Pro Editing Tip: Using Motion Echo for Seamless Speed Ramps

Last week, I was delivering the final exports for the feature film I edited last year. Since I had to recreate all the fade-ins and fade-outs using the color-graded footage, everything was going fine—until I hit a problem.

I needed to do a cross-dissolve, but the footage from the colorist didn’t have the necessary handles. My choices? Either go back to the colorist and delay delivery by a couple of days or find a workaround.

So, I time-remapped the neighboring shots to create the extra frames I needed for the dissolve. The end result? It looked seamless—you’d never know the difference. Phew.

This got me thinking about an advanced time-remapping trick that can take your speed ramps to the next level:

Motion Echo Blending – A technique that smooths out speed transitions and eliminates choppy motion artifacts:

Use Optical Flow Smartly – When slowing down a clip, set Time Interpolation to Optical Flow for smoother frame generation. However, Optical Flow alone can sometimes create warping artifacts.
Blend Frames Manually – Duplicate your clip, offset it by 1-2 frames, and set the top layer to Blend Mode: Lighten or Screen (experiment based on the shot). This creates a natural echo effect that helps mask choppy slow-mo artifacts.
Add Directional Blur – If the transition still feels too sharp, apply a slight Directional Blur in the motion’s direction, ramping it up during the speed transition.

When to Use It:

Transitioning from normal speed to slow motion in action shots
Enhancing fast-to-slow camera movements without jarring cuts
Making hyperlapse footage feel more fluid

Hope it helps one day.

New Plugin: Clip Exporter (Now Available)

Ever wished you could export individual clips from your Premiere Pro timeline without the hassle of setting in/out points and creating nested sequences? Clip Exporter does just that. Select your clips, run the script, and let it handle the tedious work for you. This tool is a massive time-saver.

I’m putting together a video showing it in action—it drops next week, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, you can check out Clip Exporter here.

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Ultimate Presets Pack – New Update!

If you already own the Ultimate Presets Pack, you now have access to:

4 new audio presets to fine-tune your dialogue & sound design
1 new guide preset to speed up your workflow

Just head to your Gumroad library to download the latest version of Essential Audio and Essential Guides.

Thanks for reading!

-Piotr

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