How to approach Slow-motion...

J

jamani

Active member
I believe I have read every thread there is on the whole slow-mo, shoot-in-60fps-and-conform-to-24fps topic. Just one thing I would like to get clear. When planning for say a music-video shoot, who's end result will have a few scattered scenes in slow-mo, do you go into the shoot with knowledge of the specific shots to be slowed down in post and shoot ONLY those in 60/50fps or do you shoot the entire thing in 60/50fps and slow down as you deem fit in post? If the former, what would be the downside of doing the latter?

Clearly I'm new to this and haven't done any tests yet. Just trying to think ahead. And while at it, is there anything I need to know about shooting slow-mo for lip-sync in a music video? Like, how do you sink the slowed-down movement of the lips to the faster music track in post?
 
Generally you shoot only the shots you expect to be in slow mo that way. Otherwise they tend to look weird at 24 fps when frames are tossed. Also it affects your lighting setups, etc.

Noah
 
Yes, Just shoot the scenes you want slow at 60... If your camera shoots 720p 60..keep in mind that you will loose quality putting the footage in a 24p 1080 sequence.. I usually will put all the footage in a 720p sequence if and this will give you room to move your 1080 footage 33 percent approx without any degredation!! Hope that makes sense..

Good Luck!
 
galbach said:
Yes, Just shoot the scenes you want slow at 60... If your camera shoots 720p 60..keep in mind that you will loose quality putting the footage in a 24p 1080 sequence.. I usually will put all the footage in a 720p sequence if and this will give you room to move your 1080 footage 33 percent approx without any degredation!! Hope that makes sense..

Good Luck!
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So how do you put 1080p 24fps footage on the same timeline?
 
Here's how I do it (on FCP):

Drag a 1080 24p clip to the timeline, click "yes", delete that clip from the timeline, right click the sequence name in my project bin, edit sequence settings, then change the size to 720p. everything else (framerate, codec, pixels) will all be correct from the previous drag and drop.
 
Well the timeline will be 24p. If you create a 60p timeline you will not get slowmotion from 60p shots.

Noah
 
Thanks for all the help guys. If someone could, please advise on the second question in my post...quoted below...

jamani said:
And while at it, is there anything I need to know about shooting slow-mo for lip-sync in a music video? Like, how do you sink the slowed-down movement of the lips to the faster music track in post?
Click to expand...
 
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There was a chart posted on this site some time back, google it - basically the formula for how fast to speed up your playback to shoot at 60p (or any other speed combo). The easiest way (on a mac) to conform the footage is run your 60p shots through cinema tools. Just takes a couple seconds.

Regarding the speed differences, try speeding up music for 60p playback - it's just too fast. The slowmo trick (seems to me) is going to work better for taking something like 30p to 24p (being that most of us can't shoot, say, 40p or 38p).

Take any song and drop it into Audacity, ProTools, whatever - and speed it up 250% - that's roughly the correct speed to shoot 60p. In my experience, it's just too fast to work with.
 
Michael Carter said:
The easiest way (on a mac) to conform the footage is run your 60p shots through cinema tools. Just takes a couple seconds.
Click to expand...

This here.

Also, before you use Cinema Tools, ensure you have duplicated all of the footage you wish to conform in Cinema Tools. The program changes the original file irreversibly when you choose Conform to 24p.
 
Michael Carter said:
There was a chart posted on this site some time back, google it - basically the formula for how fast to speed up your playback to shoot at 60p (or any other speed combo). The easiest way (on a mac) to conform the footage is run your 60p shots through cinema tools. Just takes a couple seconds.

Regarding the speed differences, try speeding up music for 60p playback - it's just too fast. The slowmo trick (seems to me) is going to work better for taking something like 30p to 24p (being that most of us can't shoot, say, 40p or 38p).

Take any song and drop it into Audacity, ProTools, whatever - and speed it up 250% - that's roughly the correct speed to shoot 60p. In my experience, it's just too fast to work with.
Click to expand...

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

Very helpful indeed. Thanks!
 
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