Randall Raymond
Forum Replies Created
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My VO guy uses RE20, Studio Projects C-1 and the RCA 77 – he sounds perfect. I’ve never heard of anyone using a shotgun for VO – that type of mic is really not designed for that type of work.
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[Barry Green] “But — they don’t. The projector feeds the film through at exactly the same speed as the film camera does. The projector displays 24 frames per second. It just flashes each frame twice (or three times) to even out light/dark flicker. It has nothing (nothing nothing nothing) to do with motion.”
You’re right. But it has everything to do with flickering. The camera cannot match the projector’s cadence – it would double expose each frame. The alternative would have been for the camera to shoot 48fps to reduce flicker in a matching projector. Instead, they chose 24fps to save film.
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Make sure you don’t have the camera’s sharpness turned up. Turn it off or turn it down and do a test.
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[Barry Green] “Transfer that 24fps to DVD and watch it on a progressive-scan DVD player connected to a progressive-scan TV and you’ll see exactly 24 frames per second, no repeating”
Right. That’s because of the incredibly quick refresh rate of plasmas and lcds dealing with digits and not lighting up phosphorus fast enough to keep it glowing.* But hooked up to a SDTV and the player pumps out a 30fps 60 field signal. It will still be 24fps to the eye.
‘The multiple-flashing repeat frames thing is a concession to the mechanical shutter of a film projector…’…and to save money on film – film cameras run at half the speed of projectors. Which was my point. Nothing is lost using 24pn – just the frames needed to accommodate 60i in certain cases – and those can always be added back in by the NLE. Going out to tape for example.
* I can remember as kid in the early fifties that our TV would flicker in certain lighting. The phosphors were not perfected yet. I think europe was ahead of us on that.
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[Noah Kadner] “The only reason to not shoot 24pN is if your NLE doesn’t support it natively- check to make sure first. FCP does.”
The best way to explain it is this: Film Cameras shoot 24fps to save film. But watching 24fps would drive you crazy – there’s too much flicker. So, when it goes to film print for projection it’s 48fps. AABBCCDD and so on – repeating each frame to eliminate flicker.
You NLE will being doing the same thing in adding frames to eliminate flicker and meet NTSC specs.
So for video, shooting 24pn has the same motivation – but instead of saving film – we’re saving card memory – but ending up with the same great picture by automatically adding frames back in with the computer.
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[TerryAdrian] “Could you explain twittering please?”
Twittering is an interlacing problem – where thin horizontal lines (less height than a scan line) twitter or ‘sparkle’.
Flickering is frame rate problem. Film is shot at 24fps but projected at 48fps. The cadence is aabbccdd, etc. Now some Panasonic cameras record 24pn (exactly 23.94 frames a second) – then the NLE adds redundant frames back in to match NTSC specs. The reason is the same as film – 24fps, by itself, would be unwatchable – too much flicker. And savings – half as much film is used in one case and memory cards capacity is extended in another.
The movement you are seeing in your HDV footage of the grass ‘dancing’ is probably a failure of the Mpeg2 codec in recording – try blurring that section of the picture – that’s about all you can do with it.
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[TerryAdrian] “Would I be thinking correctly that shooting progressive vs interlaced should get rid of flickering and interlacing issues?”
24p is still scanned 60 times a second on a crt TV. Flickering is not an issue. Did you mean twittering? -
[Phil Summers] “So is there any disadvantage to shooting pN? Why would anyone shoot 720p when 720pN is so much more effective and economic with card space?”
To accommodate their NLE.
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I am assuming that because you get more shoot time on the cards with 720pN it is more compressed or lower in quality?
Same quality – just less frames actually recorded. i.e. no pull down.
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The little pissant serifs on many fonts tend to flicker – so most of the titling you see is non-serif with enough stroke width as to not cause flickering – particularly horizontal strokes. Those are technical considerations – but, beyond that, it’s art and feel to match the content of the production. i.e. a comedy demands one font, a docu, another. Whatever you choose, be brave and, for God’s sake (and your cast)…readable.