- Let's kick things off with a bit of a game
to see if you have a keen eye.
Can you spot the difference between these two little clips?
Here's the first one.
And here's the second one.
The difference is kinda subtle
since they're essentially the same shot,
but in the second one,
we're changing the speed of certain parts of the clips
to make the impact of the axe hitting the wood
even more epic.
This technique is called speed ramping
and it's a relatively easy trick
that you can use in your videos
to breathe new life into them
if they're feeling a little bit stale.
So, secure the cup and let's learn some speed ramping.
(upbeat music)
What is speed ramping?
Anyway, the short answer is
that speed ramping is changing the speed
of a clip in the middle of a clip.
So for example, rather than deciding
that an entire clip will be slow motion or fast motion,
maybe we want to start it at regular speed
and then slow down in the middle
to emphasize a part of the action
before going back to full speed
or even fast motion at the end of the clip.
And this can be done in any combination
of ways multiple times in one clip if you want.
The sky's the limit really.
Now, instead of just explaining,
I wanted to show you a practical example
of how I might actually use speed ramping.
So I created a sequence that utilizes speed ramping
in a whole bunch of different ways.
See if you can catch all the different ways
that I was playing around with the speed
and while we're checking out the clip,
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Okay, let's take a look at some of the build blocks
of speed ramping, and then we'll analyze that sequence
and I'll show you the different ways that I used it
and that you can use it in your videos.
So I'm in DaVinci Resolve here.
So some of this might look a little bit different
but whatever editor you're using will likely
have something similar to make this happen.
The first method of speed ramping is
what I like to call the brute force option.
In this specific case, what we're going to try
and do is slow down the middle section of a clip.
So we're gonna toss a clip on the timeline,
chop it where we want the speed to change.
Chop it again where we want the speed
to go back up to normal.
And then we're going to right-click the section
we want slow down and hit change clip speed.
Type in the speed that you want for the middle section
and make sure that ripple timeline is selected
so that it stretches out the length of the clip
and moves everything over after the clip and voila,
we have technically speed ramped this clip.
It starts at the normal speed, slows down in the middle
and then speeds back up at the end.
However, the reason that I call of this
the brute force option is because the transition
between regular speed and slow down is immediate
and it's therefore kind of jarring.
It's also really hard to make any changes
after you've already made your cuts.
If we wanted to change the point
at which our speed change starts or ends,
we can't just drag the clips around easily.
And finally, you're left with three clips
to deal with instead of one now.
So as much as this method is nice and easy,
it's not always the best.
However, there's another tool that opens
up a bit more control to us
if we right-click on the clip and hit retime controls.
You can also hit Command + R or Control + R
if you're on a PC.
Now you can see on the clip
that some new things have opened up.
It shows us the speed at the bottom.
Currently it's 20%, but if we drag from the top right,
we can increase or decrease the speed to whatever we need.
We can also click the down arrow
at the bottom to access some preset speed tools
like changing to a specific speed percentage,
reset it to 100%, creating a freeze frame,
reversing the clip.
And then there's the rewind and speed ramp
that are both little speed presets
that I have never really found very useful
but you can play around with them if you want to.
As it currently stands, we still have the same problem
as before we've got three clips
and those transitions are jarring.
So let's go back to before we made the cuts
and we just had one clip.
Let's open our retime controls,
put our play head where we want the speed change to start,
click the dropdown and choose add speed point.
Repeat that for where we want the speed change to end.
And now we can see the three different sections
without any cuts in the clip.
If we click the down arrow on the middle section
we can choose a preset speed percentage
or if we click and drag the handle on top right,
we can manually change the speed
and it automatically shifts over the rest of the clip.
One of the cool things about doing it this way is
that we can also use the handles at the bottom of the clip
to change where the different sections start and end.
So if I decided that the slow down section
in the middle went on a bit too long,
I can pull the right handle to shorten it
and make the sections start a little bit earlier.
In this method, the middle section stays slowed down
but you can alter where the speed changes happen
in your clip.
Okay, so this is pretty cool,
but those changes are still happening suddenly
instead of smoothly.
So we're going to need a bit more control.
Let's right-click the clip and hit retime curve.
And it will open up our retime key frames.
Initially will pop up with retime frame in the top-left.
But what we want right now is to click that dropdown menu
and choose retime speed instead.
