- music videos and short dance clips with a dreamlike feel;
- checking a sports move or a fall frame by frame in the other direction.
The best clips for this have clear movement in one direction and a fixed camera. Throwing, pouring, jumping and falling look the most surprising when reversed, while a slow walk or a talking person looks almost the same both ways.
Sound, speed and boomerang
Reversed speech sounds strange and is impossible to understand. That can be funny, but often it is not what you want. Under Sound, choose Reverse the sound to play it backwards with the picture, or No sound to remove it. You can then put music over the result with add music to video.
The Speed setting runs the reversed clip from 0.5× (half speed) to 2× (double speed). Slow reverse works well for water, smoke and hair; fast reverse makes everyday actions look comic.
Boomerang plays the clip forward and then backward, like the camera feature of the same name on social apps. The result is twice as long and loops without a visible jump, which makes it ideal for short repeating clips and GIFs.
Reverse only a part
You don't have to reverse the whole recording. Drag the handles on the film strip to choose the part, and only that part is reversed. A summary shows the length of the result. Press Preview reversed to watch it play backwards before you export, and Stop preview to return to normal playback.
Why reversing takes time
Video files are built to be played forwards. Most frames only store what changed since the previous one, and full pictures (key frames) come every few seconds. To play backwards, the tool has to decode each group of frames and then put them out in the opposite order. For a 1080p video this takes roughly as long as the clip itself, sometimes more on an older computer.
If the selected part is longer than about a minute, the tool warns you that it may take several minutes and suggests choosing a shorter part. This also keeps the file size manageable. Everything runs in your browser without uploading the video. You can cancel at any time, and a progress bar shows the time left.
The result is saved as MP4 by default, or as WebM, MOV, MKV, GIF or an older format. A reversed GIF is popular for chats and forums, but GIF files get big quickly. Keep the part to a few seconds and lower the resolution in the export settings, and the GIF stays small enough to share. For an endlessly repeating clip, open it next in loop video. To slow down or speed up a clip without reversing it, use change video speed.