SAVING PRIVATE RYAN Effect

[Julio Quintana]

This may have been asked before, but I couldn't find it. I'm wondering how to achieve the slow smear look of the beach scene in Saving Private Ryan. I know the whole thing was shot with 90 and even 45 degree shutter, but I'm talking about the parts where everything slows down in Tom Hanks' mind and all of the motion smears. They did something similar at the end of the opening battle scene in Gladiator.

Any ideas?

 

[James T Mather]

Step printing - shoot at 6fps (or so) and stretch it out on the timeline back to realtime 24 fps (or slower if desired) - this will give you that smeary look. Add echoey distant sound effects for maximum "dreamovision" effect.

 

[Julio Quintana]

James,
I assume you also have to use a very slow shutter speed?

 

[James T Mather]

The 6fps should take care of that as it should drop the shutter rate anyway. (without testing on the red I cannot be sure exactly (I am thinking of a film camera) - but the shutter should be somewhere around a 12th of a second or so (best guess).

The general rule of thumb is to divide the rate by the amount you want to play back at -

thus:

6fps - 24fps = 4 x slower - drop the shutter a corresponding amount = 1/12sec. (I'm assuming that keeping it at 180 deg shutter should automatically adjust the temporal amount as it does with film) but test this to be sure.

You could also shoot 3fps and stretch it 8x out on the edit timeline to 24fps for an even more streaky effect.

Or shoot 6fps and stretch it out 8x on the timeline for a streaky 48fps (as in slo-mo temporal effect with streaks)

 

[Julio Quintana]

Great. Thanks James. I'll give it a try.

 

[Martin Weiss]

This is also an (usually unwanted) effect when the coordination of shutter open/closed inside the film camera is off. That way some exposure reaches the film as it is being moved.

 

[Madsen]

jtm- wont 6 fps played back on 24 fps timeline give you a sped up motion effect? 6 fps played back on a 6 fps timeline will give you the desired effect...I think.

 

[Julio Quintana]

Madsen, I think he means to slow down the 6fps clip to 25% speed so it will repeat frames and end up being actually 24fps.

 

[Craig Ryan]

Just to clarify, this is the SHELL SHOCK effect right? Shooting 6fps and playing it back at 24 def would be fast motion, but the point is to slow it down..so almost like under cracking for simulated over cranking, thus the smear effect of the interpolated frames.

 

[Sarah C.]

I can't wait to see some experiments here!

~S

 

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

What would be smearing?

Sorry but I couldn't understand.

Can you guys point me to a specific part of the movie that this happens?

 

[Priyesh P.]

What Don ist talking about sounds more like the effect that appears when the mirrorshutter and filmmovement are off-sync. The film is moved as the shutter is open which causes the highlights to streak. You can sometimes see this at the run-up frames from an Arri 435, Arricam LT/ST because they have separate motors for mirrorshutter and movement which need a few frames to syncronize.

 

[Dominic Jones]

Kalone is exactly right. For SPR they modified the camera's shutter phase to partially expose the film during it's motion cycle, creating the streaked highlight effect you're talking about. It's still shot at 24fps (to my knowledge), but also with a very tight shutter angle to give the "strobing" effect that accompanies the smear.

The shutter angle effect you can replicate with Red, but no digital system can give you the smear effect in-camera, as the sensor is never in motion - I'm sure there is some way you could replicate this in post, however...

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Multi-printing...

Multi-printing...

I can't wait to see some experiments here!

~S

You can also shoot 24fps or 48fps and print 4:1 or 8:1 with offsets for each "pass".

In other words you shoot 24fps and end up with 24fps, but each frame is made of 4 frames, or you shoot 48fps and end up with 24fps but each frame is made up of 8 frames.

I think you could do this in my FUSE command if you renumber copies of the frames, like


output frame 1 = (1+2+3+4)/4
output frame 2 = (2+3+4+5)/4
output frame 3 = (3+4+5+6)/4

and so on.

That way if you do not like the effect you can not use it and still have footage you can keep. You can also change the overlap for 2 frames or 3 frames or 24 frames to make more or less weave blur.

For vertical streak you could crop and shift the images before you fuse them, with the same frame or adjacent frames, would work better if you shoot at 120fps or so and fuse down to 24fps since you have more "echo" images...

If you animate the crop and shifts, you can get the "bump on the head" effect sometimes done in a optical printer where the multi-printing makes the images weave and come together and away...

 

[Fredrik Callinggard]

Kalone is exactly right. For SPR they modified the camera's shutter phase to partially expose the film during it's motion cycle, creating the streaked highlight effect you're talking about.