Now we can see pretty obviously what's happening.
The line is at 100% speed,
and then it drops down suddenly to 20% speed in the middle,
and then back up to 100% speed at the end.
To smooth the transitions out,
click the key frame point
and hit the little curve button at the top.
Now you can see that it transitions smoothly
from 100% down to 20%
and we can play with the handles to adjust that curve.
It doesn't necessarily need to be a big, long curve,
but it definitely only helps to make
that transition smoother.
Let's repeat this with the other side of our speed change
and now we have nice, smooth transitions
in and out of our slow motion section.
If you really wanted to, you could actually do all
of the speed changes right here in the retime speed curve.
Starting from our original clip again
with our retime speed curve showing,
let's find those spots that we want to change the speed
and we're going to hold Option
or Alt and click to add points.
Then we can drag down the line in the middle section
to decrease the speed.
We can also drag the points left and right
to move where they happen in the clip,
similar to how we were dragging
around the retime controls before.
Now, if you're having trouble seeing what you're doing
or if you need to change the speed
beyond the visible scale,
you can change the scale of this area
by dragging on the negative numbers at the bottom
or the positive numbers on the top.
So now we know the technicalities of how to speed ramp.
So let's break down that sequence
and see some of the different ways
that you can actually use this technique in your project.
Speed ramping use number one is to use slow motion
to emphasize a specific action.
As I walk out of the door,
I look off into the distance
and it slows down right at that moment
to add importance to it.
You'll see this a bunch of times in this sequence
and it's probably the most popular way to use speed ramping.
For example, think of like an action movie
where something epic is happening and it slows down
so that you can actually see what's going on
or like the love interest walks through the door
in its slow motion to emphasize the fact
that that person is making an impact walking into the room.
But right at the end of this clip,
we see speed ramping use number two
and that is as a transition.
Right at the end of the slow motion section,
when it's going to cut to the close up
of me putting my hat on,
it speeds by back up to 100% for six frames only.
And then at the start of the next clip
it's 100% speed for five frames before it goes back
into slow motion emphasizing my awesome beanie.
So that's only a total of 11 frames
or about 1/3 of a second over top of the cut
where it goes back to full speed.
Not only does this move things along nicely
rather than being all in slow motion,
it really solidifies the cut as one unified movement.
And it makes it less noticeable
if there are slight inconsistencies in that movement.
This is another one that's used many times
throughout the sequence, even when the two clips
aren't necessarily a matched movement like that.
The third use for speed ramping is to speed up
to intensify the action.
In that clip that I showed you at the start
I use both slow motion and fast motion
to really make that axe hitting the wood
as epic as possible.
The clip starts in slow motion
with me swinging the axe upward,
but rather than just using 100% speed,
I bumped it up to 183%
to make the swing seem even faster and harder.
In the closeup clip, I started it with 170% speed
and then slowed it down immediately after the hit
so that we could see the wood chips fly off in slow motion.
So for this little section, it's both a transition
and an intensifier by making it faster than real life.
This can be a great trick for big impacts
or fight scenes, speeding a punch or kick up
even just a little bit
can make it seem a lot more impactful.
And the final way that I use speed ramping
in this whole sequence was
to sync up all the important points with the music.
I filmed the whole thing at 120 frames for per second.
So I knew on a 24 frame per second timeline,
I would be able to slow it down to 20% speed
without any choppiness.
This gives me a lot of flexibility
with the speeds that I use
and by playing with the handles of my speed points
I was able to make important things happen
at precisely the right moment
when they would have the most impact with the music.
So now you know, some of the of ways
that you can use speed ramping
and some of the ways that I use them here.
So let's watch this one more time
and see if you can point any more of them out.
(gentle upbeat music)
(bright upbeat music)
So in this time around, were you able to catch more
of the speed ramping tricks that you learned about
than you saw the first time you watched it?
As always, I wanna hear from you,
so leave a comment down below,
let me know is speed rapping something
that you're already using
or is this something that you think
you can incorporate into your videos.
And on your way down to the comment section,
make sure to hit that like
and subscribe button.
Hit the bell notification
so you don't miss out on future videos.
Huge thank you to DU/ER for sponsoring this video.
Make sure to check out the link in the description
and use the code, DUNNA15 to get 15% off your purchase.
Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time.
(gentle upbeat music)