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DP shot all RED footage at 59.94. I need normal speed playback. Best practice?
Hi.
So just prepping the edit of a music video shot solely on Red Epic by a DP who not only “forgot” to record a reference audio track for syncing(!), but also shot (over cranked) the entire day at 59.94fps without telling anybody.
Now, this gives us stunning slomo in our 23.98 timeline, and looks filmic and gorgeous at the full 4K res.
All footage has been ingested; corrected using Red raw controls and then proxied for edit.Trouble is, just about everything we NEED to edit should actually be playing back at “normal” speed, with slomo used for a few seconds here and there in the 3.5min piece.
Is my only choice to retime (in this case; speed up) all the footage by 250% to force it to play back as if shot 1:1?
Or should I be conforming to 29.97 then adding pulldown to get to 23.98?
What a nightmare.
I’ve obviously tested it and simple speeding up works, timing wise, but the effect is pretty harsh — verging on strobe-like — and with none of the original filmic, wide open, cinematic loveliness. It just looks like “video” now.
Is there a better way? Another technique, for making slomo NOT slomo?
I’m running a retime using optical flow test overnight, but the render times are prohibitive and I’m pretty sure that only makes a difference when you’re trying to MAKE slomo… not remove it.Any and all help much appreciated.
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22 Replies
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Try running a shot through compressor and speed up the footage 250% (these settings are in the frame control tab).
I’d try the fast, good, and best settings. This will sweep dropping frames, blending frames, and optical flow.
Fast might work in this case.
Alternatively, you could turn off the optical flow in fcpx. You might not need it in this case as you need to drop frames, not make new ones. I’d stay away from frame blending.
You could also look in to plugins to help you here, like Twixtor.
No matter what, settle in for some render times and experimentation.
Jeremy
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[Trevor Gilchrist] “Or should I be conforming to 29.97 then adding pulldown to get to 23.98?”
Is there a reason why you need to be in 23.98? Because I’d be tempted to just conform to 29.97 because the math is simpler.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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Thanks Andy,
Only because the project was started as such and uses a great deal of ProRes 422 transcoded from the 5D. In fact, it’s the contrast to the beautiful filmic look of the 5D footage that is the most jarring.Wish we’d done the whole thing on those…
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Use a 29.97i sequence. The 24p will have proper pulldown added by FCP X, and the 60p RED should get interlaced by FCP X. Although I haven’t tested the latter. Then when you’re done you have a nice broadcast master, but you’ll need to deinterlace for web.
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But the footage is already 23.976, just over cranked.
It’s not 60p footage in the traditional sense. You can speed up the footage 2.5 times and it will be “the same as” 60p, but the footage is stamped as 24.
I’m sorry, but there’s not going to be an easy way to fix this. What’s captured is captured. Shutter speed and Hz are different when shooting 60 vs 24. The characteristics of the footage are baked in.
You are going to have to fiddle around until you find a recipe you like, and that could vary from shot to shot depending on the footage.
Your DP should pay for Twixtor, or its time to get creative with the edit.
Did you run a shot through Compressor yet with different settings?
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Thanks Bret, thanks Jeremy.
Yes, I’m starting to understand the “baked in-ness” of it all now.
I’m so angry at the DP, but a reshoot is impossible.
So the look will be the look, I guess.I haven’t tried the Compressor approach, simply because I know that processing 110, 5K clips, up to 12mins each, will send me a month over my deadline…
Many thanksfor your help.
live n learn, right?
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You should try to process one clip and see if you like it.
Process it a couple of different ways.
Then, do the edit with the proxy material.
Upon your conform back to the high res material, you will only process the footage in the edit with your chosen recipe, not every frame of raw material.
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Very wise.
I will try, then report findings back here in case it’s of use to someone, similarly scuppered, in the future.Thanks everyone for the help and education thus far. This is my first RED project, but it won’t be my last.
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So, here’s a conundrum then (if anyone still has the patience to help me understand…)
1. The footage baked at 59.94 is RED Raw and therefore can’t be opened directly in Compressor.
2. The footage is 4800 x 2700 frame size, which is not a format I’ve seen before and not one offered as a project size in FCPX, so I can’t “Share” to Compressor from the timeline (which would have to be my future workflow, surely?)
3. The proxies that FCPX creates are 50% size of the original, so 2400 x 1350 (some “proxy, huh”)I can only assume I have to do a Compressor test using the Proxy, though that can’t give me any sort of accurate representation or hope of a useable future workflow.
Thank you Mr “DP”
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[Trevor Gilchrist] “Is my only choice to retime (in this case; speed up) all the footage by 250% to force it to play back as if shot 1:1?”
Yes, this is the one and only correct thing to do. You should not be editing at 29.97. The media has a timebase of 23.98 so that is the “normal” time if you want to maintain sync to audio. However, the issue you will find is that motion blur will look too crisp compared with how it would look had it be shot at 23.98. Optimize first from RED and then edit with the optimized or proxy files.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com
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