Are we talking streaking here? I'm not sure because I can't remember any "smear" effect. If it is the highlights streaking vertically in frame it's very simple. That is shot with the shutter angle completely open - 360 degrees. As the film run thru (it runs vertically in a film camera) the highlights "streak". That could be shot in 24fps.

That would be difficult to achieve in camera with RED since there's nothing actually running thru and therefor creating an actual motion to make that happen. It can be done in post though.

PS Done it millions of times. In the 435 there's a 6th mode, an engineering mode where you can set it. Later there came options where you could actually ramp the shutter.

 

[James T Mather]

I was under the impression that the effect being sought was the "faux" slo mo effect when Tom Hanks is suffering from "battle hypnosis" at the shoreline - the POV of the man hunting his arm on the ground etc. This effect is caused by shooting a slow frame rate (ie: 6fps/3fps) and stretch printing it back to 24fps -


....the other effects that SPR is known for are:

1. Vertical Highlight streak - caused my mistiming the shutter which drags highlights vertically. - currently unavailable in-camera digitally but certainly realizable as a post effect with some simple keying/splining or some plugins.

2. Skinny shutter which "freezes" every frames motion blur by closing the film cam shutter down to 90/45/22/11.5 degrees to varying effects. Note the visual quality of the sand in the beach explosions or the "hyperreal" quality to some of the combat stuff. Essentially its just the motion picture equivalent of a fast shutter (like sports photography of, for example, a Moto Cross bike frozen sharp in mid air). Can be done on digital cameras by reducing shutter angle or reducing shutter temporally. This is an "in camera" effect only as post-reducing blur on shot footage is difficult.

...and in response to a previous post - yes, the aim of the game is to time stretch the 6fps footage back to 4x its length whereby avid/fcp/premiere will print every frame 4 times (like lab stretch printing) and give the staccato effect. (or 3fps x 8 times its length - Divide 24 by the frame rate you shot to get the multiplication factor and make sure its a whole number to get realtime effects - if you want the footage slo mo - divide 48/the fps you shot and make sure it's a whole number - dilute to taste). Keep your timeline 24fps (for those in 24 fps land)

best.

James

 

[Priyesh P.]

This is from ASC about how the streaking effect was exactely made:

"I also used another technique that Doug Milsome [BSC] utilized on Full Metal Jacket [see AC Sept. 1987] where you throw the camera’s shutter out of sync to create a streaking effect from the top to the bottom of the frame. It’s a very interesting effect, but it’s also scary because there’s no way back [once you shoot with it]. It looked great when there were highlights on the soldier’s helmets or epaulets because they streaked just a little bit. The amount of streaking depended on the lighting contrast. If it was really sunny, for instance, the streaking became too much. However, if it was overcast with some little highlights, it looked really beautiful. The streaking also looks fantastic with fire, and that’s what Milsome primarily used it for in Full Metal Jacket."

Kaminski employed Panavision Platinum and Panastar cameras throughout the Private Ryan shoot, and had Samuelson Film Services in London prepare one unit with a purposely mistimed shutter in order to create the described streaking effect. Used in combination with a narrow shutter, however, the effect was negated as the shortened shutter interval fell within the moment that the film was in its stationary position. Due to this anomaly, however, the "streaking" camera could also be used for normal shooting provided that the shutter was set between 45 and 90 degrees."

 

[James T Mather]

Having rechecked the opening post I don't think the streak effect is the one being queried though - more the slo mo thing.

I agree with the above post however - I shot a commercial with fluorescents at night and they went bananas when the streak shutter hit them - try to contain the effect in a reduced contrast range (if something is several stops over it will drown the frame in streak). The other problem is carrying two cameras as well - one with the shutter and one without - producers love that.

As regards the system - there are 2 versions Panavision offer as I recall - both are a little hit and miss - one type offers a simple on/off system (you either get the effect or not) and the other allows it to gradually streak in frame - but it is highly unpredictable and should be tested.

We set it up using an old fashioned fps control box to dial it in - but it comes up in a very jerky fashion no matter how smooth you dial so getting one smooth is pretty difficult/hit-and-miss and, on film, guesswork as to how it went. Unless you like the handcranked feel - in which case, knock yourself out.

Bottom Line? - do a few takes and certainly test it before using.

 

[David Mutchler]

I'll give this a try.

 

[Steve Gal]

you could do the streak effect with a mistimed shutter or with the shutter at 360 degrees (removed) but then you cannot see what you are shooting.