How can shoot in slow motion with XL2 for music video?

[zia]

I am going to be shooting a music video with XL2 soon and I'm trying to get a slow motion look with the XL2 and sync the audio in post with slow motion video.
I'll be using FCP6 to cut it.
My ?s are,
What frame rate should I shoot with?
What shutter speed should I use?
Should I play the audio at higher speed while shooting the video then slow the video in post?
Any little tip or advice would be very helpful.
Thanks,

Zia

 

[peetdevos]

Hi Zia,

I use XL2 and FCP6. My experience is that for slow motion, you need to do interlaced rather than progressive. Because interlaced has double the frame rate, it works better than progressive for slow motion. The image is not quite as good, but it is better than doing slow motion with progressive, because progressive tends to jump when you go slower than 70%. So shoot in 50i (48i USA). Capture in FCP6 and change the speed according to preference (probably 50%) in FCP. You can go up to 50% speed for a nice look. Even less is possible, but then it gets jumpy.

Shutter speed = 1/50 (1/48 USA). Slower = blurry images (soft focus), higher causes more jump in your slow motion = not nice and flowing.

Have a look at my Presets for a nice image.

I see no need to play audio at higher speeds. When you edit, you will find sections/shots that work perfectly with the music. Shoot the entire song (or pieces) at 50i (for slow motion) and again at 25p (24p) for normal speed. Remember that slow motion often works well with close-ups. But don't use the interlaced footage for anything other than slow motion, because the picture is not as good at progressive. Also try to do many alternative angles in your slow motion (interlaced) coverage.

Though SD, the XL2 is very nice for this application. Footage will be grainy-er than HD, but very nice. I sometimes convert/upres my footage to 720p in Quicktime Pro (Apple Prores 422). It edits well and helps when doing post effects. But if your end product will be DV, you may as well stick to that codec.

Hope this helps,

Peet