Shooting on the Red in PAL in the USA

[Josh Fritts]

This might be a fairly obvious question, but I just want some reassurance.

 

 

I have a possible shoot coming up that wants to shoot on the Red in PAL. I have never shot with the Red in this format and I am nervous on how my lighting (tungsten, kinos and HMIs) will be effected on the 60hz power system in california.

 

Will all 60hz lighting flicker while shooting at a 25fps time base at 25 frames?

 

Would it be better to shoot shoot everything at 24fps and have production transfer to 25fps (which I don't think they want to do)?

 

I would prefer to deliver in PAL just to keep production happy.

 

What do you guys suggest?

 

Thanks

 

Josh

[Stuart Brereton]

You will be fine with tungsten, and kinos have high frequency ballasts so they should be ok too. Your HMI's will flicker slightly at 25fps 180 degree shutter, so use a 150 degree shutter instead.

[Brian Drysdale]

A shutter speed of 1/60 should do the job.

[Thomas Worth]

For most intents and purposes, 24fps and 25fps (progressive) are completely interchangeable. I've shot in both formats for delivery in the other, and in all cases the result was fine. In fact, the only real difference between the two is audio. 24fps can be remapped to 25fps with a 1/1 relationship (which is standard practice), and after a 4% audio pitch/speed correction, the difference between the two is imperceptible. The timing change takes place all the way at the end of the post process, after the final sound mix. So, you'd perform all post at 23.98 or 24.00 (including final mix), and then do the pitch correction.

 

The only issue you may encounter is the timing of certain types of music. The pitch correction doesn't affect the sound quality, but if people are used to listening to a certain song at a certain tempo (like if they've heard the song a million times), the speed difference may be perceptible. The solution to this is to perform the sound mix with a sped up (or slowed down) version of the song, so when the pitch/speed correction is applied, the song is returned to its original tempo.