Frame Rate of 8mm footage shot in 1960s?

JBurkey

JBurkey

Active member
Hello all, I'm working on a doc about the local fire department and scored some historic footage of San Diego's EMS program. It looks to me like it was shot on 8mm during the 1960s. The dub to video makes it look very accelerated (like watching a Charlie Chaplin movie) and I want to compensate for this to make the footage look more natural.

Does anyone know how to handle this in Vegas 6?

Thanks all.

J

p.s. if you get a wild hair, check out my other post about this project:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=85261

and tender your helpful opinion! Thanks! -J
 
Could be any of a variety of frame rates. If it's Super 8, it was likely 18 fps. If it's Regular 8, it could be 16, it could be 18, it could be a lot of things. Things weren't stringently controlled in the realm of 8mm movie cameras.

The thing is, not only would you have to figure out what the frame rate was of the original footage, but also what rate it was transferred to video at. If you think it's 18fps, but it's been transferred frame-for-frame at 30fps, then that means one formula; if it was transferred at 24fps with 2:3 pulldown, that's a whole different ball of wax.

Let's presume it has 2:3 pulldown; if so, use the "file format properties" option to remove 2:3 pulldown, and cycle through the choices until you get it "right". Then, just change the playback rate of the clip until the motion seems normal speed. For 18fps that might mean playing the footage back at 75% speed (in a 24p timeline) or 60% speed (in a 30fps timeline).
 
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Thanks Barry. Your response was really helpful and informative. I'll have to play around with it a bit I guess to find the right mix. Since the footage is now on DVCam it should make life a little easier.

J
 
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