spooky moves

[Olivier Egli]

so here it comes:

 

A while ago I saw some footage of a music video that had a really stylish and nicely unsmoothy jittery motion to it. It was kinda jumpy and yet fluid at a time. it seemed a bit sped up and the motion was very sudden. Almost like stopmotion. Or kinda like it was recorded at 12 frames and then sped up and every 6th frame or so removed.

How can I emulate this look with my 16M? The goal is to get this really spooky and ghostlike motion. also the lights of the footage seemed to be vibrating as the actors moved along...

Does it have something to do with the shutter angle being closed down very far? Do I get this look by closing down the shutter (not on my 16M of course) and recording at slow motion and then speeding it up in post?

 

any help is appreciated

 

Olivier

[stijnbarbe]

If you could remember what music video it was....

 

I'm not that experienced, but I think I know pretty much how to achieve this king of look.

 

-small shutter and a moving camera will give you a jittery image. look at the beach scenes of Saving Private Ryan by Janusz Kaminski. at 90° the image starts to become 'staccato', a strobe-like effect.

 

-putting shutter and film transport out of sync gives you a really cool effect. because the shutter doesn't close off the gate entirely at transport, especially the highlights euhm "drip", they become teer-like streaks. can't think of an axample right now, sorry. also it has to be possible with your cam, the A-minima does it fairly easy I've heard.

 

-I've also heard of "the mesmerizer", but someone else has to give you the details on that, cuz all I know is that its a moving piece of glass in front of your lens.

apparently this optical efect goes quite well in combination with the previous trick.

 

hope to of have helped,

 

stijn

[Michael Nash]

It sounds like the music video may have simply been shot undercranked, at perhaps 12fps. With the right movement from the actors, it can produce an unnerving effect. If the actors slow their movement to half speed, events take place in real time but motion appears more abrupt and odd. The shot could have been in conjunction with a narrow shutter angle, but usually undercranked footage lookes pretty "jittery" to begin with.

 

Putting the shutter out of phase with the film movement makes highlights streak vertically (as also seen in "Saving Private Ryan"), but it doesn't affect motion otherwise.

 

The Mesmeriser lens is simply an anamorphic lens diopter that mounts to the front of a standard lens. It stretches the image in whatever direction the diopter is oriented. It also has a motor that attaches to a Microforce controller so you can make it re-orient or spin at any rate during the shot. Most often you see the element rotated very slowly to produce a warping effect that suggests being drugged, for instance.

[Olivier Egli]

thanks guys

 

so I think I will be going for the 12fps and half speed acting thing.

then speed it up and see what the footage looks like. Will shoot some tests in the next few

weeks and tell you about that.

Maybe it is really as simple as that...

Unfortunately I cannot mess with my shutter angle in the 16M.

I dont really want to have to rely on renting an expensive modified sr2 for this one shoot...

[Steven Tyler Slovacek]

Hey,

I believe the video you're thinking of is "There There" by Radiohead. It was made by "The Bolex Brothers". I know nothing about how it was made, but am curious as hell. They have a website at www.bolexbrothers.co.uk". They've done some commercials that have employed simple stop motion effects, so I think this music video composits that with live action somehow, but it looks really great. If anybody has insight, I'd love to hear.

 

-Steven

[Olivier Egli]

no, I did not mean that video. I knew that this was done with stop motion.

I am talking about some spooky music video from the mid 90ies. And some Marilyn Manson.

I remember a shot of a young girl with a pale face walking through a room and extiting through a door, and her motion was just as the one desribed. At time she seemed to be moving faster....

strange!

[Oliver Gläser]

There might be some other options that you might consider. If this is a Music Video then you may need to shoot in Crystal Speeds ( in the case of the song being sung on screen) whatever the case there are several options that you might consider.

 

1.) I think we have established that you don't have a Variable shutter on your Camera, however if you had one you could Shoot at a slower Frame Rate like 12 FPS, Adjust you shutter to compensate for the shutter speed and bring it back close to 1/48th of a second then step Print (Film route) or Digitally Slow down the stuff that you want to play back at 24FPS and let the rest run undercranked (12FPS transfered at 24FPS) this would give you an interesting look for the Slowed down stuff and very sharp looking undercranked footage. You could also try this with your 180 Degree shutter however note that you will get a very slow shutter speed causing much more motion blur that will be much more noticable in the "Normal" speed seeming stuff

 

2.) You could shoot at 24FPS or Faster and then Digitally speed up the selected stuff to have try and achieve that look.

 

3.) You could also try ramping the speed of the camera manually while shooting. If you are shooting negative, Underexpose by a stop then when you go down to 12 FPS you should have perfect exposure. If you have an assitant then you could pull the Iris however I have been told by several colourists that is is sometimes better to just let it go rather then trying to manually open up.

 

Hopefully I have been of some help to you.

 

Oliver Gläser

[JimMcGee]

Hi,

 

Nice effects can also be achieved by shooting at 6. 8, 12 fps etc and then transferring to tape at that rate so it the result is ghosting. For example, a person playing the piano would be real time and look normal but the hands would be blurring/ghosting up and down the keyboards. It can look really great. make sure you slate the take so the the telecinist knows what to transfer it at.

 

Jim

[Olivier Egli]

Hi Jim

 

This is, indeed, a nice effect, but not the one I am looking for.

In the examples I mentioned the image was really crisp and sharp. there was no blurring vivible.

the image even seemed sharper than at normal speed. So my guess still is that it has been shot at lower speed with the shutter compensating or maybe even overcompensating for the exposure addition. And the acting was probably slower as well, but not naturally slow to get that unnatural ghost effect. then it has been telecined at that lower speed and sped back up to 25fps (PAL) electronically. Maybe they even used some frame removal. like removing every 6th frame in flint or smoke....

 

but no shutter angle mod possible with my 16m... :(