Smooth Slow motion shots with GL2??? at DVinfo.net

Steve Law · April 27th, 2005, 01:15 AM

im on a super tight budget, and right now the GL2 seems like the best buy. i was wondering if anyone has experimented with slow mo. i will be filming music videos, and for certain shots i want to slow down the bands performance but i dont want it to be choppy.....not sure if that makes sense, but if you ever seen the following music videos:
Radiohead - Street Spirit
The Stills - Still in Love
Papa Roach - Between Angels and Insects

...thats what im going for. would the GL2 give me that type of performance, or would i have to get a more expensive camera?

Robin Davies-Rollinson · April 27th, 2005, 06:22 AM

Don't expect the camera to give you slo-mo, it will have to be done at your editing stage.
What software are you going to use to edit your video?

Robin

Steve Law · April 27th, 2005, 11:36 AM

im still new, so right now im using....windows movie maker. i know, lame program. but i will be moving up to final cut pro pretty soon.

Robin Davies-Rollinson · April 27th, 2005, 01:10 PM

Movie Maker 2 is a very good little programme - and it's free!!!
It's also got a slow motion effect built in, so I suggest that you play around with it...

Robin

Matthew Nayman · April 29th, 2005, 08:45 AM

Slow motion akin to Street Spirit is impossible to acheive with a Canon GL2 or Even a Canon XL2. Infact, no consumer or Prosumer DV cam can acheive true slow-mo.

we are stuck shooting either 60i, 30p, or 24p... slowmotion requires us to capture at a high frame rate and play back at a normal frame rate. I.E. film at 48 fps and play at 24 fps = things happen twice as slowley as real life.

Street spirit was shot on 35mm film, and the slow motion at speeds between 60fps and 96 fps.

If you take 60i footage (not frame movie mode), and look at it in an NTSC timeline, it is still only 30 frames per second (29.97). DV encoding technology doesn;t allow for more. 60i simply means you have 60 FEILDS per second, or Half Frames.

If you take your 60i and slow it down 50%, you will have viddeo that takes twice as long to play out, but it will be choppy and not look like slow motion. Instead, it will look like video that has been slowed down! maybe because it is! :P

Unfortunatly, unless you are buying a viper cam, or some other comparible high-end/professional/experimental digital camera that records directly onto a hard drive array, the only way to capture true slowmotion is on a variable speed film camera (Bell&Howell makes a small,cheap 16mm cam that can record down to 64fps)

Steve Law · April 29th, 2005, 12:24 PM

thanks a lot! great info there. do you know any places in Toronto that i could rent cameras and other equipment from?

Matthew Nayman · April 29th, 2005, 12:29 PM

Give Vistek a try. They are way out on Queen Street East. Just got my XL2 from them. Big rental department.

Emre Safak · April 29th, 2005, 01:39 PM

The best way is simply to capture more frames per second, but if you can not do that, the second best way is to use Twixtor

April 29th, 2005, 07:40 PM

Dude, slow-mo is EASY. Any simple editing program can do it flawlessly for you. 'Choppiness' is avoided in the shooting stage. You just gotta be smooth wiht the camera. Forget about those 'steady cams'. Pieces of crap as far as I'm concerned. Especially for the money. I use this:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...=206346&is=REG

With a little work, you'll be taking footage like this:

www.theweddingspotlight.com

Check that stuff out... all my work with a GL2 and the simple Varizoom, with a FCP slow-mo effect. Your windows slow-mo should give you the same result with good camera work.

Matthew Nayman · April 30th, 2005, 08:26 AM

In all honesty, and no offence to what was said above, Slow Mo in post looks fake.

Ify ou have seen "Street Spirit" you will know what I mean. The scene where Tom Yorke is Smashing the glass and it is slowley falling, you cant do that on a mini dv camera. There just isnt enough information in the frames. Glass would fall at a certain velcoity, accelerating at each frame. If the shot is framed 20 feet away, the glass will be on screen for no more than 8 frames.

In the video, the shot lasts 8 seconds.

To derive 8 seconds from 8 frames is going to be super-bad looking, beacuse it is one frame a second as oppsed to 30.

I have done a lot of film slow-mo work and tried it digital. You can slowdown in after fx and premiere, I know this, but it just doesnt look good after 80%

Steve Law · April 30th, 2005, 11:48 AM

so am i better off filming in 35mm?

April 30th, 2005, 04:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matthew Nayman

In all honesty, and no offence to what was said above, Slow Mo in post looks fake.

