Combining 25 fps footage with NTSC for documentary... HELP
 

Hey folks. The vast knowledge available here is, well, vast and comes in handy every time I have a question.

In March of '09, a group of us under the team name 'Across The Atlas' are traveling to Europe to set a Guinness World Record by skiing/snowboarding 1+ mountains in all 30 mountainous countries in two weeks... all of this is in hopes of raising $1 million dollars towards helping the environment.

We are traveling in all fuel efficient vehicles (trains and other means of public transportation, hybrid, air powered, possibly bio diesel etc) throughout the 9,000+ miles of driving. With both a trusty XH-A1 and the innovative HV-30 in hand, I am to make an actions sports adventure film that has a lens on emerging environmental phenomena and how we as global citizens can one day live symbiotically with the world around us.

Documentary aside, we are having talks with the BBC and one of their shows is interested in following us for a couple of days at both the beginning and the end of the trip. Throughout the negotiations, I hope to lock down having the ability to use their footage as well as my own when i get back to the states and into the editing room for festivals and such.

There have been countless threads about what the BBC standards of shooting are and I assume (without checking again myself) they will be shooting in some equivalent of 25 fps.

If I did not have to worry about matching their frame rate in post, I would like to shoot in 60i to have a better chance in post to slow down some footage and catch the fast paced action with less ghosting artifacts. But...

1st question: Would you recommend that I shoot in 60i? or would a film like look of our 24f compliment the look of their footage/frame rate better?

2nd question: Will my fcp 6.0 timeline (assuming that I have the sequence setting at either 24 or 60 fps) understand 25 fps immediately or will I have to convert the footage?

I hope my questions make sense. And thanks in advance. Please go to Across The Atlas to read more about what we are all about...

If you edit in FCP, I think you can convert the PAL footage to NTSC after it's already loaded. They would, no doubt, shoot 25 fps, but whether they are shooting interlace or progressive is the issue. My first thought is that I would shoot 24F and then convert whatever they give you. In our earlier days of video-to-film work, lots of people shot in PAL because 25 fps was closer to 24 fps (and for the better resolution). I haven't tried any PAL in FCP, but I'd bet you can just drop it into your HDV 1080P24 timeline and it will do the conversion for you there. It would be nice if you can score some PAL footage somewhere and do a test.

thanks bill
 

i recently finished the doc for our previous adventure called 28 in 4: california where we skied/boarded ever california mountain in 4 days for guinness. and the nature of that doc was more on the story/character building side than action filled riding.

so do you think having a sound relationship between the 25 fps pal and 24 fps ntsc footage on the fcp timeline is better than getting a clean(er) image of fast paced riding in 60i?

abbreviations are fun to type ha

Well I like the 24p look and the fact that there are no interlace artifacts when converting to web video, but you should probably shoot a test to see which look you prefer.

SO DID YOU TRY? how did it go?