Speed Ramp. How to Speed Up A Clip in Adobe Premiere Pro
Key takeaways
- Speed ramping combines multiple speeds on a single clip to emphasize video moments, create impact, and maintain audience engagement through dynamic pacing—blending different playback speeds (100% = normal, 50% = half speed, higher = faster) on the same clip, requiring minimum 60 FPS capture for smooth slow-motion playback without choppiness.
- FPS settings determine slow-motion quality: shooting at 60 FPS enables half-speed playback smoothly while extreme slow-motion requires even higher FPS, with Time Interpolation set to "Optical Flow" generating intermediate frames when captured frames are insufficient—keeping sequence settings at 24 FPS while source footage captures at 60+ FPS preserves smooth speed ramp transitions.
- Keyframe-based speed ramping enables smooth transitions by accessing speed controls via right-click > Speed/Duration (Command/Control + R), enabling Time Remapping > Speed to display the control line, and using CMND/CTRL+Click to create speed keyframes that can be dragged horizontally to adjust transition duration and smoothed via the blue dot on ramp curves.
Want to know how to speed up your footage? Make slow motion videos and create a smooth speed ramp in Adobe Premiere Pro? Check this out.
What is a Speed Ramp?
Videos can be sped up, they can be slowed down. But a speed ramp is a technique used to combine different speeds on the same clip. This technique is used to emphasize parts of your video creating an impactful effect on your editing. It gives that extra flavor to keep your audience excited and interested.
How to Control Speed in Premiere Pro?
To access the speed controls, you can either right click on your clip and select the option ‘Speed/Duration’, or you can use the shortcuts ‘Command + R’ on Mac and ‘Control + R’ on Windows.
A ‘100%’ percentage represents the normal speed. The higher the number, the faster the video will play. If you put it at 50% it will slow down the video to half it’s normal speed. But, one extremely important thing to remember for slow motion. The footage that you use should be shot at a minimum of 60 frames per second.
Read More: With the MASV Panel for Adobe Premiere Pro, you can send full Premiere projects
FPS Settings
Our eyes see normal movement at 24 frames-per-second (FPS). When shooting at 60 FPS, you can easily slow it down by half without the movement looking choppy. But if you want to slow it down even further, you will need a higher FPS so you can have that smooth movement.
If you want a super slow-mo but don’t have the frames to afford it, you change the ‘Time Interpolation’ to ‘Optical Flow’ here. Also don’t forget to keep your sequence settings at 24 FPS.
How to Create a Speed Ramp?
To create a speed ramp, right-click on your clip and at the bottom, go to:
‘Show Clip Keyframes’ > ‘Time Remapping > Speed.
You should see a thick white line appear on your clip. When this white line is visible, it means that the bottom thinner line can be used to control and modify speed instead of opacity.
Drag it down and it will slow down the footage, drag it up and it will speed it up. To have this transition smoothly, CMND/CTRL + Click the thin white line produce a keyframe. Just grab the keyframe and drag it to the side.
This will create a physical ramp going from one speed to the other. Click on the keyframe and a blue dot with lines will appear in the middle of the ramp. If you drag it as well, you will help to smooth the steepness of the ramp.
You can keep polishing the speed ramp by moving the keyframes to adjust the duration of the transition and by trying different speeds to achieve the effect you want.
Share Your Video
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