--- title: "How to add a time freeze with Claude (tested prompt and script)" description: "At 1.5 seconds the holographic backdrop and acrylic block stop dead and drain to a cold gray-blue while the purple serum bottle keeps turning in full color, until the world snaps back to life at 4.5 seconds. Install one skill and ask Claude Code, or run the Python script we tested yourself." url: https://www.recharm.com/effects/time-freeze --- # How to add a time freeze with Claude At 1.5 seconds the holographic backdrop and acrylic block stop dead and drain to a cold gray-blue while the purple serum bottle keeps turning in full color, until the world snaps back to life at 4.5 seconds. Made by the script on this page, from our own test clip. ## Get this effect 1. ### Switch to Code in your [Claude Desktop App](https://claude.com/download) 2. ### Install the skill (once) ``` Install the Recharm video effects skill: download https://recharm-growth-staging.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/website/downloads/recharm-video-effects.zip and unzip it into ~/.claude/skills ``` 3. ### Ask for the effect ``` Add a time freeze to input.mp4 Second the world stops: 1.5 Second time starts again: 4.5 ``` ## Several videos, several effects, one ask Put your clips in the folder, mention them with @, and ask for everything at once. Claude runs one tested script after another on each clip, then joins them. Add a time freeze to **@clip1.mp4**, put a sale badge on **@clip2.mp4**, give **@clip3.mp4** a VHS look, then join all three with crossfades. ## Settings you can change Ask Claude to change any of these, or edit them at the top of the script. | Setting | Default | What it does | | ------------ | -------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------- | | `FREEZE` | `1.5` | Second the world stops. | | `RESUME` | `4.5` | Second time starts again. | | `FADE` | `0.3` | Seconds the frozen look takes to drain in and to wash back out. | | `SATURATION` | `0.15` | Color left in the frozen world: 0 is gray, 1 untouched. | | `TINT` | `(0.86, 0.95, 1.12)` | Red, green and blue multipliers that cool the frozen world. | | `DARKEN` | `0.88` | Brightness of the frozen world. | ## Without the skill Don’t want to install the skill? Paste this prompt into Claude Code and Claude writes the script itself. ``` Add a time freeze to input.mp4 (540x960, 30fps, 6 seconds, a camera orbiting a serum bottle on an acrylic block). Use Python with numpy, Pillow, OpenCV and rembg (u2net model), and ffmpeg to read and write the video. Before 1.5 seconds the video is untouched. At 1.5 seconds take that frame as the frozen world: cut the bottle out with rembg, make a mask of every pixel where rembg's mask is above 40, dilate it with a 15x15 square kernel and paint that area out with cv2.inpaint (radius 9, INPAINT_TELEA), so no frozen copy of the bottle is left behind. Give the frozen world a cold look: gray = 0.299 R + 0.587 G + 0.114 B, keep 15% of the color (gray + (rgb - gray) * 0.15), multiply red, green and blue by 0.86, 0.95 and 1.12 and everything by 0.88; ramp this look in linearly from none at 1.5 seconds to full at 1.8 seconds. From 1.5 to 4.5 seconds, cut the bottle out of every live frame with rembg and lay it, in its original colors, over the frozen world using rembg's mask as soft alpha, so only the bottle keeps turning while the backdrop and acrylic block hold still. At 4.5 seconds time resumes: show the live footage again, with the cold look fading out linearly from full at 4.5 seconds to none at 4.8 seconds; after that the video is untouched. Don't add any text (if you do, draw it with Pillow, not ffmpeg's drawtext). Keep the size, frame rate, 6 second length and audio, and save it as output.mp4. ``` ## Run it without Claude This is the exact script we tested. Save it as `time-freeze.py` and run: ``` python3 time-freeze.py input.mp4 output.mp4 ``` ``` #!