Filming Camera Flashes in Slow Motion

[Taylor Gill]

I'm prepping for an upcoming fashion commercial shoot and we'll be filming in both 60fps and 120fps on a Red ONE. The scene involves a lot of "paparazzi flashes." I've been reading through past posts about rolling shutter issues (some of which I'm expecting to hide half-frames in post), but I wanted to see if anyone's done this in slow motion? With a regular 1/120 or 1/240 camera shutter, I'm expecting significant problems.

Any recommendations on what shutter/lighting combo to use to avoid headache when filming slow-motion?

Thank you in advance!

 

[Michael Lindsay]

Done this a few times.. Dealt with it different ways.

Use flashes (older quantams worked) at full power but ND'd and they have a long tail... If you cycle too fast this doesn't work.

Fix in post..

Embrace the look..

I believe you can avoid split shutter completely with the motion mount...

 

[Taylor Gill]

Michael,
Thanks so much for your insight. Yeah, I full expect to do additional work in post, but since it's a "sexy sleek" perfume ad, I'd like to accomplish the prettiest look in camera as well, specifically with the flash fading up and down. I'll look into renting the quantum packs. Wish the Motion Mount was an option for this shoot (shooting on ONE, plus budget restrictions), but it's great to know it exists! I wasn't aware of it.

Thank you.

 

[Michael Lindsay]

Would you like to see a spot where I just accepted it...

PS the other way to deal with it is to ND the flashes right down, control contrast in the scene and underexpose 2 stops, the flashes don't Kill all the detail THEN with a little mask in post you can unsplit the shutter.?

M

 

[JeanChristophe Dupasquier]

Last week I did film exactly that (fashion film with paparazzi flashes), minus the slow motion. We wanted to but the rented Motion Mount (EF) didn't work on the EPIC Dragon we had. So I used it on my Scarlet-X and it worked fine! Some strobes did create split frames tho, so be aware that the MM isn't a 100% global shutter.

Just read through the manual, there are some restrictions regarding shutter angle and frame rates you can do. And you lose 1.6 stop of light. Besides that it's a amazing piece of tech!:
https://www.red.com/downloads/5232b2222f74a90e200001a8

For your situation (filming with a R1) I'm not sure what's the best solution. Maybe fake it, use flashlights (quick on/off) instead of actual flashes? Or find some flashes with long flash durations. Best way would be to sync the flashes with the camera, but I don't thinks that's possible with the R1 (never used it). Either way I would test everything out including the postproduction part. Let us know how it went

 

[Nick Burridge]

We did this super quick/dirty/cheap a while back... just some 2K blondes tied to a dimmer panel, then flashing on/off, exposure and glow pushed a bit in post (video).
Could have gotten more out of it with bigger lights to flash (was originally going to use maxibrutes/blinders but $ was tight) or by lowering the base exposure as others here have said.
Sounds like you're after something a bit more upmarket/stylised, just saying it's possible to do this on the cheap!

 

[Mark Andersen]

A big LED like the AAdyne Eco punch will flash on an off pretty rapidly but not so fast that you will get 1/2 frames, probably will get bleeding into the a joining frames (but that look might be desirable) and its total controllable with a dimmer. the other option is to post flash (dramatically over expose) frames but that may not look exactly right due to the "quality of light" or the light not changing to indicate a new source. my 2 cents.