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How was this effect made?


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Hello everyone.

 

Some time ago I stumbled upon a Gucci video and one particular effect/ look grabbed my attention.

 

 

The video starts with a kind of "blurred" look. You can also see attached stills.

 

To me, it looks like when film jams a little bit, but this doesn't look like a fault. Maybe something was done in a camera.

At the same time, there's a part (second still or 1:44 - 1:46) where it looks more like a certain filter.

Looks close to a star filter, but still doesn't look the same.

 

Any ideas on how to achieve this?

 

Thank you!

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That’s a mistimed shutter on a film camera, an effect you see in “Saving Private Ryan”. The movement starts to advance to the next frame before the shutter has finished closing over the gate so a percentage of the exposure is streaked vertically.

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"I also used another technique that Doug Milsome [bSC] utilized on Full Metal Jacket [see AC Sept. 1987] where you throw the camera’s shutter out of sync to create a streaking effect from the top to the bottom of the frame. It’s a very interesting effect, but it’s also scary because there’s no way back [once you shoot with it]."


"Kaminski employed Panavision Platinum and Panastar cameras throughout the Private Ryan shoot, and had Samuelson Film Services in London prepare one unit with a purposely mistimed shutter in order to create the described streaking effect. Used in combination with a narrow shutter, however, the effect was negated as the shortened shutter interval fell within the moment that the film was in its stationary position. Due to this anomaly, however, the "streaking" camera could also be used for normal shooting provided that the shutter was set between 45 and 90 degrees."


Also found this post from 2006


"out of phase, I mean miss timing between shutter and movement, using on arri 435 or Panavision XL."


Do I understand correctly that this something that has to be done by a technician, so it's more about servicing and not about the certain camera?


Btw, most likely it's Arriflex 416 in the reference that I posted in the first message.

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"out of phase, I mean miss timing between shutter and movement, using on arri 435 or Panavision XL."

Do I understand correctly that this something that has to be done by a technician, so it's more about servicing and not about the certain camera?


Yes, a camera technician would have to purposely adjust the phase ( mis-time ) the shutter and pull down mechanism as this isn't normally desireable - and thus not accessible by the operator.


Whether or not it's adjustable ( without stripping down ) on certain cameras I don't know.


John S :)

Edited by John Salim
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For the last generation of Arri film cameras, its called the 'Timing Shift Box'.

 

Timing Shift Box (TSB)

The Timing Shift Box adjusts the phase relationship of the mirror shutter to the movement. The result is that the film is exposed while being trans-ported, which creates a streaking effect. A unique feature of the Timing Shift Box is the Jitter function. It introduces a random fluctuation in the timing shift, resulting in a fluctuation of the length of the streak.

Compatibility: This box attaches directly to the Studio camera or the Remote Control Station, and can be connected to the Studio or Lite camera with the MCB Cable Adapter and the Speed Control Box Remote Cable KC-65 (3m/9ft) or KC-69 (15m/45ft), with or without the 50m/150ft Cable Drum KC-73.

 

It also works on the Arri 435 Advanced and 435 Extreme.

 

 

 

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  • 1 year later...

Does anybody know if the TSB would work with a moviecam mk1?

The Arricam ST and LT were based off the moviecam so wouldnt surprise me if some AKS were compatible, but seems like the TSB only works with the 435.

Anybody know about this?

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The Timing Shift Box works with the Arricam Lite and Sudio as well.

Although the movement and basic design of Arricams is based off Moviecams, there are plenty of differences, including ground glasses, viewfinders, and electronics. The difference in the electronics, and accessory connectors,  means acccessories aren't compatible.

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  • 3 months later...
17 minutes ago, Miguel Angel said:

@Dom Jaeger

Dom (and anybody else) do you happen to know if this effect could be replicated in a digital camera with a physical shutter? 

Thanks! ? 

I would imagine not - as the streaks are caused by the film physically moving when the shutter is open. So a static chip can't do that regardless of what a physical shutter is doing. You could probably get some interesting banding if a physical chip was out of sync with a rolling shutter, but it would very different.

It's probably easier recreate in post anyway. Even on film it's quite risky in terms of what the result would look like.  Blur filters in After effects can be applied in a single axis quiet easily. 

 

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This is one of those things that's actually quite hard to duplicate digitally, on the same basis that lens flares are hard to really get right without a lot of manual intervention. If you look at Saving Private Ryan in detail, it's clear that the effect is most pronounced on the hottest part of the highlights, things that are often hidden in clipping. Better and better cameras are starting to mitigate that, of course, but nothing ever has the dynamic range of - well - reality.

The thing is, I'm not sure how you'd do this in an electronic camera, unless you happened to have a Viper, which has frame transfer CCDs and mistiming the shutter will therefore have an effect startlingly similar to this.

P

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2 hours ago, Miguel Angel said:

@Dom Jaeger

Dom (and anybody else) do you happen to know if this effect could be replicated in a digital camera with a physical shutter? 

Thanks! ? 

Hi Miguel,

others have already answered better than I could.. I think only a film camera could create this effect in-camera. 

But Phil Cs photoshop effort is pretty interesting, so maybe a post wiz could come up with something.

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1 hour ago, Phil Rhodes said:

This is one of those things that's actually quite hard to duplicate digitally, on the same basis that lens flares are hard to really get right without a lot of manual intervention. If you look at Saving Private Ryan in detail, it's clear that the effect is most pronounced on the hottest part of the highlights, things that are often hidden in clipping. Better and better cameras are starting to mitigate that, of course, but nothing ever has the dynamic range of - well - reality.

 

Still somebody with actual VFX chops could do a much better job, then I did in the test above. I was thinking some form of Luma key to allow a greater level of blur to be applied to the highlights - would probably get you closer to the look. This was a quick and rough demo, I just didn't have time to go down a photoshop rabbit hole today.

It's also quite and abstract look, so exactly nailing the look you get with film may not be needed. You could still replicate the general "feel" of the shot without the audience going "that looks digital". Its different to grain effects where people have more experience of "film" and may spot that "digital" looks wrong. In this case "not right" is very subjective. 

Considering the hoops you'd have to go through to achieve this on film and potentially end up with a result your not happy with, as you have no way to judge the strength of the effect until the footage is exposed. A post solution might make more sense. 

To be honest if you did it in camera with film 99% of lay people watching it would assume its' some form of digital post filter

 

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1 hour ago, David Mullen ASC said:

The thing is that the vertical blur with a mistimed shutter only starts at the bright object and moves upwards if the camera is running forward, the image isn't streaked in both directions above and below the object.

Good point, playing with the photoshop directional blur only goes part way to replicating the look. 

This AE demo has a similar issue, but I think the resulting look is quite usable:

 

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3 hours ago, David Mullen ASC said:

The thing is that the vertical blur with a mistimed shutter only starts at the bright object and moves upwards if the camera is running forward, the image isn't streaked in both directions above and below the object.

 

57 minutes ago, Phil Connolly said:

Good point, playing with the photoshop directional blur only goes part way to replicating the look. 

This AE demo has a similar issue, but I think the resulting look is quite usable:

After Effects has CC Vector Blur, which can be used to blur in one direction.  Using that youtube tutorial and replacing Directional with Vector blur would work great.  You have to do some tinkering with Vector blur though, set the type to Directional Fading, and set the vector map source as any plain solid, and you can control the direction with Angle Offset.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here's another good example of a mis-timed shutter ( shot on Panavision ).
It's a dream sequence for the track 'The Name of the Game' from the film 'ABBA The Movie'.

There's a lot of use of filters too. Original ratio 2.35:1 ( anamorphic ).

John S ?

 

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