Whats with the shutter speed i Hollywood these days?

G

gi-jones

Well-known member
How come these big budget Hollywood films have begun using slow shutterspeeds? I'm thinking specifically Public Enemies and now 2012. Honestly I think it makes it all look like cheap tv-drama, and especially in an epic-scale (albeit crap movie) production like 2012 they should at least have the $ to light up the scene enough for a decent 1/60.
 
Not on my HVX. Same problem though :)

Also I don't see why you couldn't shoot 24fps with 1/60 or higher for that matter.
 
It's not that you can't, it's just that 1/48 on a digital camera most closely resembles a 180-degree shutter on a film camera at running at 24 frames a second.
 
gi-jones said:
Not on my HVX. Same problem though :)

Also I don't see why you couldn't shoot 24fps with 1/60 or higher for that matter.
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You can shoot higher (since there is no mechanical shutter on the HVX it's not as problematic) but since Panasonic line cameras shoot 24P or 24PN at a native rate and do a pulldown (not 24PN) afterwards for a 60i conversion the obvious choice would be 1/48.


Ps: I hated the look of Public Enemies , the F-23 and small camcorder stuff just did not match. It gave me the feeling that I was watching a low-low budget History Channel 60i documentary about Dillinger.
 
Anyway, my point is simply that the look used in these movies, where they definately used a shutter speed longer than 1/48th (I'm guessing 1/24th), is just crap. It looks cheap and cheasy and I don't understand why anyone would want that.
 
gi-jones said:
Anyway, my point is simply that the look used in these movies, where they definately used a shutter speed longer than 1/48th (I'm guessing 1/24th), is just crap. It looks cheap and cheasy and I don't understand why anyone would want that.
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In 'real(tm)' film production the fps as well as the shutter speed is all over the place, and depends on the shot, whether things are moving, how far away from the camera things are moving, or the camera is moving, etc.

All of that gets conformed to 24 fps for standard theatrical presentation.

Since we don't have examples of what you are seeing, and identifying as due to 'slow shutter speed', I can't really say if I agree or not.

There are also post-production processing that will add more blur, if that is what the filmmaker wants, whether the original shot was slow shutter/low frame rate or not.

Then there's the display rate, if one is watching a DVD or HD display...
 
the movies you mentioned were both shot digitally.
With Digital-Cameras the Cinematographers started to use a lot of 1/30 Shutter speeds or 360° on the Panavision Genesis to gain one stop of light.
The Cinematographer of 2012, Dean Semler, has used this a lot since he shot a lot of movies on the Genesis.
I personally think too, that it looks really cheap, especially if you look at the amount of light used on such a production. But since the Genesis has an ASA Rating of 320, maybe it's not enough for the Cinematographers, who are used to 500ASA stocks...
 
Yeah, really it's just an easy way to gain a stop of light. I can't imagine big productions doing it, but you know, sometimes you do what you gotta do...
 
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