fluidity of movement

[Samuel M.]

Hello all,

I direct a dance company, and we film all our performances. I have been interested in red cameras for a long time, and for our most recent performance, we finally rented a scarlet.
As a choreographer, I have a very specific taste in images. Specifically, I'm looking for a natural fluidity of movement, as opposed to a film look, which I perceive as more choppy.
I have been used to achieving the movement I want in this way :
- film with canon xh-a1 25 fps 50i 1440x1080
- ingest m2t and convert to cineform, edit in cineform, including sped up and slow motion clips
- output to wmv, 50fps, progressive, 1440x1080
This took a bit of experimenting, because many possibilities yield a badly deinterlaced look, a bit like 24fps film (movement is choppy).
This yields the most fluid movement.

At our recent performance we shot 4k 25fps with the scarlet. At 1/8th res, which is what my computer can handle, the movement appears ok in redcine and premiere pro.
But in the wmv export, the red footage stands out as really choppy. Even worse than deinterlaced footage, almost like interlaced with the fields in the wrong order.
Here's the current cut : https://dl.dropbox.com/u/32057558/desordres_trailer_v_03.wmv
You can compare the different kinds of footage. The red footage is with the guy in pyjamas.
Blending is on in adobe media encoder, and also on the individual red clips.

I would very much appreciate any help or ideas on how to fix this,

Thanks,

sam

 

[Zeb B]

Watch 'The Hobbit' in 48fps . . . your answer lies there

 

[Mike P.]

Samuel, I may be misunderstanding so bare that in mind, but RED footage isn't interlaced. So the 25fps in 50i-wrapper to 50p conversion won't work. Fortunately with a Scarlet you can shoot at 3k/48fps, 2k/60fps, or if resolution isn't important to you, at 1k/120fps. Unfortunately at this point you're kind of boned, since the footage was recorded at 25fps. Also bare in mind that anything over 60fps will invariably cause screen tearing on most TVs since, generally speaking, they have a refresh rate of 60Hz.

Again, what I think you're looking for is 48fps or 60fps on a 48 timeline or 60 timeline. If you use 48fps/60fps on a 25fps timeline, it'll be smooth, but in slow-motion.

 

[paulherrin]

if you really can't reshoot, your only option is something like twixtor to interpolate in-betweens to get 50 progressive. your 25/50i capture was being interpolated into 50p - however the red's only capture progressive frames - so what you choose is what you get. i'd recommend shooting at 48 (or 50, or 60)... good luck!

 

[Samuel M.]

Hi guys,

thanks for the replies.

@josh : I actually thought the movement in the hobbit looked wrong, sped up. I haven't found any explanation that seems right to me for that. 48fps played back at 48fps should look very much like natural movement, not like sped up movement.

@mike p : I'm not specifically telling premiere to treat the red footage as interlaced, so I don't see why it should. And output to wmv in 25fps or 50fps looks equally bad.
what I don't understand is why the movement looks better in RCX. I would settle for that quality of movement, but I assume there's something in my workflow that's degrading it.

@paulherrin : I'll look into twixtor, but why can't my workflow output something at least as fluid as what I see in RCX ? and isn't premiere already doing interpolating when I use "frame blend" ?

if you could check out the file, I'd appreciate it, it seems to me there might be an issue other than just the look of 25fps vs. 50i

thanks

sam