slow motion effect..

[Zakaree Sandberg]

I didnt want to put this in the 300 thread because its more of a tech question..
I havent seen the movie yet.. but i have seen the making of and previews and i have noticed alot of matrixy slow motion style shots.. where its full motion then BOOM slow motion.. THEN suck back out to full motion..
The slow motion looks really good.. i am assuming they did not speed the camera up.. or did they? is there some sort of automation to speed up the camera then slow back down? and can we do this with red?

[Chris Kenny]

I'd guess they shot those sequences at high frame rates and did ramping in post. Some was probably shot at frame rates higher than Red supports.

[Zakaree Sandberg]

even at 2k?

[Zakaree Sandberg]

i guess an option for red for this effect would be to shoot normal speed.. then in post add frames to the section you want slowed... i wonder if this works..

[James T Mather]

Twixtor. After effects also has a new speed ramper which, I think, uses morphing technology.

[Bruce Allen]

AE is based on the Foundry time-remapper. Shake has an optical-flow-based remapper too, as does Avid. Maybe even FCP now?

Both the AE remapper and Twixtor are great but cannot work miracles.

If you're trying to time-remap someone running over a textured background with strobes firing at them, good luck! If you're tying to time-remap people shot against greenscreen all wearing black (think Matrix), then you have a fighting chance.

I've worked on stuff shot with the Vision high speed cameras - true slow mo is much better. There is no comparison. Red at 120fps should be very good too. Just remember you need a ton of lights ;)

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Jeff Kilgroe]

FCP still frame blends, so it's really no good for this. Shake's optical flow system is pretty good though. A lot of shots in 300 definitely had ramping done with the camera. We have been told that RED will have ramping, or at least it's been hinted at. About a month ago, I was trying to get clarification on that, but none of the RED team would come out with a specific yes/no answer which to me means that they're still working on it. But ramping is good... I've rented a Varicam on a few occasions just for the variable rates and ramping. RED has all the variable rates, no reason it can't do ramps. ...It should.

For shots like in 300, I think you'll find that some such effects will take a combination of camera ramping and post processing.

[Thom Steinhoff]

Never done ramping, but looking forward to playing with it--I really hope it made it into this first release.

Question: when shooting "in-camera" ramping, your shutter speed is limited to the top end, fastest end, of your ramp, so your aperature is set for that, and that's what you light for and the camera needs to shoot a continuous shutter speed, and continuous aperature just adjust the Frames per second?

Did I get this right? So in film, the shutter and aperature would be constant, the variable part is just how fast the film is advanced.

Did I get this right?

[brake]

Wouldn't you just be better off constantly shooting the highest FPS for any scene you want to ramp? Then you can ramp anywhere you want in post rather than trying to get it in camera.

[Martin Drew]

You maintain the same shutter angle so the effective shutter speed will vary with the frame rate. that will give the appropriate frame blurring. The aperture therefore has to vary in sync with the frame rate to maintain the correct exposure.

M

[Thom Steinhoff]

You maintain the same shutter angle so the effective shutter speed will vary with the frame rate. that will give the appropriate frame blurring. The aperture therefore has to vary in sync with the frame rate to maintain the correct exposure.

M

Thanks, Martin, for the education--That's very helpful. So you actually pull the aperature by hand as you are ramping?

[Ace]

Funny you mention the matrix, the same Sydney company did the visual effects for 300 also did the parts of the matrix (Animal Logic).

Anyhow, for the best retiming, the best option really is a morph based retiming tool (similar to what they used on the matrix), Ive used Realviz Retimer with amazing results. Some shots dont lend themselves to good morph retiming but other shots work amazingly well.

www.realviz.com (http://www.realviz.com)

Edit: I just realised you were talking about frame ramping... moving along!

[Finner]

99% of ramping like this is done in post these days. Just over crank the camera at what ever the top speed is for the entire take. This gives you the option of any slow mo speed up to the max fps you shot at with the ability to choose any kind of in and out points with no shutter or iris issues.

[Martin Drew]

Thanks, Martin, for the education--That's very helpful. So you actually pull the aperature by hand as you are ramping?

If you are doing it in camera you need to use an iris controller. It is easier and cheaper to do it in camera than in post but less controllable and the sort of crash ramping effect popular now can't really be achieved in a film camera because film cameras can't change their speed fast enough. Interesting to see what will be achievable with RedOne though.

M

[Tom Lowe]

99% of ramping like this is done in post these days. Just over crank the camera at what ever the top speed is for the entire take. This gives you the option of any slow mo speed up to the max fps you shot at with the ability to choose any kind of in and out points with no shutter or iris issues.

This makes the most sense to me.

[Corrado Silveri]

Completely agree.
Shake and Furnace make great jobs...

[M Olsen]

Never done ramping, but looking forward to playing with it--I really hope it made it into this first release.

Question: when shooting "in-camera" ramping, your shutter speed is limited to the top end, fastest end, of your ramp, so your aperature is set for that, and that's what you light for and the camera needs to shoot a continuous shutter speed, and continuous aperature just adjust the Frames per second?

Did I get this right? So in film, the shutter and aperature would be constant, the variable part is just how fast the film is advanced.

Did I get this right?

Ramping on say an ARRI 435 is about setting the parameters on the RCU unit and then when you execute the ramp the shutter angle varies to control the exposure.