Speed ramping and more

In this section, you’ll find out all about speed ramping, in which a clip’s speed changes over time. You’ll also find out about freeze and hold frames, when to use a few trick-shot techniques, and the extra settings that can make all the difference to a tricky speed change.

So far, we’ve adjusted the speed for an entire clip, but a speed ramp involves a change in speed: slow to fast or fast to slow. There are two main ways to create a speed ramp:

• Select a region of a clip (with the Range Selection tool or I and O) and then choose a new speed for that region from the Retime menu:

Figure 13.38: With a region in this 10% speed clip selected, I can return that section to 100%

• Hover above a selected clip, then break it up into speed regions with Retime > Blade Speed (⇧B, not the regular Blade tool). Choose a new speed for each region from the Retime menu or the Retime Editor po...

Summary

If you’re not editing a feature film or serious short, straight cuts are not always enough. Transitions can help you to smooth the relationship between two shots, sure, but they can also grab attention on their own. Maybe the shots around a transition need breathing room, a creative connection, or a way to keep them separate, or you’re disguising a cut you had to have. Or maybe the content is boring, and you need to inject some life into it to keep the audience awake. Even my least favorite transition, Page Peel, can justify itself in the right context.

Retiming brings a whole new dimension to clips that a video effect can’t — playing with time. Newer cameras have given us the power to record footage at higher frame rates than ever before, and with or without all of those extra frames, you now have a way to bring attention to specific moments.

Transitions and retiming can be used for great things, but they can also contribute to wildly over...

Review questions

1. What shortcut key displays the Transition Browser?
2. Where on a transition should you drag if you want to change its duration?
3. How do you quickly duplicate a transition to another edit?
4. What transition creates new frames to seamlessly blend out a jump cut?
5. What feature incorporates frames from elsewhere on the primary storyline into a transition?
6. What color does the Retime Editor use to indicate a speed-up?
7. If you want to change the speed of a clip but not change its duration, what should you do?
8. What does Automatic Speed do?
9. What Video Quality setting creates new frames rather than blending or repeating other frames?
10. What’s the shortcut for Blade Speed, to create a new speed region?

Review answers

1. ⌃⌘5 (Control-Command-5).
2. On its edges — but only on its lower edges if handles are visible at the top edges.
3. ⌥-drag it.
4. Flow.
5. Timeline pins.
6. Blue.
7. Choose Custom speed, then uncheck the Ripple checkbox before changing the speed.
8. It plays every frame of the source clip at the timeline’s frame rate.
9. Optical Flow.
10. ⇧B (Shift-B).

Summary

If you’re not editing a feature film or serious short, straight cuts are not always enough. Transitions can help you to smooth the relationship between two shots, sure, but they can also grab attention on their own. Maybe the shots around a transition need breathing room, a creative connection, or a way to keep them separate, or you’re disguising a cut you had to have. Or maybe the content is boring, and you need to inject some life into it to keep the audience awake. Even my least favorite transition, Page Peel, can justify itself in the right context.

Retiming brings a whole new dimension to clips that a video effect can’t — playing with time. Newer cameras have given us the power to record footage at higher frame rates than ever before, and with or without all of those extra frames, you now have a way to bring attention to specific moments.

Transitions and retiming can be used for great things, but they can also contribute to wildly over...

Review questions

1. What shortcut key displays the Transition Browser?
2. Where on a transition should you drag if you want to change its duration?
3. How do you quickly duplicate a transition to another edit?
4. What transition creates new frames to seamlessly blend out a jump cut?
5. What feature incorporates frames from elsewhere on the primary storyline into a transition?
6. What color does the Retime Editor use to indicate a speed-up?
7. If you want to change the speed of a clip but not change its duration, what should you do?
8. What does Automatic Speed do?
9. What Video Quality setting creates new frames rather than blending or repeating other frames?
10. What’s the shortcut for Blade Speed, to create a new speed region?

Review answers

1. ⌃⌘5 (Control-Command-5).
2. On its edges — but only on its lower edges if handles are visible at the top edges.
3. ⌥-drag it.
4. Flow.
5. Timeline pins.
6. Blue.
7. Choose Custom speed, then uncheck the Ripple checkbox before changing the speed.
8. It plays every frame of the source clip at the timeline’s frame rate.
9. Optical Flow.
10. ⇧B (Shift-B).