No that was definitely done in camera. Almost 99% of all slowdown effects in film are done in camera.

This is because a slowdown in camera looks amazing - the camera is actually shooting up to 144 frames per second.

If you try to do this type of slow motion in post - that is creating 144 frames out of 24 - it will look horrible.

You can ramp a film camera's fps as your filming. The only thing is that you must adjust the fstop as well to accommodate for the change in light hitting the negative. I believe there are film camera devices that will automatically change the fstop in relation to the change in film speed.

Speed ramps can be done in post - but to get the best result you need to shoot the piece in slow motion (ie higher than 24fps) and then speed up that footage in post.

For example, in the Interpol "Slow Hands" video that I edited where the band is constantly changing speeds the whole video was shot at 150fps or 5 times normal speed. The track playback was at 30fps as the band performed to the song.

The in my Avid I sped up all the performance clips which were playing back in slow motion 500% and then they played at 30fps - in sync with the song. Whenever I wanted to ramp them to slow motion I did a speed change back to the "normal" speed on the tape which was 150fps film speed slow motion.

The other cool thing we did on the video is shot the band at 60fps and then had them perform the song at 60fps. (or double speed) The effect is that they're singing in slow motion. The effect is nothing new - tons of music videos have done it. But it is pretty funny to watch the performers sing their song in double speed on the shoot.

When you do slow motion - try to do it in camera all the time.

That being said - there is a great motion effect on an Avid called a Timewarp fluid motion where it can create extremely smooth slow motion effects - almost as if you shot it in camera. It does it by actually creating new video fields by morphing the old ones. It takes some tweaking to get rid of some morph artifacts with some footage but it can do the trick.

I'm pretty sure that effect is only on Media Composer Adrenaline and Symphony.

Hope this helps.

-Chris
Studentfilms.com

p.s. - the reason we shot the Interpol video at 30fps instead of 24fps was so that during the telecine we could transfer the film to video at 30fps thus having a 1:1 relation between film frames and video frames. This makes doing the speed ramps on the editing system much easier and cleaner.

The Interpol "Slow Hands" video is up on iTunes in the Music Video section. You need to sort by artist and then forward until Interpol - that's the best way to get to it. I couldn't figure out how to get a direct link.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Studentfilms.com,

quote:

Originally posted by Studentfilms.com:
the whole video was shot at 150fps or 5 times normal speed.

Wow, they must've burned through film. That would be really expensive. And they must be reloading every two takes or something--you'd get less than a minute on a 400' mag. I've been on some car spots where we're shooting super high frame rates. It's really loud. Kind of scary to be burning through hundreds of feet per minute.

hey chris, so if you shoot at 150 frames and what to do the motion effects that you did, would the quality be higher if you transfered some of the footage at the slow speed and then transferred some of the footage at a higher speed?

i know telecine machines can transfer at different frame rates, but i don't know if they go up that high. any idea?

depends on the style of telecine, some systems digitally scan frame by frame, not usually called telecines, but scanners. Ive only seen telecine scanned at between 24 and 30 fps, and then if it is a higher frame rate, sped up after capture. Different telecineists and post houses, do things different ways.

No it was transferred at 30 fps. Theres no need to transfer at a higher rate...because all the frames shot are on the tape.

On the Avid I actually used the Both Frame render method because field 1 = field 2. That is the only time that you should use that render method. The plus side is that if field 1 = field 2 the motion effect looks amazing and it renders REALLY fast.



Telecineing at a higher rate wont really help that much because you can always speed up the clip in the Avid. The real grunt work in capturing the most information is done in the camera.

Besides - if you telecined at that high rate then there was no point in shooting at that high rate. The quality won't be any better.



-Chris
Studentfilms.com