Slow Mo

G

Gary Walton

Member
This may be a ridiculous question but I need advice shooting slo-mo. I've shot at 3fps and 120fps and both clips look identical? I'm coming from a HPX 170 where is was dumbed downed to shooting between two scene files with a hack that gave me either 30fps or I think 60 or 90.

I can't get my head around what's happening with the DVX 200

System mode is 59.94 Hz, MOV, FHD 1080/60 100M

Thanks!
 
Are you watching it in your NLE? If so, what's the frame rate of the timeline/sequence? A 120fps clip in a 120fps timeline will not look "slomo".
 
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No idea.

You should use your phone to take a video of you setting up the camera, recording a clip, and then what happens in your NLE.

Make sure what you're shooting can be seen as fast moving to the naked eye, so that when it's shown in the overcranked footage it's very obviously slow-mo. Reverse that for the undercranked footage. Slow moving object would look fast.
 
If you're working in Premiere try right clicking on the 120fps clip and set the speed/duration to 25%.
 
Stevee said:
If you're working in Premiere try right clicking on the 120fps clip and set the speed/duration to 25%.
Click to expand...

That will slow the clip down, but it will slow down a clip with any frame rate. It still won't tell us if the source really is 120fps.
 
Hi Gary,

I will assume for the time being that you have Premiere, because that's what I'm using and basing my comments on. I shoot 60p, and edit in a 30p timeline sequence. Premiere automatically assumes that you want all footage to play "real time", so when I put the 60p clip in the 30p sequence it plays at "normal speed". Premiere is simply playing every other frame, and it looks no different than if the clip was 30p. However, if I add 50% speed, then I get that nice, silky-smooth slomo because Premiere is playing every frame this time. A one-second clip becomes 2 seconds of playback.

In your case, if you put 120fps clip in a 30fps timeline it would just be playing every fourth frame - until you start applying speed changes. 25% speed would show you every frame.

Now, if you want the clip to play slow from the start - then right-click clip in Project Bin and use "Modify > Interpret Footage". There, you can tell Premier what frame rate to use for the clip. If the clip is 120fps, and you tell Premiere to treat the clip like it is 30fps, a 1-second clip would then be 4 seconds when dropped into timeline. You would see every frame, and therefore would have immediate slow-motion playback without having added speed change effect.

In my case of editing 60p wedding footage in a 30p sequence, I obviously don't want all of it in slow-motion, so I just leave it alone and clips all play normal, unless I run into a scene that needs slow-mo then I can apply 50% and boy it looks nice. Sometimes I do it just to lengthen a scene to good effect - maybe a scenery shot that goes by too quickly - no people in the shot, I can run at 50% and viewer would never know it is slowed down!

Hope this helps

Thanks

Jeff
 
Hi Larry - you're right - it will slow down any clip, but if the project is 30p for example, and the clip IS 120fps, 25% will yield nice smooth slow motion as per Jeff's post.
 
Thanks all.

I have been adjusting the speed accordingly to get the proper effect. I'm just curious why anything shot at 120 or 90 fps shows up at 59.94 under Frame Rate in Premier.

BTW - 27" iMac, 2.7GHz Intel Core i5, 12GB RAM
 
Gary Walton said:
Thanks all.

I have been adjusting the speed accordingly to get the proper effect. I'm just curious why anything shot at 120 or 90 fps shows up at 59.94 under Frame Rate in Premier.

BTW - 27" iMac, 2.7GHz Intel Core i5, 12GB RAM
Click to expand...

The manual says there is the Record Format and the Frame Rate. They are not the same thing. The record format is based on your system frequency. Here in the USA, I would choose the system frequency of 59.94Hz and therefore have access to FHD record formats (rounded up) of 60, 30 and 24 fps at 50 Mbps.

Okee dokee.

But now, since we're in VFR mode, we can then select a frame rate other than that specified by the base record format. We can choose frames per second ranging from 2 to 120 (and all the eccentricities and caveats they bring), provided that they are being recorded according to the record format chosen. So, even though your frames per second are recorded at 60, if your record format is 30, then you will have a playback of slow motion because you were effectively overcranking the camera.

So, I would imagine (in camera) your RECORD FORMAT is set to 59.94 while your FRAME RATE is set to 120 fps, and so Premiere is playing the clip back at the correct frame rate in which it was recorded: 60fps, but recorded overcranked at 120fps.
 
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