Slow Motion in Film and Video

[Richard Brown]

The best way to study motion would simply be to by a Hycam, used. It is 
16mm, and runs at 15,000 frames per second. Film nominally runs at 24 
fps, causing the 15K frames in that second to expand time by about 
600:1. Of course, the problem is, you kind of have to guarantee the 
event HAPPENS at the right time, as the thing only takes 400 ft. loads 
and really needs about 12,000 frames just to ramp to speed, leaving 
only about 4000 frames to record the event, which must happen in that 
last quarter second or so. I have one. Any takers?

Psuedo joke over, in DV, high shutter speeds (1/250th and above) and 
just a good DV deck with proper jog capabilities will do fine for 
studying things like dance and certain sports.

The problem is, this is NOT real-time, in any case. The examination 
would occur post-fact, after the event. If you want to be like the 
network sports shows, get ready to mortgage your life (in DV-relative 
expense.)

Might also be worth a look to see if the top end DV studio decks have 
"dynamic tracking" like the old Beta decks. That feature lets you do 
all kinds of slo-mo stuff, but to get it, "you hafta pays your money."

For that matter, why not just use Final Cut Pro, drop the DV footage on 
the timeline, right click on the clip, select "Speed" from the 
contextual menu and enter 50%, with frame blending. You just expanded 
time by a factor of 2, and even normally shot video (not high speed 
shutter) can look quite good, slowed down in this fashion. You'll just 
need to go have lunch, see a movie, and do a little shopping while the 
render does its thing. This type of slo-mo might look odd with higher 
shutter speeds. Someone should try it and report.

I've done a bunch of this (speed control) for a fishing lodge promo 
video, sourcing from DV and Beta in FCP. Looks great, and this is not 
to mention there are several third party solutions that likely to speed 
control better, which are plugins to FCP. AND, FCP V4 has bezier spline 
based speed control which is improved and very cool.

Gotta run to a shoot...

Richard Brown


On Wednesday, June 11, 2003, at 01:49 PM, Jim Asherman wrote:

>
> On Wednesday, June 11, 2003, at 04:35  PM, Mark M. Florida wrote:
>
>>> Now if I edted that signal with FCP and fed it to the philips
>>> stanadalone DVD would that\
>>> register as :"progressive scan" I am getting curious .
>>> Jim
>>
>> Probably not...
>>
>> 'Cause just the *image* would be deinterlaced/progressive, but the 
>> *signal*
>> would still be interlaced, since that's how a "standard" analog video 
>> signal
>> behaves...  Make sense?
>>
>> ...(unless you actually used a *true* progressive camera maybe?)
>>
>> - Mark
>>
>>
>
> Yeah but it still might look cool.
> jim
>
>
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