Hi Guys!
This is Jordan with Motion Array.
When you edit a video, one of the most important things that you want to try and create is
(different images of flowing water) Flow.
Now what we mean when we say Flow the continuous movement of your video.
It’s hard to really quantify this term, because it’s something that a good video
just makes you feel.
But really the end goal of creating flow
is make your audience feel like the story, the visuals, the audio, are being
carried throughout the duration of your video.
Think of a stream.
The flow of water is not only progressive, meaning moving forward, but it’s also directional.
It's not going any which way, but exactly where the stream boundaries take it.
There’s a specific start and end to the stream of movement.
This is one of the reasons that transitions are so popular for creating enjoyable videos.
They help naturally take you to the next point in your video without a sudden bump or stutter
to interrupt you, which is sometimes what a harsh cut can make you feel.
Interrupted.
This is a long intro, why are we talking about this?
Well it’s because I’m going to share with you guys 1 easy way to create better flow
in your videos.
So get on your computer and open up Premiere, because we’re going to give your projects
more flow with speed ramping!
So we’re in Premiere Pro, and we have a few clips here that we want to put in succession.
Right now they’re just regular speed with no transitions and they cut from one to the
next.
Also, just a quick heads up that the footage I'm using in this example has been shot in slow motion
Normally we might want to add a transition, but I don’t want to draw attention to the
transition by adding something flashy, we just want to make the change from one clip
to another feel more natural, more intentional, and almost invisible.
So how do we use speed ramping to do that?
Lets first open up our speed ramping capabilities for our clip box.
Right click your clip and go down to show clip keyframe > Time Remapping > Speed.
From here you’ll see that this little line doesn’t stand for opacity anymore, but instead
it’s representing the speed the clip is being played back at, which right now is 100%.
Our goal for this clip is to speed it up close to the end when the cut happens between the
clips, like we’re accelerating into the cut.
But if we make an adjustment to our speed here, it makes the change for the entire clip
and not just for the section we want.
What we’re going to do is simply take the end of our clip here and make a keyframe by
holding ctrl or command and clicking.
Now we can control this side independant from this side.
So let’s raise this end bit to make it faster.
You’ll notice that your clip will move around when you change the speed.
Keep in mind that the duration of your clips will either lengthen or shorten when you make
changes, but the actual point within the clip that it starts and stops at will remain the
same.
Let me show you what I mean.
In this example our clip ends when our subject turns her head a bit.
Even if we change the speed really drastically, it will change the duration but it will still
end with her head turning.
Let’s go back to our other example.
There’s still a problem, our video clip just jumps into fast motion and it’s kind
of jarring and doesn’t look great.
So we can ramp the speed by dragging out this keyframe here.
The farther you drag it, the more gradual the change will be.
Finally, if you want the change to be less linear and more explosive, you can take this
marker here and rotate it to make more of an S curve.
Here’s what that looks like in comparison.
It’s subtle, but it can change a bit of the tone you want to set for your video.
That’s looking a little better.
Now remember the goal for the effect that we want to have the cut happen at the height
of the acceleration.
When the clip just about reaches its fastest point, that's when we want to cut.
But this is only half the story.
What we want to do next is the opposite with the next clip, we want it to start fast, and
then ramp down to normal speed.
Take the exact same setup that we did for our previous clip and apply it to the beginning
of the next one.
And now your effect should look like this!
Now guys this is only half the battle.
Like we've mentioned before in other videos, Audio is key to your project.
So adding a couple of sound effects can take your project miles further.
Here’s two suggestions that I would give.
Place a very subtle sound effect down as an indicatetor to your audience for the speed
change.
Something like a whoosh or even a riser can help to sell this effect more.
If you want to make your own custom riser, check out our previous video on free downloads
in the description below.
So we’re going to add in a whoosh sound effect that sounds like this.
But once we add it in, we notice that it's a little too loud. So we're gonna bring it down in volume so it's soft.
Now this is what it sounds like.
It’s kind of there, but it’s really too intense even when we drop the volume down.
So we’re actually going to drop the speed of this sound effect way down.
To around 35%.
Slowing this down will make it sound more gradual, and make it blend in with everything else going on.
Your results might vary depending on what sound effect you're using.
I’m using a whoosh sound effect from Motion Array’s library.
And the link is in the description below if you want to check it out.
Slowing it down make it more gradual and help it to blend in more with everything that’s
going on.
We’re not trying to draw attention to the effect, we’re just trying to make it feel
like it’s actually happening by giving subtle audio cues.
And now when we add it at the point of our transition, this is what it sounds like.
It’s so subtle but it works so well.
Lastly, we what can really help to blend these two clips together is to have sounds that
remains unchanged between the two clips.
Ambient noises are great for this.
Both of these clips for example are in the forest, let’s take the ambient sound of
a forest.
We’ll make it very soft as if it's in the background, and then take it and stretch it
out over both sides of the cut.
This way, our audio cues are telling us that there is a connection between the two clips,
like they’re happening in the same area.
Lastly, I’m just going to drop in some subtle music to give some extra character to our
video, and I’m going to go ahead and do what we’ve worked on in this video for all
the clips on our timeline.
So now with all that combined, let’s take a look at our final video.
And guys that’s it, that's how you add a speed ramp to your videos and how you stylize
it get the most impact possible.
I hope you found this video helpful.
And I hope that you can see how sometimes the most simple and subtle of changes can
result in the biggest impacts for your video.
Just so you know, all of the sound effect and music we used were from right here at
motionarray.com. We’ve also got way more tutorials for premiere pro, after effects,
and filmmaking in general.
Feel free to check it all out.
But that's it for me.
I hope to see you in the next video.