Speed ramp
Sliding a clip's playback speed up or down inside the shot, so it glides into slow motion instead of snapping into it.
See it
What it is
A normal speed change is a switch: 100% here, 40% after this frame. A speed ramp is a dial. You keyframe playback speed and ease between the values, so the clip glides down into slow motion, hangs on the moment, then rips back up to full speed. In editors this lives under time remapping, and the ease is a bezier handle on the speed curve.
Reach for it to punch a moment (the jump, the pour, the reveal), to hit a beat in the music, or to hide a cut: ramp up into a whip pan, cut on the blur, ramp back down on the other side. Travel and product films run on this move.
Gotcha: slow motion is only real if you shot for it. Dropping 24fps footage to 25% gives you four copies of every frame and a visible stutter. The source rate sets your floor: 60fps into a 24fps timeline gets you down to about 40% before frames start repeating, and a 25% section needs 96 or 120fps behind it. Below that, let optical flow invent the in-between frames and accept the melty artifacts around fast edges. Also add motion blur back on the fast side, since real footage smears when it speeds up and a raw ramp looks weirdly crisp.
Ask AI for it
Apply a speed ramp to this clip using time remapping: hold 100% speed, ease down into the slow section over roughly 8 frames just before the key action, hold through the impact, then ease back to 100% (or overshoot to 200%) over 8 frames. Match the slow value to the source. If the source is 60fps on a 24fps timeline, ramp no slower than 40%. Use 96 or 120fps source for a 25% section; otherwise enable optical flow and flag the artifacts it leaves around fast edges. Use smooth bezier ease on both transitions, not linear, and enable motion blur on the fast sections.