Liven Up Your Video Transitions with Speed Ramping!

When I joined Momentum Digital and I was getting my feet wet with video editing, I hated using plain old straight cuts for transitions. The majority of my free time was spent typing “cool video transitions” into YouTube and digging deep into the archives. There was a common theme that arose from my research… Altering the speed at the beginning and end of each clip is an easy and effective way to jump from clip to clip without being cheesy or boring. Take a look at this short Premiere Pro tutorial to see how to use speed ramping in your videos, and exactly what the end result looks like.

The key in this whole process is being subtle about it. You only want to select a small part of the clip to speed up. That way the eye can hardly perceive that action that is happening.

It is also very important to note that you’re going to want to shoot in at least 60 frames per second for this to work. Of course if your camera is capable of shooting in 75 fps or even 120 fps, that will give you even more room to play around with time remapping. Conversely, if your camera only shoots in 24 or 30 fps, you’re not going to be able to get that ultra-smooth slow motion, but you can still speed up clips to achieve the same effect.

Your first step in the process is, and will always be, selecting all your clips, right-clicking and going into Modify> Interpret Footage. From there, you’re going to select “Assume this frame rate” and input 24 into the text box.

Viola, all of your clips are in slow motion!

From there, drag and drop your clips into the timeline. You will see a small button in the top lefthand corner of the clip that says “FX”. If you right click on that logo, you are presented with three options. You’ll want to select “Time Remapping” which will turn on the speed ramping function.

After selecting Time Remapping, use the hotkey ‘P’ to select your pen tool. Find the point in the clip that you want to start (or end) the speed ramp and click on the line. You’ll see a marker drop on the clip. The marker splits the clip in two portions. If you select the move tool again (V) you can now manipulate either side of the marker to increase or decrease the speed of the clip.

For this tutorial, I increased the speed to 1000%, but only for a split-second. This small and subtle movement allows you to cut to a different clip without a harsh straight cut. It is also advisable to try to cut two clips in which the camera is moving in the same direction… as in two clips where the camera is moving away from the subject, two clips that are both moving left to right, and so on and so forth.

If you need visual representation of this action, take a look at the video. I break it down further and you can see what it looks like when it all comes together. Trust me when I say, if you’re looking for it, you’ll notice speed ramping in a ton of content on tv, social and just about everywhere else.