Ify ou have seen "Street Spirit" you will know what I mean. The scene where Tom Yorke is Smashing the glass and it is slowley falling, you cant do that on a mini dv camera. There just isnt enough information in the frames. Glass would fall at a certain velcoity, accelerating at each frame. If the shot is framed 20 feet away, the glass will be on screen for no more than 8 frames.

In the video, the shot lasts 8 seconds.

To derive 8 seconds from 8 frames is going to be super-bad looking, beacuse it is one frame a second as oppsed to 30.

I have done a lot of film slow-mo work and tried it digital. You can slowdown in after fx and premiere, I know this, but it just doesnt look good after 80%

Yes, if you're filming an Indiana Jones movie with lots of glass bouncing off of the sidewalk or you're trying to capture the sweat beads coming off of someone's head after getting sucker-punched, that's the way to go.

Again, if you're just looking for some elegant, simple slow-mo effects from real-time DV footage, look no further than your editing software. Feel free to check out those samples:

www.theweddingspotlight.com

Theo Mason · April 30th, 2005, 05:46 PM

Matt is right. I use my GL2 footage to speeds as low as 20% with nice results. Good enough for weddings and small projects.

Ted

Steve Law · May 1st, 2005, 02:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matt Buerhaus

Yes, if you're filming an Indiana Jones movie with lots of glass bouncing off of the sidewalk or you're trying to capture the sweat beads coming off of someone's head after getting sucker-punched, that's the way to go.

Again, if you're just looking for some elegant, simple slow-mo effects from real-time DV footage, look no further than your editing software. Feel free to check out those samples:

www.theweddingspotlight.com

heh, ive seen the slow shots youve done. im trying to get the smoothest slow mo i can. and the videos ive seen on your site are not that. no offense, your stuff is good. just watch these two videos, or at least the first minute to understand what im trying to achieve here. excellent videos imo.

Radiohead - Street Spirit
http://artists.emidigitalmedia.com/m...spirit_h_f.wvx

Interpol - Slow Hands
http://mfile.akamai.com/14590/rm/ond..._hands_full.rm

Matthew Nayman · May 1st, 2005, 07:43 AM

Matt, trust me. I know you can do slow mo in FCP, but it is jerky. I have shot three 2 hour features on DV, and 1 on super 16mm. the slow-mo difference is Astounding.

The footage Steve posted looks jerky cause it's super compressed, but if yo uwatch these videos at full res you se ehow good 16mm slow mo is. it's just science... more frames = more information. 60i can only give you 60i of information, no matter how good the interpolation is.

For true slow mo, film is the cheapest way to go.

Don't shoot 35mm, it is a waste of money.

If you really need true slow-mo, shoot a simple 16mm cam, one roll of film (100ft) will cover you about 3 minutes shooting 24fps, 1 minute of superb slowmo.

Click steves first link (street spirit) and watch for 3:48. the glass is a perfect example, you cant do that in dv.

April 27th, 2005, 01:15 AM	#1
Steve Law Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 29	Smooth Slow motion shots with GL2??? im on a super tight budget, and right now the GL2 seems like the best buy. i was wondering if anyone has experimented with slow mo. i will be filming music videos, and for certain shots i want to slow down the bands performance but i dont want it to be choppy.....not sure if that makes sense, but if you ever seen the following music videos: Radiohead - Street Spirit The Stills - Still in Love Papa Roach - Between Angels and Insects ...thats what im going for. would the GL2 give me that type of performance, or would i have to get a more expensive camera?

April 27th, 2005, 06:22 AM	#2
Robin Davies-Rollinson Trustee Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Gwaelod-y-garth, Cardiff, CYMRU/WALES Posts: 1,215	Don't expect the camera to give you slo-mo, it will have to be done at your editing stage. What software are you going to use to edit your video? Robin

April 27th, 2005, 11:36 AM	#3
Steve Law Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 29	im still new, so right now im using....windows movie maker. i know, lame program. but i will be moving up to final cut pro pretty soon.

