fixing flourescents in fcp3
 

So I shot some stuff in a small room with flourescent lights. I thought I brought the shutter speed down to 60, which I figured would get rid of that shift effect, when the white balance seems to move from normal to slightly yellow/green, then back again. But it didn't help, and the footage looks pretty funky, with the colors shifting slightly every few seconds. I'm definitely going to go back and attempt to reshoot, but is there anything I can do to allieviate the problem in fcp3? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks

The changing phase makes it difficult to get the video real professional looking. If you can't reshoot, you can adjust the WB with the 3 way color corrector in FCP 3 and 4. If you have problems getting it to work post back. It was also covered here a few months ago and you can find it by doing a search.

Thanks Jeff. I'll give it a try.

I wonder if some of the funkiness was auto white balance? If you reshoot, remember to manually white balance for the room. That should at least lock the white balance and make it easier to fix in post if need be.

Digital Film Tools - 55mm plug-in
 

Yeah, if the problem was due to auto WB, and is shifting every few seconds, that's going to be pretty much impossible to correct for fully. The AWB will shift according to the content of the scene, so a handheld or panning shot will have irregular shifts due to the operator's movements. Really tough to track and compensate for.

But I thought this would be a good time to bring up a FCP plugin set.

There's a huge, comprehensive review in the 09/03 American Cinematographer of digital film tools' 55mm v2.0. It's available as an AfterEffects or FCP plugin set for $195. It appears to be a really cool, all-around toolkit for digital fimaking. One of the features discussed is correcting for flourescent lighting.

www.digitalfilmtools.com/html/55mm_prod.html

The product has been out for awhile, but this is the most comprehensive review I've seen yet. AC's Jay Holben goes filter by filter, suggesting practical and film-type uses for each.

Strangely, he talks about using the "temperature" filter instead of the "flourescent" filter for correction, but the digitalfilmtools site lists that filter as a bonus filter for the Photoshop version only. I'll try to reach them later today to clarify.

I don't think it's a good advise to keep the WB in manual mode when the WB problem is generated by the periodic phase differences between the framrate and the mains power. Auto WB will try to compensate the variations. Unfortunately the compensation time constant is (mostly) too long, so it lags..

I manually adjusted the white balance with a white card in the room, so it wasn't an awb issue. Like Andre said, it was a phase issue. it seems like a catch 22 shooting situation: if i continually bring down the shutter speed to get rid of the phase shift, the movements of the person being interviewed look stuttered and slow mo-ish. But if I don't bring it down, I'll be stuck with the lighting shift from the changing phase. I guess just avoid heavy flourescents whenever possible when shooting in available light, huh?