[MacDV] Re: Old film --> digital video --> iMovie

[Mark M. Florida]

On 1/10/04 9:50 PM, "James Asherman" <jimash at optonline.net> wrote:

> 
> On Saturday, January 10, 2004, at 09:22  PM, Ron Siewert wrote:
> 
>> Any secrets I could try?
> 
> reduce the frame rate on your camera to 15 per second.

I recommend against that -- it usually just smears the motion from one video
frame to the next (creating a sort of double-exposure effect on the video
frames), and just makes the flicker slower without totally eliminating it.

What I've found to work fairly well (on the cheap) is to use a projector
with a variable frame rate (look on ebay) and slow the projector down to 15
fps (assuming the source was shot at 18 fps like most 8mm film), then set
your camera's frame rate to 1/30 sec (on my Sony Digital8, I use the "Slow
Shutter 1" digital effect, which is 1/30 sec).  You will not really notice
the speed difference when projecting it slightly slower, in fact, it adds a
little to the dreaminess of the footage.  And by keeping the video frame
rate higher than the film frame rate, you won't get any "double-exposures"
from film frames overlapping onto the video frames due to improper sync (of
course it's improperly synced -- it's a cheap solution).

- Mark