/usr/bin/env python3 """Time freeze: the world stops and drains to a cold gray-blue while the product alone keeps moving in full color. Usage: python3 time-freeze.py input.mp4 output.mp4 Needs ffmpeg, Pillow, numpy, OpenCV and rembg to cut the product out of every frozen frame (pip install pillow numpy opencv-python-headless "rembg[cpu]"; rembg downloads its u2net model on first use). """ import json import subprocess import sys import cv2 import numpy as np from PIL import Image from rembg import new_session FREEZE = 1.5 # second the world stops RESUME = 4.5 # second time starts again FADE = 0.3 # seconds the frozen look takes to drain in and to wash back out SATURATION = 0.15 # color left in the frozen world (0 gray, 1 untouched) TINT = (0.86, 0.95, 1.12) # red, green, blue multipliers that cool the frozen world DARKEN = 0.88 # brightness of the frozen world def clean_plate(rgb, session): """The frame with the product painted out, so a moving product never uncovers a frozen copy of itself.""" mask = np.asarray(session.predict(Image.fromarray(rgb))[0]) mask = cv2.dilate((mask > 40).astype(np.uint8) * 255, np.ones((15, 15), np.uint8)) return cv2.inpaint(rgb, mask, 9, cv2.INPAINT_TELEA).astype(np.float32) def frozen_look(rgb, p): """Drain color from rgb, cool it and darken it, by p from 0 (untouched) to 1 (fully frozen).""" gray = rgb @ np.array([0.299, 0.587, 0.114], np.float32) cold = (gray[:, :, None] + (rgb - gray[:, :, None]) * SATURATION) * np.array(TINT, np.float32) * DARKEN return rgb + (np.clip(cold, 0, 255) - rgb) * p def composite(rgb, t): """Before FREEZE and after RESUME the footage plays; in between, the live product over the frozen frame.""" global plate if t < FREEZE: return rgb img = rgb.astype(np.float32) if t >= RESUME: p = max(0.0, 1 - (t - RESUME) / FADE) return np.round(frozen_look(img, p)).astype(np.uint8) if plate is None: plate = clean_plate(rgb, session) p = min(1.0, (t - FREEZE) / FADE) subject = np.asarray(session.predict(Image.fromarray(rgb))[0], np.float32)[:, :, None] / 255 world = frozen_look(plate, p) return np.round(world + (img - world) * subject).astype(np.uint8) def probe(path): info = json.loads(subprocess.check_output(["ffprobe", "-v", "error", "-select_streams", "v:0", "-show_entries", "stream=width,height,r_frame_rate", "-of", "json", path])) s = info["streams"][0] num, den = s["r_frame_rate"].split("/") return s["width"], s["height"], s["r_frame_rate"], float(num) / float(den) def render(src, out): """Read src frame by frame, composite each one and save to out, keeping the audio.""" reader = subprocess.Popen(["ffmpeg", "-v", "error", "-i", src, "-f", "rawvideo", "-pix_fmt", "rgb24", "-"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE) writer = subprocess.Popen(["ffmpeg", "-y", "-v", "error", "-f", "rawvideo", "-pix_fmt", "rgb24", "-s", f"{w}x{h}", "-r", rate, "-i", "-", "-i", src, "-map", "0:v", "-map", "1:a?", "-c:v", "libx264", "-crf", "18", "-pix_fmt", "yuv420p", "-c:a", "copy", "-shortest", out], stdin=subprocess.PIPE) i = 0 while raw := reader.stdout.read(w * h * 3): rgb = np.frombuffer(raw, np.uint8).reshape(h, w, 3) writer.stdin.write(composite(rgb, i / fps).tobytes()) i += 1 writer.stdin.close() if reader.wait() or writer.wait(): sys.exit("ffmpeg failed") src, out = sys.argv[1:3] w, h, rate, fps = probe(src) session = new_session("u2net") plate = None render(src, out) ``` ## More motion and camera - [2.5D parallax photo **2.5D parallax photo**](https://www.recharm.com/effects/2-5d-parallax-photo) - [Back-and-forth loop **Back-and-forth loop**](https://www.recharm.com/effects/back-and-forth-loop) - [Background blur **Background blur**](https://www.recharm.com/effects/background-blur) - [Bullet time **Bullet time**](https://www.recharm.com/effects/bullet-time) - [Cinemagraph **Cinemagraph**](https://www.recharm.com/effects/cinemagraph) ## Find 3x _winning ads_ Recharm cuts your ad footage into tagged, searchable clips: hooks, testimonials, product shots. Find the shots that win, add the effect with Claude, and ship 3x more ad edits. [Start 14-day free trial](https://www.recharm.com/get-started)