Slow-Motion @ Santa Cruz Boardwalk

[Ben_B]

A friend of mine wanted me to teach him some stuff about post-production workflow for slow-motion video, and also we were all bored and wanted to shoot some stuff, so we went over to the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk with my GH13, an HMC-150 (I haven't seen her footage though,) and some random lenses. Here are the results.

I shot this video but he edited it, did the color correction, and uploaded it. 720/60p with C settings and (usually) a 1/125th shutter. Conformed to 24p in cinema tools and edited in Final Cut Pro. I am assuming he used Magic Bullet Looks for the color correction.

Just a quick little thing playing with the light and the slow motion. Lenses used were the 14-140 kit lens (ferris wheel shots, the swing, the roller coaster, the tower thing), the Lens Baby Composer (Nikon Mount with wide angle adaptor), and the Olympus E.Zuiko 150mm f/4.0 (which is a PEN F lens) for the shot of the helicopter at the end. That 8-bit banding from the sun is present in the video but exacerbated by whatever export settings, etc, he used...I probably would've tried to remove it with something.

Enjoy.

 

[tflak]

Fun stuff. I'm not normally a big fan of tilt-shift, which has been way overused in some pretty mundane ways, but thought the roller coaster was a good use of the Lens Baby and combined with being slo-mo made for a pretty cool shot.

Gotta love that 720, 1/125, conformed to 24 workflow - have used it for some tennis footage that turned out buttery smooth. And - almost forgot - hummingbirds. Would have never known about that whole process without this forum and would probably still be just ramping speed on the timeline.

Curious as to what approach you would use to remove the 8-bit banding.

 

[terra1]

that cheered me up :smile: yeah as tflak mentioned about the tilt shift, works great when subtly used.

i always like things interacting with the sun/light... opening shot.

audio/visual compliment each other nicely. enjoyed watching :smile:

8-bit banding being the slight circular rings on the gradient sky? helicopter shot. i'd also like to know how you would remove this :smile:

 

[Ben_B]

Curious as to what approach you would use to remove the 8-bit banding.

8-bit banding being the slight circular rings on the gradient sky? helicopter shot. i'd also like to know how you would remove this :smile:

It depends on the shot. I usually use some sort of compositing technique, either rotoscoping, keying, or simply a brush, to go through and do effects on the sky independently of the rest of the frame. I've found blur effects, etc, in a 10-bit or higher environment work really well for removing it, but I usually only take the time to do it in client work or work where doing that sort of cleanup is my specific job...stuff where I'm acting as a compositor rather than an editor, cinematographer, etc. I figure it's an understood artifact and so I don't mind it too much in simple montage work that's meant to serve as a cinematography or editing reel...but I will take the time to remove it (assuming it's possible, it's much easier with static shots and shots where the light doesn't change too much.) Also, knowing that it's there, looking for it, and avoiding hitting the footage super hard with CC is the simplest way to avoid it.

 

[Ben_B]

Here's an example of what I'm talking about. You can see one where I have done a key and a blur with two layers and the other where I have just done simple color correction. When I did the color correction it introduced 8-bit bands and lots of blockiness in the sky, some bands are still present in the two layer example, but that blockiness between the flag and building is gone. The edge of the bands are also much cleaner and less ragedy and blocky. Example 1 is normal CC, Example 2 is the two layer method with the sky isolated by a color key and blurred.

Example 1, just CC:

Example 2, two layer method, less blocky:

 

[tflak]

Thanks, Ben. Can see a definite improvement between the two. Sounds like a whole lot of work and probably not feasible on anything other than a locked-down shot. Then again, probably wouldn't be noticeable enough to justify removing anyway in that case.

 

[terra1]

yeah Ben_B good post, i looked 8-bit banding a bit more after i made my earlier post.
i had a slight case of it on a blue sky but i added some grain that seemed to work, but it was a very slight banding.

and after uploading this grab i can see it more now than on the original haha

ps: where do you live... gotham city? (nice building)

 

[Ben_B]

That would be the GE building in New York. Went on a trip there but I don't live there. So yes, Gotham city, given that's what it's based on. Ignoring the Chicago crap of the latest movie