How to: time lapse from normal EX1 footage

[Zsolt Gordos]

Stupidity attacks in various ways, mostly when someone has little experience. So it happened to me, I had set up my 1 week old EX1r for my first time lapse shot.

Framing, fiddling with menus and... action.

After 30 minutes shooting I came to realize that the shot was just a normal one, I have not executed the 1 frame/sec I wanted. Now I have a long shot instead of the time lapse I planned.
Problem is, it was a very nice sunset which I can't reproduce and use time lapse again.

Please someone explain how to get 1 frame / sec out from this footage in FCP ?

thanks

[Doug Jensen]

I've never tried it with a clip that long before, but you can place the clip on a FCP timeline and then change the speed of the clip to 1%. That will turn a 30 minute clip into an 18 second video. I have no idea how good it will look with a clip that long. It should okay because FCP is jsut going to throw away frames. Let us know how it turns out.

[Richard Hunter]

Hi Doug. I'm not a FCP user, but 1% can't be correct, should be something closer to 10,000%, yes? Or did you mean change the duration to 1%?

Richard

[Marcus Durham]

Originally Posted by Doug Jensen

I've never tried it with a clip that long before, but you can place the clip on a FCP timeline and then change the speed of the clip to 1%. That will turn a 30 minute clip into an 18 second video. I have no idea how good it will look with a clip that long. It should okay because FCP is jsut going to throw away frames. Let us know how it turns out.

You want something like 5000%.

Ensure frame blending is turned off.

Really this is a question that should be posed in the FCP forum.

[Olof Ekbergh]

Doug is correct, if you call it duration, 1% would be 1/100 of 30 minutes or 30x60/100=18seconds.

.5% would be 9 seconds

2% would be 36 seconds

You get the idea. This works very easily and is pretty quick in most NLE's.

If you call it speed then, 1000% would be 30/10=3 minutes

10,000% 30x60/100=18 seconds

[Doug Jensen]

Thanks, Olof.

[Zsolt Gordos]

Thank you all for the suggestions, I tried this and so far it seems the speed setting should be 10000% - but FCP does not allow that, only up to 9000 something, so I used that.

If I change duration to 1%, that just shortens the clip but not speed it up, means the time lapse effect wont be there.

Now I tried, and the result does not look any good, not sharp, quite blur.
Thanks for the comment about frame blending, it must be off for this operation. Now I try to add some sharpness with a Natress effect, but I doubt the result would be the same as with shooting time lapse with the cam. *sigh*

Is there perhaps a trick that takes 1 frame of every second and delete the rest? The footage was shot with 1080p PAL so basically there must be 25 still frames in a second of footage. How to get the 1st frame of each second and get rid of the rest?
I imagine that would give the closest result to the cam time lapse effect.

Any idea? thanks so much.

I will try to post some footage here to compare, hope I can upload. I have also shot some of the remaining sunset with the cam...unfortunately its pretty short. I will add that, too.

[Leonard Levy]

I forget how to do it but i i know you can and its easy.
Sorry I can't be of more help. If I get into FCP tomorrow I'll look.

[Alister Chapman]

Are you sure it's really blurring? It shouldn't, it should just speed up. It may be that the clip requires rendering after the speed change and FCP is softening the clip for real time preview. Have you rendered it out?

[Olof Ekbergh]

Sometimes when I do this I do it in 2 or 3 steps. Making sure I pick numbers that will not frame blend. In PAL use numbers divisible by 25. Rendering each and saving as a new movie. I use M100 to do this, but I am sure FCP will do it just fine.

One thing to bear in mind with time lapse is if it is windy it will look real jerky as trees grass and water really changes from frame to frame. This is the same even if shot in camera or if rendered in a NLE. And if you end up with frame blending this will cause blur.

[Chad Johnson]

In FCP:

Use "Fit to Fill" command.

1: You set the in/out points you want the final clip to be.
2: In your Canvas window, go to the 3rd button in on the bottom left of the window. Drop down the choices and choose the green one, "Fit to Fill" so that green button is now visible.
3: Double click the clip you are working on so it appears in the Viewer. (it's best if this clip is on the bottom/lowest video track)
4: With the clip still selected, press the green "fit to fill" button on the canvas.
5: The clip will shorten/lengthen to fit within the in/out points.

When speeding up a clip there will be part of the original clip still there after the out point. Just delete that. This is a great way to make clips fit on a timeline exactly the length you need. I wish you could just grab the end of a clip and command/drag it to the speed/length you want like in Vegas, but Fit to Fill is the next best thing.

Now fly free and share your knowledge!

Chadfish

[Zsolt Gordos]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

Are you sure it's really blurring? It shouldn't, it should just speed up. It may be that the clip requires rendering after the speed change and FCP is softening the clip for real time preview. Have you rendered it out?

hi Alister, thanks for the idea. Yes I have rendered out and it was blur afterward. I compared the rendered clip to my proper time lapse clip which I took at the same location a few minutes later, its quite visibly obvious that the "post time lapse" clip looks blur.

[Zsolt Gordos]

Originally Posted by Chad Johnson

In FCP:

Use "Fit to Fill" command.

1: You set the in/out points you want the final clip to be.
2: In your Canvas window, go to the 3rd button in on the bottom left of the window. Drop down the choices and choose the green one, "Fit to Fill" so that green button is now visible.
3: Double click the clip you are working on so it appears in the Viewer. (it's best if this clip is on the bottom/lowest video track)
4: With the clip still selected, press the green "fit to fill" button on the canvas.
5: The clip will shorten/lengthen to fit within the in/out points.

When speeding up a clip there will be part of the original clip still there after the out point. Just delete that. This is a great way to make clips fit on a timeline exactly the length you need. I wish you could just grab the end of a clip and command/drag it to the speed/length you want like in Vegas, but Fit to Fill is the next best thing.

Now fly free and share your knowledge!

Chadfish

Hi Chad,

thanks for the info, I will try this, although it seems too easy...:)

[Zsolt Gordos]

Originally Posted by Olof Ekbergh

Sometimes when I do this I do it in 2 or 3 steps. Making sure I pick numbers that will not frame blend. In PAL use numbers divisible by 25. Rendering each and saving as a new movie. I use M100 to do this, but I am sure FCP will do it just fine.

One thing to bear in mind with time lapse is if it is windy it will look real jerky as trees grass and water really changes from frame to frame. This is the same even if shot in camera or if rendered in a NLE. And if you end up with frame blending this will cause blur.

Hi Olof, this is interesting... maybe the key for quality is gradual change as you suggest, I will also try your method. thank you