24p vs 25p debate

[Dominic Jones]

@ nageswara: Sorry - got you now. Yes, you can shoot 24p on a PAL region 370/500. No problem.

@Awi: Frankly, I'm very surprised you didn't see the difference between the 4k and 2k modes. My personal feeling is that - apart from extreme situations where you must have a shot above 60fps and cannot afford a specialist camera - 2k mode should be avoided for anything above 720p delivery (and I have never been asked to shoot anything for less than 1080p on a Red, personally, so I tend to avoid it for all productions where possible).

My advice would be not to shoot below 3k for a 2k finish, and to stick to as high a resolution as you can (in capture) at all times. Of course, you will quite possibly want to post the whole film at 2k (or rather, your producer might!), but you will get a far superior 2k image from a 4k master in my experience.

Have you tried looking at the footage at full resolution on a theatrical sized screen? Perhaps the size and/or resolution of the grading monitors you were watching was minimising the difference - as I mentioned, it is quite obvious to me (and I believe most people) in most cases, so it seems strange that you did not see a marked difference... I think it's most likely you weren't seeing one or both of the images in full detail, or that some other factor was clouding your appraisal of the images.

Hope that helps,
Dom.

 

[Joe G.]

Are most European feature films shot at 25P instead of 24? Is that helping give them a slightly different look than American films?

Are there implications for shooting 25p here in the US, and would it be feasible to do so?

 

[Uli Plank]

No, all European films for cinema are shot 24 fps. It's a truly world-wide standard. They are shown at 25 fps on TV, though, just accelerated by 4%. No pull-down, which looks better with fast movement, IMHO.

You would hardly notice a difference between 24 and 25 fps, but "Titanic" was 8 minutes shorter on TV…

 

[Tamas Harangi]

No, all European films for cinema are shot 24 fps.

I'm not sure if this is actually correct. I keep seeing behind the scenes footage / deleted scenes with window burns etc. form European movies where the camera (35mm) is clearly set to 25 fps. As everyone pointed out, the differences are small and easily corrected, but they do shoot 25 fps on some theatrical features in Europe.

 

[nageswara rao s]

thank you Mr Dominic Jones.

 

[Nick Shaw]

I'm not sure if this is actually correct. I keep seeing behind the scenes footage / deleted scenes with window burns etc. form European movies where the camera (35mm) is clearly set to 25 fps. As everyone pointed out, the differences are small and easily corrected, but they do shoot 25 fps on some theatrical features in Europe.

A few films have been shot at 25 fps it's true, but the norm for a film destined for the cinema is definitely 24 fps. Often footage shot at 24 fps is telecinéd at 25 fps so offline editorial can be done in PAL, which means window burns may show 25 fps time-code.