Speed ramping
Also known as: speed ramp, time remapping, velocity edit
Smoothly changing playback speed within one clip - say, real time into slow motion at the peak of a jump and back - to put weight on a key moment.
Updated
What it means
Speed ramping means changing a clip's playback speed gradually instead of all at once. The rider approaches the jump at normal speed, time slows to a crawl as they leave the lip, then snaps back to real time or faster for the landing. The gradual change is the ramp; an abrupt switch in speed tends to look like a glitch.
It is one of the signature looks of action and travel edits because it lets a single clip carry both the energy of real time and the detail of slow motion. Short-form edits often push it further into so-called velocity edits, where the speed swings with every beat of the track.
How it works in practice
The quality of the slow section depends on the frame rate you shot. Footage recorded at 120 fps can be slowed to 25 percent on a 30 fps timeline with every frame still a real frame. At 60 fps you can only go to 50 percent cleanly. Anything slower needs frame blending or optical flow, which invents frames and can smear fast detail.
In Premiere Pro the tool is Time Remapping, in DaVinci Resolve the Retime Curve, in Final Cut Pro the Retime menu. Set two keyframes around the peak moment, drop the speed between them and pull the keyframes apart so the change eases in over 6 to 12 frames. Putting the slowest point on a drum hit or bass drop makes the ramp feel locked to the music.
What to watch out for
Ramping footage shot at 24 or 30 fps is the classic disappointment: the slow part stutters, or turns into a wobbly, warped mess when optical flow has to fill in too much. Decide before the session which moments might get slowed and switch the camera to a high frame rate for them.
Watch the shutter speed as well. High-frame-rate footage in bright light is often shot with a very fast shutter, so the real-time parts of the ramp look choppy while the slow part looks crisp. Camera audio rarely survives either - slowed sound becomes a low rumble, so mute it and let music carry the ramp. Use ramps on every clip and they stop feeling special; save them for the true peaks of the highlight.
How RawClip handles it
RawClip accepts high-frame-rate footage from 60 to 120 fps alongside regular clips in the same order. Its AI looks for jumps and peak action across all of them when building the edit, and times the cuts to the beat of the included music.