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Feature film mixing 24p and 25p footages
Hello everyone,
I am now assistant on a feature film.
We are planning to edit and deliver in 24p.
Most of our footages have been shot in 24p using a blackmagic URSA camera.
However, the team used a Sony A7S as an extra cam, which shoots only in 25p.
Actually, some dialogued scenes have been shot using A7S.So now, I have some 15% to 20% of the rushes that don’t fit to the framerate of the project.
I’ve already started to make test myself, but I’d like to get the advice of someone who’s already been in this kind of trouble to find the very best method to do it.So far, we’ve been thinking about 2 solutions :
-Slow down the 25 to 24, and pitch the sound for sequences which require synch.
-Use a software or plugin such as AE’s Twixtor to create interpolated images and transcode 25 to 24 with no timing loss, for selected clips only.I would like your opinion on that. Both of these can work, I don’t doubt it. But since we’re going to choose a path and stick to it, I wanna make sure we pick the best solution.
Thank you guys.
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11 Replies
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What Bouke says – slow down the image and keep it frame-for-frame for best quality as there is no interpolation going on other than playback speed. DIalogue only might no be noticeable for pitch correction but you have that option. I would export WAV from original sources (or original WAV files is shot double system), duplicate them, and do the same slow down with pitch correction, then sync back up in editorial. Media Composer can do the playback change but cannot pitch correct on source media when slowing it down.
Michael
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Just going to concur with the others so you know it’s solid advice. Conform the 25 to 24 (slow down) and adjust pitch. Make NEW masters this way, and then cut with those masters, or make offlines of those…whathaveyou
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Concur on the slowdown.
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Without question, slow it from 25 to 24 so there is a 1:1 frame relationship.
I’ve done this several times in the past. On the film PEACEMAKER , many of the scenes shot in Europe were shot at 25 fps because they had a ton of television monitors in them and they needed to shoot the film at 25 to reduce rolling bar problems as they were using PAL monitors. All of that footage shot at 25 was played back at 24.
As for audio pitch problems – as long as it isn’t musical, it is often okay to just slow it down. (and this was often the practice as pitch correcting was a bit time consuming back in the day). On Peacemaker, we did have to use a Lexicon Primetime to alter the pitch of Nicole Kidman for those scenes, as she sounded “wrong” when pitched down 4%.
Today, it’s fairly trivial to slow and pitch correct the audio with good results in ProTools.
I have an article discussing best practices and a tutorial here:
Andrew Somers
VFX & Title Supervisor
https://GeneralTitles.com -
Thank you all for your advices. For most sequences, I guess we will follow this solution. We are working on pitch correction for the dialogues shot in A7S.
However, we do have 1 particular sequence with our main character singing a song.
This sequence was shot in 25p, because it was a night session.It is a very tricky situation, I’m afraid that with slowdown, we will loose all the musicality of the sequence. Would you suggest interpolation in this specific situation? And how? Has someone already been confronted to this situation?
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some of us actually live in Europe, where EVERY movie is speeded up from 24 to 25.
The whole (and sole) reason for video being able to be 24 was to deliver 24 for cinema (obsolete, cinema can have any framerate), nowadays to deliver 25 with speed up, 29.97 with pulldown added (interlaced, so not an option for internet, only broadcast / dvd / blu ray)
So, totally forget about interpolation. That is for standards conversion that you do not need.Why do you want to deliver 24 and ask these questions? Normally people who WANT to deliver 24 know why they want it. (Those who must due to contract obligations might be puzzled.)
Again, 24 is no longer a delivery format, as it serves no other purpose than to be universal to go to 25 or 29.97.
A higher framerate is better, no broadcast over traditional channels is at 24 and 24 in cinema is an option, not a requirement.
And if anyone states ‘it looks filmish’ let him pay the stock and handling fees for 35mm, see if he likes it then.Shooting 25P for a night scene makes no sense at all, unless you have very old fluorescent light that flickers at 50Hz
(Modern fluorescent lights are high frequency and have no issues.)
If you have shot under such old light you have shot in a dirty factory. (Very well possible, and in that case 25 was a wise descision, but you suggest this was an important carefull well lit scene.)Bouke
http://www.videotoolshed.com -
24.000fps is still a delivery format. Not for broadcast, but for theatrical and OTT. Obviously, so is 25. But no 23.976 for DCI.
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Oh, and 24fps movies are only speeded-up in Europe for traditional broadcast and dvd. Not for theatrical, not for BluRay, not for OTT.
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I would not be afraid of losing musicality due to the slowdown of that one sequence. Interpolation will most likely cause image quality issues.
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