Slow motion
Also known as: slo-mo, slowmo, high frame rate video
Footage that plays back slower than real time, usually made by recording at a high frame rate such as 120 or 240 fps and playing it at 24, 30 or 60 fps.
Updated
What it means
Slow motion stretches a moment so the viewer can actually see what happened in it - the board leaving the lip, spray hanging in the air, a fist landing. Real slow motion is captured, not invented: the camera records far more frames per second than the video will be played at, and showing those frames at a normal frame rate spreads them over more time.
The math is simple. 120 fps played at 30 fps is 4x slower, and 240 fps at 30 fps is 8x. Software can also fake slow motion by generating in-between frames with optical flow, but the result tends to warp around fast edges like hands, wheel spokes and splashing water.
How it works in practice
Many action cameras label their slow-motion modes by multiplier, such as 2x, 4x or 8x, with the highest multipliers available only at reduced resolution. Some cameras write a file that already plays slowed down; others record a normal 120 fps file and leave the slowing to the editor, which is more flexible because you choose the speed later.
In an edit, slow motion works best in short doses. A common pattern is to run a trick at full speed, drop into a slowed section at the peak and snap back to real time on the landing - the technique known as speed ramping. Shoot the whole run at the high rate if you can, so there are spare frames wherever the peak turns out to be.
What to watch out for
High frame rates are hungry for light. Each frame gets a shorter exposure, so dusk or forest footage at 240 fps often turns grainy as the camera raises ISO. Save the top rates for bright conditions and drop to 120 fps when the light fades.
Artificial lights are another trap: LEDs and fluorescent tubes that look steady to the eye can flicker or band once slowed down, so match the shutter to the local mains frequency. Slowing 30 fps footage in post simply stutters, because there are no extra frames to show. And do not overdo it - a highlight built entirely from slow motion feels long and loses its energy.
How RawClip handles it
RawClip accepts high-frame-rate uploads from 60 to 120 fps alongside normal footage from any mix of cameras. The AI looks for jumps and peak action across the whole upload and cuts the best moments to the beat of the music in the finished highlight.