Questions about shooting in fast motion.

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ironpony

Carbonite Member
I want to make a very low budget action film in the future, but in order to have something like a car chase, I am better shooting it and then speeding it up in post if necesssary. This is what the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service did. They speed up the car chase and bobsled chase. The question is, can a movie that got away with that in 1969, get away with that today, and not be a distribution killer? And, if I can get away with it, how fast can I speed up before it's too fake looking for most producers to want to touch?

When it comes to a camera, what fps will I need to achieve the James Bond fast motion look, and what shutter? I tried researching it but there were conflicting answers. My guess is shoot in 18fps and 40 shutter? And if I can't get a cam that can shoot lower than 24fps in the future, on my budget, can I shoot in 24 with a fast motion shutter, then remove some of the frames in post? Thanks for the advice.
 
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Firstly, I would be using techniques that are common to car chases performed legally on public streets. Ie, close shots, low shots, and loud, fast audio. To speed up footage, I would take test footage and play with it in your video editing suite of choice to see at what point it looks fake.

Also, be aware of physics. Don't expect a sped-up wide shot of a car taking a sharp corner at a low 'real world' speed to look real. You need things like body roll and power sliding etc, but cutting to close shots will help hide that.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=iv&v=BV_z9g3rfCs&src_vid=IfO9Mj2iciA

etc.
 
I would think 18fps would be way too low, and would look sort of 'keystone cops' car chase speed. You're really looking for a subtle increase. Shooting at 21 or 22 then playing at 24 will give you a nice look. The problem is, most lower end digital cameras only shoot at 24, 25, 30 etc. I haven't tried dropping frames to get this effect. I suppose you could shoot at 24fps then replay at 30fps? You could always drop frames from this 30fps video to get back to 24, or is that doing the same thing? Hmm. I feel an experiment coming on!
 
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