shooting in a lower frame rate as 25fps

[Faraz Fesharaki]

I'm going to shoot a short film on 16 mm with an Arri SR3. We don't have so much money to buy ourselves enough film material. I am thinking about shooting on a lower frame rate like 18fps and print it later on postpro back to 25fps to save some material. The question is the look. Have you had any experience with that or do you know any film example or any test where they tried it? I would change the shutter angel to get the same expose as 1/50th of a second to get the same movement's feeling. the question is what exactly happens, what is the exact effect if I shoot 20fps, 18pfs or even 15pfs in 1/50th of a second and then print it back to 25fps?

[Jeff L'Heureux]

I wouldn't recommend it, as once you drop below 24fps it will stand out to the audience as being "different". With a normal shutter angle and a lower frame rate double printed back to a higher frame rate like 24fps you get something like the intro to Reservoir Dogs:

 

 

With changing the shutter and a low framerate you get something akin to the end of the first battle in Gladiator, at about 9:00 onward in this video:

 

 

Both very much stand out as an effect, and an entire project done on either would likely be very distracting if you have any kind of story to tell.

[Faraz Fesharaki]

Thank you Jeff for your answer. I know in fact that it would work different or odd but I'm trying to understand or find examples in what way does it look like different. It might fit the story! Thanks for these videos, they were both using this effect but in combination with this slow motion effect which makes it a little difficult to judge. I want to know how does it work when it's printed back to 25 or 24fps as "real time". do you know any example where they used this technique?

[Brian Drysdale]

You may find it on silent films that have been transfered to run giving the correct motion, rather the speeded look associated with films of that period.

[Doug Palmer]

If you stretch-printed on film to 25 fps to get it the normal speed, the footage will tend to look jerky. At least it would with fast movement. Because at about 17 fps say, every other frame is being printed twice. But if you are doing fairly static subjects it should look OK, although you may notice the grain structure more... so maybe use a finer grain film. I am not sure whether or not the movement would look smoother doing the stretching digitally.

[Doug Palmer]

Quite an interesting idea if corrected digitally in post. If the intended subjects are without much movement, and a jerky result doesn't happen when taken at say half normal speed, potentially there is a 50% cost saving as well as more light :rolleyes: ??

[Brian Drysdale]

Some phones etc use variable frame rates, the downside is you need to convert them to a constant frame rate for editing.