Shooting 30p then slo mo in FCP?

[Charles Dasher]

I love the overcranking capability of the EX1. Here is an example of in camera slo mo.

http://blip.tv/file/641681?filename=...SloMoII451.mov

But often I am shooting action sports events where overcranking is not practical for the whole event. In the past when editing DV60i I could get pretty decent slo mo in FCP on the timeline for the select clips I wish to slow down.

With the EX1 I would like to shoot 30p. What are the software options that would allow the best slo mo of select 30p clips?

Thanks
Dasher

[Eric Pascarelli]

Since you'll be creating artificial slo-mo, you'll need to use an optical flow type plugin.

I think the absolute best optical flow software comes from The Foundry in the UK. They have a set of plugins (for Inferno, Flame, Shake) called Furnace that are amazing. But very expensive.

Apparently their optical flow engine is used in the latest version of After Effects. I've never tested it, and I am sure it is a crippled version of the algorithm they include in Furnace, but I am told it is good.

One of the things you will encounter in most of these algorithms is the inability to deal with occlusion - when one football player crosses on top of another with respect to camera. In most cases there will be a strange edge warping.

Furnace does an amazing job of eliminating this. Not sure about AE, but I think it's the best bet for the money.

Also, Shake (without the Furnace plugin) round-trips nicely from FCP and includes a built in optical flow system for its speed changes. Not nearly as good as Shake with Furnace, though. But it's amazingly inexpensive.

[Don Greening]

Originally Posted by Eric Pascarelli

Also, Shake (without the Furnace plugin) round-trips nicely from FCP and includes a built in optical flow system for its speed changes. Not nearly as good as Shake with Furnace, though. But it's amazingly inexpensive.

Motion 3 comes with the same optical flow engine as Shake, so if you already have Final Cut Studio 2 then you'll have Motion 3.

Charles, perhaps you'll consider giving the EX1's 720p 60 mode a try for your fast action sequences that you plan on slowing down later in post. It will still run at 30fps but you'd have twice the temporal resolution to work with.

- Don

[Brad Vaughan]

Lovely footage.

What's the music?

[Charles Dasher]

Don

With my DV background I would shoot 60i. In FCP I would do slow mo on the timeline to the desired clips and I had a decent technique for simulating a progressive look for the real time footage.

With the EX1 I have been shooting most everything in 60p and have been doing slow mo for select clips on the FCP timeline with fairly good results. Sounds like it's time to actually open up Motion and learn to post slow mo there.

Shooting progressive is new to me so let me ask what may be a silly question. Are you saying that putting 60p footage on 30p timeline will result in 30p final output?

Thanks