Film-like movement and frame rates
 

I am interested in getting film-like movement. Right now, I'm not concerned with lighting techniques, DOF issues, lenses, or anything of the sort. I'm wondering what effect, using HDV or SD video cameras, shutter speed and frame rate have in terms of approximated filmic movement.

I currently use a Sony HDR-FX1, and can only shoot in 60i, but I want to know about 24p and 30p and people's experiences with those. Also, are there editing differences when editing those formats as opposed to 60i?

For filmic movement you need to shoot in progressive. If you shoot at 24P your shutter speed should be 1/48th (ie half the frame rate, this mimic a film camera's 180 degree shutter).
If your camera can only shoot interlaced you can de-interlace in post, your 60i will give you 30P.
Steve

Steve,

Two questions:

1. When shooting 24p, are the effects of changing the shutter speed from 1/48th in either direction similar to those that occur when shooting 60i?

2. This is a basic question, but when de-interlacing in post, when is the best time to do it (and how)? Specifically, can I work on a 60i project, edit it, etc. and then export it to 30p and have the final result be similar to de-interlacing the source footage before even bringing it in to the editing program? Any info about this issue would be excellent.

1: No, when you increase the shutter speed it gets more stroby, sort of jumpy, not nice, and when you decrease it it gets more blurry - 1/2 the frame rate seems to be the best compromise.
2: Not sure as I'm not an editor, but I see no reason why you couldn't do it at the final stage, saves doing more stuff than neccessary

Hopefully edit-folks will be able to chip in herr too.

Steve

Could any editors weight in on the differences between de-interlacing to 24p before editing versus at the last stage?

Sony's website has the following about the HDR-FX1:
"CineFrame™ RecordingProvides the option of recording video at either 30 fps or with a feeling of "film-like" 24 fps." Why can you only film in 60i?

I mostly film in 60i, or 30p with a Canon. When editing 60i footage I set the properties to 30P, it looks better on the screen deinterlaced, and then render out at 30p. When it goes onto the DVD it's converted back to 60i.

I'm no expert but I understand that if you film in 24p, you'll need to apply a 'pulldown' to get the footage to play on the TV at 29.97 fps. If you're going to transfer to film, shoot in 24p, if you're going to TV, shoot in 60i, or 30p.

Here's an excellent article on pulldown:

Pulldown (a.k.a. 3:2 Pulldown) | Moviola ? Training for Avid, Apple & Adobe | Production & Post Production Rentals & Sales | Los Angeles, Hollywood, Burbank

Bill,

The Cineframe modes are not actually 30fps or 24fps; I believe they record to 60i. In any case, the film-look one gets with it is pretty poor in my opinion.

In terms of all of the aspects that go into making prosumer hdv video look like film, it's obvious that lighting, depth of field, contrast ratio, etc. are essential. Here, I'm wondering if I can get a more film-like look by transferring 60i video to 24p or 30p.

Specifically, let's say one shoots in 60i hdv, and wants to deliver the video on a DVD-video. In this situation, since the original footage is 60i, and the final footage will be played back (on a TV without progressive scanning) in 60i. So, in this case, what can be done to give it more film-like movement?

Would one accomplish any difference in motion quality by converting the footage to 24p before editing, editing, and then outputting with 3:2 pulldown, or would the final product look just like the original 60i footage?

Also, I am unaware of programs/plugins that de-interlace 60i footage to 30p or 24p well, so please do tell!

I think for the film-like movement, using cranes, dollies and sliders helps. Getting the camera out of the zoom, tripod pan and static shots. 'Film like' color saturation can be produced from video and there are a few posts on that subject. Vegas Pro 8 works well for me to de-interlace 60i to 30p.

Then would one be correct to infer that in order to get the same temporal feel (motion blur, etc.) as film on a 30p DV cam (I think of the "film look" being really a "film feel"), that they should keep to a shutter speed of 1/60?

Cineframe 30 on the FX1 cuts the resolution in half and creates a progressive image by ignoring half the interlace fields. Shooting in normal mode with a shutter speed at 30 does the same thing accept it also introduces motion blur. So you have the same jitter either way, and more importantly the same loss of resolution/picture quality. The only difference is in cineframe 30 you can still adjust the shutter speed, to say 60 for example.
I don't know if you need to change your sequence settings to edit cineframe 30. So far it seems the same but if my final render seems weird I may adjust the settings.
Cineframe 24 on the other hand just plain sucks. It's a combination of 60i + cineframe 30 in that it cuts the resolution in half for some progressive frames, followed by a 60i frame that is interlaced. Why would you want every few frames interlaced? It's awful.
There is no true 24p or impressive film look on the FX1.
Personally I use after effects to interpret footage effectively de-interlacing it. But I don't know of a good program to convert footage to 24p because I'm suspicious of the concept.
For some of the imagery I shoot, a shutter speed of 30 creates just the right amount of jitter and blur. This stylization is based on my content not an overall "film look" decision.

havne't had an interlaced camera for a while, but from I've seen the bet results are shooting 60i at 1/60th (normal stuff I know) or maybe slower if you can and capture, then export to a 24p format that your editing software can use. Biggest thing to remember when shooting 24p or something you will extract to 24p is to keep your panning slower or faster than what 90% of videographers are used to. Nothing should cross the screen from one side to the other in less than 5 or 6 seconds..... So do your experiments from front to end

as far as software, what are you using now? I'm using FCP so I can capture any format, drop it all in a timeline, then export to a quicktime movie file (I'm on an apple platform). IF you have choices for retimeing set those to MAX or Best and you will get good results. Not as good as if you where shooting with a 24p HD camera, but you can still get good results, especially if you test it a lot first to see how the process handles the motion, panning, zooming etc