Time remapping

araujofh

Veteran
Hello folks,

From what I have been reading in this forum, time remapping doesn't look that good on a tv.
So my question is, how do the big boys do it with 35mm? They have to tranfer it to digital, apply time-remapping and then transfer it back to 35mm.
Will time-remapping work with the HVX? Does it work with the Varicam or the HDCAM?
Why would we have that feature in After Effects or Final Cut Pro if it is going to look bad?
I haven't actually tried it, but from what I read in this forum, I take it won't look that nice.
 
i have recently learnt a little about this. they can time remap without it looking like crap becuase with a film camera you can adjust the speed the film goes through the camera...
also apparantly there is some high end software that calculates frames in between...
anyone else? i just know the very basics...
 
I guess not many people play with time remap here. I guess the only way is to play around with it.
Thanks anyway.
 
Ok,

I have played with it a bit, and the motion just doesn't look natural. In-camera slow motion or fast motion looks way more natural.
I have tried to apply some motion blurr as well, but it just didn't look right.
Does anyone know how time remapping is done when a film is shot in 35mm? Is the same shots shot at different speeds and then they just cut them together? How is it done? Does anyone know? Anyone?
 
Let me clarify the terminology -- what exactly do you mean by "time remapping"? Are you referring to slow motion and fast motion?

If so, film cameras do it by shooting at different frame rates. For regular motion a film camera will shoot at 24fps. For slow motion it might shoot at 48 fps. When you play back 48 frames at the rate of 24fps, it'll take two seconds to play back one second's worth of "real time" (or, put another way, everything will be moving half as fast as real time, or twice as slow as real time).

You will never get comparable results by trying to blend frames and fields from a constant-rate video camera. Film slow motion (and fast motion) is much superior to video remapping technologies. That's one thing that's so exciting about the HVX -- it offers true overcranking, shooting at the actual frame rates the same way a film camera does. The results will be frame-accurate, perfect, film-style slow motion.

You can do a limited bit of frame-accurate film-style frame rates in the DVX. If you have an NTSC DVX100, you can shoot at 12, 15, 24, or 30 frames per second (or 60 fields per second). If you're playing back in a 24p timeline, you can get film-style motion at any of those rates, and 30p gives you a mild film-style slow motion.
 
Well,

I got the terminology. What I wanted to know is how do they make a shot where a car is moving at a normal speed (24p), then it slows down (slow mo at maybe 48fps) then the image speeds up again (probably 22fps) and then goes back to normal (24p).
Now, I know if they have different shots, then yes you shoot at different frame rates. But, what happes when the same shot has the three speeds? Do you actually change the speed while filming? Can you do that? Don't you have to stop the camera before changing to a different frame rate?

PS: That is one of the reasons that may make me get an HVX. That is so handy.
 
Yes, there are film cameras that can change frame rates on the fly and that can automatically compensate the exposure.
 
The term for what we do with film is called speed ramping. The camera has the ability to alter the speed of the film as it goes through the camera and the iris to make for iris accurate slow motion. It is the best way to do what the edit systems refer to as time remapping. We also do it in the transfer of the film sometimes too. Slow motion has no real frame rate. For basketball with film we used to shoot as fast as the camera would allow for good slowmo which is between 60 and 75fps. For other more high speed shots where slo mo had to cover fast action 150fps.
 
Thank you guys,

Walter, the book I was reading about time remapping, they also mention the name speed ramping.

Now, will the HVX be able to change frame rate on the fly? Can you do that with the Varicam?
 
Yes you can do that with the VariCam. We don't know whether you'll be able to change frame rates on the fly on the HVX. Even if you can, you won't be able to do a true smooth speed ramp, that's a feature that will remain exclusive to the VariCam.
 
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