April 27th, 2005, 01:10 PM	#4
Robin Davies-Rollinson Trustee Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Gwaelod-y-garth, Cardiff, CYMRU/WALES Posts: 1,215	Movie Maker 2 is a very good little programme - and it's free!!! It's also got a slow motion effect built in, so I suggest that you play around with it... Robin

April 29th, 2005, 08:45 AM	#5
Matthew Nayman Major Player Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Toronto Posts: 917	Slow motion akin to Street Spirit is impossible to acheive with a Canon GL2 or Even a Canon XL2. Infact, no consumer or Prosumer DV cam can acheive true slow-mo. we are stuck shooting either 60i, 30p, or 24p... slowmotion requires us to capture at a high frame rate and play back at a normal frame rate. I.E. film at 48 fps and play at 24 fps = things happen twice as slowley as real life. Street spirit was shot on 35mm film, and the slow motion at speeds between 60fps and 96 fps. If you take 60i footage (not frame movie mode), and look at it in an NTSC timeline, it is still only 30 frames per second (29.97). DV encoding technology doesn;t allow for more. 60i simply means you have 60 FEILDS per second, or Half Frames. If you take your 60i and slow it down 50%, you will have viddeo that takes twice as long to play out, but it will be choppy and not look like slow motion. Instead, it will look like video that has been slowed down! maybe because it is! :P Unfortunatly, unless you are buying a viper cam, or some other comparible high-end/professional/experimental digital camera that records directly onto a hard drive array, the only way to capture true slowmotion is on a variable speed film camera (Bell&Howell makes a small,cheap 16mm cam that can record down to 64fps)

April 29th, 2005, 12:24 PM	#6
Steve Law Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 29	thanks a lot! great info there. do you know any places in Toronto that i could rent cameras and other equipment from?

April 29th, 2005, 12:29 PM	#7
Matthew Nayman Major Player Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Toronto Posts: 917	Give Vistek a try. They are way out on Queen Street East. Just got my XL2 from them. Big rental department.

April 29th, 2005, 01:39 PM	#8
Emre Safak Trustee Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Brookline, MA Posts: 1,447	The best way is simply to capture more frames per second, but if you can not do that, the second best way is to use Twixtor

April 29th, 2005, 07:40 PM	#9
Guest Posts: n/a	Dude, slow-mo is EASY. Any simple editing program can do it flawlessly for you. 'Choppiness' is avoided in the shooting stage. You just gotta be smooth wiht the camera. Forget about those 'steady cams'. Pieces of crap as far as I'm concerned. Especially for the money. I use this: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...=206346&is=REG With a little work, you'll be taking footage like this: www.theweddingspotlight.com Check that stuff out... all my work with a GL2 and the simple Varizoom, with a FCP slow-mo effect. Your windows slow-mo should give you the same result with good camera work.

April 30th, 2005, 08:26 AM	#10
Matthew Nayman Major Player Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Toronto Posts: 917	In all honesty, and no offence to what was said above, Slow Mo in post looks fake. Ify ou have seen "Street Spirit" you will know what I mean. The scene where Tom Yorke is Smashing the glass and it is slowley falling, you cant do that on a mini dv camera. There just isnt enough information in the frames. Glass would fall at a certain velcoity, accelerating at each frame. If the shot is framed 20 feet away, the glass will be on screen for no more than 8 frames. In the video, the shot lasts 8 seconds. To derive 8 seconds from 8 frames is going to be super-bad looking, beacuse it is one frame a second as oppsed to 30. I have done a lot of film slow-mo work and tried it digital. You can slowdown in after fx and premiere, I know this, but it just doesnt look good after 80%

April 30th, 2005, 11:48 AM	#11
Steve Law Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 29	so am i better off filming in 35mm?

April 30th, 2005, 05:46 PM	#13
Theo Mason New Boot Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Billings, Montana Posts: 10	Matt is right. I use my GL2 footage to speeds as low as 20% with nice results. Good enough for weddings and small projects. Ted

May 1st, 2005, 07:43 AM	#15
Matthew Nayman Major Player Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Toronto Posts: 917	Matt, trust me. I know you can do slow mo in FCP, but it is jerky. I have shot three 2 hour features on DV, and 1 on super 16mm. the slow-mo difference is Astounding. The footage Steve posted looks jerky cause it's super compressed, but if yo uwatch these videos at full res you se ehow good 16mm slow mo is. it's just science... more frames = more information. 60i can only give you 60i of information, no matter how good the interpolation is. For true slow mo, film is the cheapest way to go. Don't shoot 35mm, it is a waste of money. If you really need true slow-mo, shoot a simple 16mm cam, one roll of film (100ft) will cover you about 3 minutes shooting 24fps, 1 minute of superb slowmo. Click steves first link (street spirit) and watch for 3:48. the glass is a perfect example, you cant do that in dv.