Fast motion vs slow motion

[Noah Kadner]

Depends what exactly you’re trying to achieve- comical effect or special effect etc. Shutter speed can also make a huge impact on top of frame rate when altered in post.

Noah

FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
FCP Exchange – FCPX Workshops
XinTwo – FCPX Training

[Joe Lukus]

Thanks!
Could you happen to tell me what settings I would want to aim for, for just a nice smooth fast motion as to basically just speed up the video to preserve the video quality, not wanting to go for any special effect or anything… just want to speed up the video…

If there is any good info or videos out there that you could point me too around this subject that would also be great!
Thanks!

[Jeremy Garchow]

What camera are you using? Does it have low frame rate shooting, like 4fps?

This allows you to control motion blur, saves a ton of card space, and can be further sped up if needed.

Otherwise you may need to add motion blur in post to get rid of some of the sharp/strobing feel.

[Joe Lukus]

That what I was thinking lower frame rates can give better/smoother fast motion (speed up)
so just the opposite of slow-mo with higher frame rates….
I am currently just working with aerial footage along with some GoPro footage…. I’m going to check to see how low the drone will go on frame rates.
Thanks!

Also was thinking about timeline FPS and how this all fits in with “over ranking” and “undercracking”… now would you really ever want to pick anything other than 24fps/23.976 etc…? If you are wanting to stick with that “relastic” film/cenimatic look?
Basically anytime you are wanting to speed up or slow down a part, you either shoot higher or lower frame rates from you desireded timeline fps or output frame rate, right?
Which I was thinking is pretty much always going to be 24/23.976?

Just trying to get the proper workflow to achieve smooth speed ups or slow downs!
Thanks again for everyone helps so far….

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Joe Lukus] “That what I was thinking lower frame rates can give better/smoother fast motion (speed up) “

It’s also about exposure per frame that will give you more or less motion blur, not just frame rate, although they are intertwined.

I don’t believe DJI or GoPro products go below standard frame rates on video. GOPro has more options on the still side.

I’d download the demo for RevisionFX Reel smart Morion Blur plugin which can help smooth out the shots by adding more motion blur if you don’t get enough in camera.

https://revisionfx.com/products/rsmb/

[Joe Lukus]

Thanks will have to check that out!

But again I’m I correct that if you are going for the film/natural motion look then 24/23.9 is what you should always be shooting for? As the desired output frame rate?

[Jeremy Garchow]

We sometimes shoot 29.97 with drone footage (especially if they are big wide vistas) and slow down to 23.98 to smooth it out.

Sometimes we shoot at 23.98 if there’s a lot of people in the shot.

[Joe Lukus]

Hmm never thought about doing that to slow it down, to give it a nice smoother slower feel!
Thanks again for all your help!

[Joe Lukus]

I was going to make another thread but hopefully someone will see this… still on the topic of speeding up/down video…

So I was reading somewhere were they were talking about matching frame rates so that when you are over cranking or undercracking, you want to pick rates that evenly go into each other or divisible? I think it was saying… wish I could find the page!
Because with frame rates of 23.976… but I I can see with 30 frame and 60 etc…

Can anyone elaborate?
Does this have any impact on choosing a frame to shoot at when match your timeline fps?

Thanks!

[Jeremy Garchow]

All of this is wholly dependent on what you want your footage to look like in the end.

FCPX, in my opinion, does a remarkable job off speed. It has a function, no matter what frame rate you shoot, you select the clip and choose “automatic speed” it will play back the frames 1:1 according to your timeline with no interpolation. So if your shoot 60fps, have a 30fps timeline, fcpx will slow the footage down by 50%. If your shoot 60 and have a 24fps timeline and chose automatic speed, FCPX will slow the shot down by 40% and play the 60fps back at 24 and give you a 40% reduction in speed. If you need to go further, you can turn on Optical Flow and FCPX will interpolate the frames in between. The quality of this is dependent on the footage. Generally it does a great job. Typically with slow motion, you want to shoot at the highest frame rate possible with your given camera. We shoot a lot at 240fps from our f55 and speed up the slow motion if necessary if 240 comes out too slow. And if we need 4K footage, we can only go to 120fps with our setup. I believe GoPro and DJI only goes to 30fps in 4K.

It really does depend on your subject, camera, and desired outcome. Consult the internet about FCPX optical flow to see possibilities. Older tutorials will have the controls in a different place, but the same controls are available in the latest version of FCPX.