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NEED HELP IDENTIFYING TECHNIQUE


Tim Singlestar

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Here’s a scene from one of my favorite movies, Slumdog millionaire. At 21 seconds we see a film technique that’s been driving me nuts. What is happening here? How did they accomplish this look? Is it frame rate? Is it slow mo? Is it a sort of hyperlapse? How are they doing this. I’ve seen this technique before. Usually dreamy like this, sometimes it’s used in flashback or memory scenes. I must know how to do this. Can anyone help? 

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When you make a 24 fps shot into slow-motion in post, you get that steppy / stuttery quality from the lack of frames to create smooth slow-motion.

The effect gets stronger the more you slow down the footage by repeating frames.

But you can also get that effect by shooting at a lower-than-24fps frame rate and then slowing it down (repeating frames) to get back to normal speed. You get that steppy / stuttery look from the lack of frames needed to create smooth motion. You can call it a lack of temporal resolution.

You can use a shorter shutter angle too to increase the stutter.

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That's actually not always two, sometimes it's three, but you can choose your frame rate to taste. No idea how they ended up with that result.

It looks like real time to me so I'd propose that it was shot at (say) twelve then step printed back to 24.

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I shot this clip at 24fps and 1/100 shutter speed. I don’t yet technically know how to double my frames in Premiere Pro, but I’ll learn tonight. In the mean time. Your guys’ advice led me to a deeper understanding of shutter angle and for that I thank you. “Once you know the rules, you can break them.”

 

- I’ll add one more video to this as I refine the look. Thanks so much guys. I’m glad to be a part of this community already. 

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This is a fairly easy query to look up - there were short sequences shot as stills with the Canon 1D Mark III, which has a burst mode capable of 10fps.  The different gamma from the 24fps footage is also a minor tell.  https://shotonwhat.com/cameras/canon-eos-1d-mark-iii-camera

This article gets the frame rate slightly wrong:  https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-mumbai/slumdog-crew-took-to-the-streets-of-mumbai-idUKTRE49T37T20081030

Quote

Even with approval, the production was keen on keeping intrusion to a minimum and used multiple cameras to make that happen. Because walking around with a photographic camera was more accepted than a movie camera, Dod Mantle sometimes used a Canon Cam -- a high-res stills camera that can shoot up to 12 frames a second -- for scenes that required a heightened sensibility.

 

Edited by Daniel Klockenkemper
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Do the math... 5 fps / 180 = 1/10th. 5 fps / 90 = 1/20th. 5 fps / 45 = 1/40th.

So the blur would be determined by the 1/40th of a second shutter time, not too far from the amount of blur at 24 fps / 180 = 1/48th.

However, the number of motion samples per second would be only 5 instead of 24, so a lot of steppiness, just less streaky steppiness at 45 degrees instead of 180 degrees.

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15 hours ago, David Mullen ASC said:

Do the math... 5 fps / 180 = 1/10th. 5 fps / 90 = 1/20th. 5 fps / 45 = 1/40th.

So the blur would be determined by the 1/40th of a second shutter time, not too far from the amount of blur at 24 fps / 180 = 1/48th.

However, the number of motion samples per second would be only 5 instead of 24, so a lot of steppiness, just less streaky steppiness at 45 degrees instead of 180 degrees.

Understood. Thanks for that. I'm considering what's the least motion blur, at the slowest frame rate possible. So with the math in mind, 8 fps / 45 = 1/64th looks to be where I need to be. Experimenting. 

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But that look in the Slumdog clip relies on a distinctive blur to some extent.  But if you want a different effect of steppy, staccato, choppy motion but with less streaking, sure, use a shorter shutter angle to compensate.  Things might start to look more pixelated, i.e. like stop motion.

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