Shooting 50p & editing to 25p and mixing speeds... GAH

L

leeburnett

Active member
So I've got a shoot in the next couple of days, shooting on a 5d III... not ideal but the budget only allows for that. Anyway, that's not what is causing me problems.

They have said they want mostly in normal speed, but a couple of shots (or rather a short section of some of the shots) to be in slow motion. I am going to shoot entirely on 720p, but curious about the best way to do this.

If the slow motion was going to be the entire clip, then I wouldn't have a problem, I'd shoot those shots at 50p at 100th of a second and it would be fine, but they want these shots to be in normal speed, then at a point change to 50% speed, then back up to 100% speed

After some testing I'm not certain on the best method to shoot this... All of the shots at 50p, then convert to 25p in post?

That still leaves me with the issue of what shutter speed to use as I don't want the over-blurring, but also don't want the jitters of 100th at normal speed.

I'm using FCPX, shooting in ALL-I

What options do I have, or do I have to lump one or the other?

Thanks
 
On exporting my test footage, I think that the 50th of a second shutter speed on 50p looks fine as there's not a huge amount of motion in what I'm shooting, so I think I will shoot those shots at 50p at 1/50th... then the normal speed shots at 25p and downscale to 720p.

BUT, I'm still left with the issue of the best way to deal with my shots that I'm shooting at 50p... what would give me the best outcome of having it partly at normal speed and partly at 50% speed? Any way of cleanly doing this in FCPX, or would I get better results using something like MPEG streamclip to convert the footage to 25p, and using that version when I want it normal speed?

I've read a fair bit online about this, but I can't find the best option for my specific situation of having partly slow, partly normal speed.

Thanks
 
It's called ramping. Shoot the whole thing at higher frame rates, then in post you just "speed up" the sections you want to be normal speed. Speeding it up will only drop the unnecessary frames, so you'll still have all the 25 per second frames you need, and it'll look clean. (I'm not aware of any default mechanism in fcpx that will alter the frames when you speed them up, like frame blending, but if any of those exist turn them off)

Also, I recommend keeping a 180 degree shutter, but do whatever you think looks best based on your test footage.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top