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Super 8 question (Not the movie. Well, not THE movie.)
I’m having a bunch of old 18 fps Super 8 home movies transferred to digital files for editing. I understand that the new digital file will include metadata that will enable a video player to play the files at proper speed. But I assume that the metadata won’t survive importing/editing/exporting in FCP. If so, what is the best way to export a final, edited QuickTime that will play at the proper speed?
Can that be done well directly from Final Cut? Is it a Cinema Tools job (I don’t use that software much)? Or is it perhaps best done in After Effects? Anyone here have experience with this challenge and the best workflow?
My other question is which file format to order when the Super 8 films are transferred. They offer Motion JPEG-A (which my preferred vendor recommends and which I am leaning toward) and also Component 4:2:2 and Animation. What would you folks choose? (WWYFC)
Thanks!
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7 Replies
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Jpeg-A or Animation is fine.
If they give them to you at 18fps and are doing a single frame scan at a time, you will need to bring them into after effects and interpret them at 18fps then render them out to 23.976 ProRes to be editable in fcp.
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Hi Ron,
As Chris points, you can not edit or export at 18fps.
I think Chris suggestion is the solution.
Going 24fps would make the time-base conversion (18>24) easier.
Process the picture in AE WITHOUT FRAME BLENDING.
The 24fps clip will look pretty much like the original 18fps film because there are no new pictures interpolated, just repeated.
rafael -
Sorry, I want to clear, when I say “you can not edit or export at 18fps”, I was talking about FC and QT.
AE can do it, but out of AE you will be in the same situation: Unable to cut the stuff in FC at 18fps.
rafael -
Thanks very much for your answers, Chris and Rafael. That gave me a BIG part of what I was looking for. I’m afraid, though, that I failed to ask a very key question in my first post:
These Super 8 films have mag stripe sound. Changing the frame rate of the video would obviously affect the pitch and quality of the audio. Do you have any advice about how I can deal with that? I’m wondering if there is a way for me to process the audio separately to match the length of the video without changing the pitch/quality of the sound. Perhaps some kind of re-recording? I will experiment with this but if you guys have any words on wisdom I sure would appreciate hearing them.
Cheers,
Ron
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I know adobe audition can do this. change duration without affecting pitch.
there are pitch controls in soundtrack but I have not tried that.
you might be able to get away with just doing it in after effects, if the sound is linked to the quicktime animations.
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[Ron Craig] “These Super 8 films have mag stripe sound. Changing the frame rate of the video would obviously affect the pitch and quality of the audio”
No.
You are not making any kind of “conforming” which would make the sound play at a different speed than the original.
When you go 18>24, you are just adding interpolated frames to the video track. You do nothing to the audio.
QT have no problems changing the time-base without affecting audio.
The audio has his own time-base: The sample-rate (48Khz, 44,1Khz, 32Khz,..)
Test it: export a p24 clip to p30: Audio won’t be affected. In fact you can let it on “pass-through”.
rafael -
Woo-hoo! Good news for me. Thanks, Rafael!!
-Ron
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