Hello All.
I'm trying to film a sequence where I walk a steadicam through a busy urban street, then
speed that footage up to create the impression of the hectic pace of modern city life. I've done a few tests over the last few days and, naturally, it's more difficult to achieve than I had anticipated. Some issues are steadicam operator related i.e excentuated bumps etc, others are related to the camera - shutter speed etc, others to vegas.

This is a Vegas forum so I'll ask about the vegas issue here, but if you've had experience using a steadicam to achieve this technique I'd love to hear some ideas on the best way to pull off this shot.

Ok, so Vegas... When I speed up a clip using the timestretch function, there is a limited amount I can speed it up. I need it to be super fast. Is it best to render lossless, then speed up that render, and so on until I've got the speed I need or is there a better way?

It is going to be used as a transition sequence on a 25p project. It seems that speeding up 25p footage is giving me double vision. So if I film this sequence in 50i is it going to be all right to mix with the 25p footage on my timeline?

cheers,
Glen

You could try inserting a video 'velocity' envelope on the clip you want to speed up and whack it up to 300 per cent, which is the maximum. If you increase the playback speed of your clip to x4 as well I'm sure that would be enough speed for what you're trying to do!

Glen.

I don't know what camera you're using but can you record at a lower frame rate, ie 1 frame per second or whatever.When played back this will result in fast speed.
Remember the scene in Star Wars where the speeder bikes are whizzing through the forest, that's how that was done, using a steadicam.

Paul.

If you've read about the speeder bike sequence in the AC article, you may remember that GB and cronies took a great deal of pains to ensure that the camera was following the straightest line possible in the various axes. These days I would imagine that stabilization software that is widely available in various forms would help to align the center of the frames and erase the deviation that occurs when one greatly speeds up Steadicam footage.

To answer the Vegas question;
in Vegas use and envelope to 300% then render the clip to AVI then use another envelope to 300% or whatever speed you need render and you're set. I've gone to 1200% that way and no, there is no loss of quality by doing it this way.

Don

Don, if you use the Velocity Envelope to 3x AND the playback rate to 4x, you can get 1200% on a single render. Do it again and you can get up to 14400% on the second render! I would go the 3x and 4x in one pass rather than 3x four times.

makes sense. I never did the math but 14400% is a WOW thing!;-)
I wonder if brides and grooms would mind the whole wedding that way. Just think, a 2 hours product in about 5 minutes. For those of us with a short attention span it could be the next best thing!

O|O
\__/

Don

wow! Thanks for your input guys. I'm sure this way will be more than fast enough. Also
I'll look for the article on the star wars biker scenes for some ideas.

Charles - I'm interested in this stabilisation software. Is there a specific brand that is good? Vegas compatible?

Glen