Slow-Mo, Time Remapping and Speed Ramping in Premiere Pro

Welcome back to our blog

Hi, fellow editor!In this lesson, we will learn how to slow down and speed up a video in Premiere Pro. As you know, we got Assets - the tool for Premiere Pro and After Effects, that allows you to find any video or photo material for your projects. It's free to download so you can add it to your software right now!

Speed up or slow down your video

We've picked and imported the suitable one. You can import files from assets straight into your timeline. Create a new sequence, we made a 16:9 sequence with 24 fps for this video. Right-click and select Scale to frame size. 

The fastest way to change the speed is to choose Speed/duration function. If you will click Reverse speed function, your video will be displayed in reverse direction. The speed and duration are connected, so if you'll set speed to 200%, the video will be played twice faster and will be shorter. 

To slow our video, we set speed to 40% (or any other value, that is lesser than 100% and will suit our video). Here can appear a problem - as you can see, the fps setting here doesn't suit the video, there aren't enough frames. By stretching the video in 2 times, we reduce the number of frames in 2 either - from 24 to 12. For good results, you should use a video with good framerate. 

Slowing down the video

3 Slowdown options in Premiere Pro

In Premiere Pro we use 3 different slowdown options. What's the difference between them?

Frame sampling

It's usual video stretching, which occurs with gaps between frames and doesn't look good with low fps. With high dynamics in the video,  the program makes a lot of artefacts and cannot calculate adequately. 

Optical flow

For this option, Premiere Pro automatically draws gaps between frames. This option is better to be used in videos without dynamics and smooth movements on the frame. In some ways, optical flow tries to create new frames to make the transition between frames smother.

Frame blending

Another good option, which ads a blend between frames. It may be very individual, which setting will look better with your video - you should try both optical flow and frame blending. The program inserts the next block with increased transparency, so we see a smoother picture.  

Speed ramping and time remapping

We're taking the video, that was made with a high framerate. Doubleclick on the layer that contains video. Click on the Fx button and choose Speed option. There is a duplicate line in the Effect Controls tab - you can both control it there and on the timeline. 

We will now accelerate the hand movement. Set the point from where we will change the speed and the point where acceleration ends; by raising the line, we can adjust the speed to a desired one.

Here acceleration starts very abruptly and ends abruptly too. You can make it smoother by dividing both points in two, thereby setting additional parameters for smoothness.

 This is the result we've got:

That's all for today! If you need more lessons for Premiere Pro, go check our blog or YouTube channel for this. Good luck with your projects!