Normalizing Speed/Adding Pulldown for Film Transferred to mini-DV By Telecine

[Annaël Beauchemin]

If you are outputting to DVD, you can work in native 23.98 and let the DVD player add the pulldown. For this you only need to open your clips in cinema tools and conform them to 23.98. Then work in a 23.98 timeline in FCP.

If you want to ouput to tape or DVD @29.97, you need to conform your movie files to 23.98 and add a 3:2 pulldown.

You a few options:

Cheap:
open the file in cinema tools and conform the framerate to 23.98. When you put it in a 29.97 timeline, FCP will need to render before playing. Note that this is not the “clean” way of adding pulldown since there won’t be any interlaced A frame like in a normal pulldown. Some people don’t notice it.

If you have aftereffects:
Interpret footage as 23.98 fps, create a 23.98 composition, add to render queue and modify the render settings: you need to activate field rendering and activate 3:2 pulldown (select any pattern, it doesn’t matter). This makes a “clean” pulldown, smoother than the previous method.

if you can buy a plugin:
Nattress’ standards conversion will do this inside of FCP. There are other plugin that will do this too, like revision fx’s fieldskit.

[Annaël Beauchemin]

[mishka] “FCP can insert 3:2 field padding on the fly for monitoring.”

note that FCP doesn’t interlace any frame using this workflow. For final rendering, you must add a “real” pulldown otherwise the movements can be quite strobey.

[Steven Pukin]

So I can add the 3:2 Pulldown in Final Cut (for printing to tape) after I have edited the conformed footage (from Cinema Tools), and it will look ok? If I were to conform the footage in Cinema Tools, and then output to 23.98 for transfer back to film (on the off chance that what I’m doing in this course will be festival worthy), would it look ok as well?

Thanks,
Steven

[Tom Matthies]

Just a general question about your film. What frame rate was it shot at originally? 24fps, 30 fps or some other variation? And what frame rate was it transferred at? Most importantly, did the telecine frame rate match the camera frame rate? I’m wondering was your film possibly shot at say 24fps while the telecine was running at 30 fps or some variation of these speeds. It could account for the speed difference and the lack of pulldown.
Just a thought.
Tom

[Steven Pukin]

Yeah that was exactly what I was saying, it was filmed at 24fps, and the telecine was running at 29.97, with no pulldown, the only do one to one frame transfers. So I’ll have to conform it to 23.98 it appears.

steven