Telecine speed

Maurizio Zappettini · July 2, 2007

Hello,

I've just shoot a lot of new footage with my 1014XL-S for a music video I've half shoot in Super8 and half in 16mm.

I went to a lab in London for a scene by scene color correction telecine where everything apparently went well but when I reviewed the beta in my studio the footage was running slightly faster than the natural speed.

Well I give you more details: I shoot at 24 fps and I ask it to be transferred at 24fps with a pulldown to 25fps. The operator asked me also if I wanted to just speed it up at 25fps to avoid the pulldown. We tried 25fps but the speeded up footage was very annoying so we opted for the 24fps with the pulldown to 25fps. Apparently the speed was right but than when I analysed the video with no rush I noticed it was still too fast... I called the lab and they gave me an appointment to transfer it again on Wed. We discussed on the phone to try to set the machine to many different frame rate until we'll find the most natural speed of the movement. But they told me the pulldown could make my video less smooth...

According with them probably the wrong speed was due to my camera that runs at 23fps instead of 24fps.

So what I was wondering is: do you think that setting the machine at 23fps (and so the pulldown will duplicate a field sometimes) will give me a smooth footage anyway? I think it is better to slowdown the footage with the pulldown of an ursa diamond than with the stretching speed tool of final cut pro... right?

Did anyone have the same problem? Any suggestion?

Note: I tried to slowdown the already transferred footage with fcp of a 4% (1 fps) and speed seems much better and more natural but I don't want to stretch the entire footage with a software because I'll miss the quality and smoothness...

Thank you,

Maurizio

Douglas Hunter · July 2, 2007

Maurizio,

First off all, I don't buy the idea that a one frame per second difference in film speed was making a noticable difference in how the footage looked. Realize that you are talking about a difference of about one 4/100th of a second per second difference which is difficult for the human brain to percieve without a specific refrence to compare it to. Unless of course you were looking at sync, in which case many people can see a one frame difference because the dialogue provides a specific refrence. If the difference is noticable and big I'd guess that you were seening several frames per second difference say 3 - 4 frames per second or more.

As for your camera its unlikely that your camera runs true to speed. Super 8 cameras rarely do, but they also do not run at a constant speed. They speed up and or slow down. that is the nature of the beast. If you've had your camera serviced, cleaned and the frame rate re-calibrated then you are going to be as close to 24 as you can get.

As for your actual question, I think you need to make sure that frame rate is actually the issue. If it is and the difference is really 1-2 frames per second then you should expirement, see which method is nost pleasing to you. It needs to be based on your prefence because you are detecting a problem that most folks will never be aware of.