Frame Decimation?

kosstheory wrote on 7/25/2003, 7:03 AM
I've convinced the sales staff of a national T.V. station that my equipment, including Vegas Video, is sufficient for shooting broadcast quality commercials, no small feat, trust me...

At any rate...There is a spot I have to produce, but I'm not certain how to achieve the effect I'm looking for.

Do any of you know how to make footage look like the action sequences in "Any given sunday" or "28 Days Later"?

It looks like there are frames missing from the footage or something. It gives the effect of intensifying the action. However, the playback speed of the footage is not faster. Somehow they are able to maintain playback rate while apparently getting rid of frames...

It's difficult to describe, but I'm sure most of you have seen what I'm talking about...

Any suggestions?

Comments

kameronj wrote on 7/25/2003, 7:08 AM
well...I've seen "28 Days", but I don't recall what you mean.

Which part/parts are you talking about? I'll rewatch and see if I can come up with a gooder answer.
kosstheory wrote on 7/25/2003, 7:16 AM
the parts where the zombies movements seem really intense...Like when the zombie is chained up and trying to reach out for the captain...

Have you seen "Any given Sunday"?

THe same treatment was used when showing the action on the field.
roger_74 wrote on 7/25/2003, 7:19 AM
The effect is not decimated frames. What you're seeing is a complete lack of motion blur. It's made with short exposure.

For a quick way to try it, see if your camera has a Sports setting.
kosstheory wrote on 7/25/2003, 7:29 AM
you mean adjusting the shutter?

My camera can either do auto shutter or you can adjust it...

What should the shutter be set at to achieve the effect?
cyanide wrote on 7/25/2003, 7:32 AM
Split your video, and insert velocity envelopes in each segement. Set to 10-10%. Gives a stop action, choppy look....take a look at a little video I made at
http://www.crimsonbutterfly.com/video/picnic.wmv
cyanide wrote on 7/25/2003, 7:32 AM
Sorry, I meant 10-30%
kosstheory wrote on 7/25/2003, 8:23 AM
That was pretty funny. However, that's not really the look that I need.

The shutter settings seem promising. does anyone have any input on this subject?

I seem to remember reading that somewhere...The problem is that I don't remember which settings were right for the look I'd like to achieve.

Hmm...Here is a good example... If you have a CRT monitor, not a LCD or plasma...Try waving your hand in front of your face, in front of the screen, about six-10 inches from your face...You can see multiple images of your fingers, presumably due to the refresh rate of the screen. This is the effect I'm looking for. It makes the action seem more intense than it actually is, without actually altering the playback rate of the video...

Hmmm...

Did I just answer my own question?

Does this mean I should use a lower shutter speed to get the effect I want?
kosstheory wrote on 7/25/2003, 8:25 AM
Just tried experimenting with different refresh rates, and the effect seems to be more intense with lower refresh rates...
johnmeyer wrote on 7/25/2003, 11:02 AM
I just tried this approach, and I think it may give you what you want.

Put some sample video on the timeline. Right click on it and choose Properties. Select Force Resample and then set the Playback rate to a number larger than 1. I recommend starting with 2.000. Click on OK.

Grab the right edge of the event and make the event exactly twice as long as it was (you will see a little white diamond at the top edge of the event when you reach the right point). (If you choose 3.000 for the playback rate, then make it 3x longer). Then, double-click on the event so that it becomes the loop region. Render this loop region to another file. Once the rendering is complete, put this new file on the timeline.

Now, repeat the above procedure, but this time enter a Playback Rate that is the reciprical of the first number. In this case that would be 1/2 or 0.5. Shrink the clip to 1/2 its original size (which gets you back to the original play time). (If you chose a playback rate of 3x in the first step, then you need to shrink the clip to 1/3 its size). Render this clip and see if the result is what you were looking for.

As you can see, this approach will decimate the frames, but keep the playback at the same speed. If the audio is important, use the audio from the original clip because the audio gets beat up when it goes through this process. You can experiment with track motion blur and with resample turned on or off to see if you can get closer to the effect you want. You could also try doing several of these clips at different frame rates and then stacking them above each other using different levels of transparency.

Hope this helps!
wcoxe1 wrote on 7/25/2003, 11:36 AM
Johnmeyer:

What a cool effect. Thanks for the details. It may not be what the original poster was looking for, but I can use it.
starixiom wrote on 7/25/2003, 1:19 PM
-Kosstheory

Is the effect you are looking for similar to that of "Saving Private Ryan?" The action sequence at the beginning as they are storming the beach. If so run a search on this board and you will find the info you are looking for.
ZippyGaloo wrote on 7/25/2003, 1:30 PM
It's actually acheived by decreasing the shutter angle on a motion picture camera. Most motion picture cameras utilize a 180 degree shutter or 172.8 degree shutter at 24 fps (the shutter is actually a spinning mirror). Some cameras can go down to 1 degree, if that is ever desired. The effect in Saving Private Ryan was done this way. Not sure of the exact shutter angle used, but obviously tighter than 172.8.
filmy wrote on 7/26/2003, 12:29 AM
I have not seen 28 Days Later and I saw Any Given Sunday a while ago...but I think I know what you are saying...if it is the same effect seen in the promo for 28 Days Later.

You could try mixing up the frames and/or jumping the frames. Sort of 1,2,3,4,5,6 becomes 1,3,2,4,6,5. Another effect that I think is being tossed around here is...and this is a film thing...you shoot at maybe 3 FPS and you actually go into telecine where they have vari speed and you do the transfer at 3 fps, but obviously you would still see it at 30 on video but you get a super fast look with lots of blur. For video, and VV in specific - if you have the Spice Master plug-in you can try either the "Pixelan Step Motion" or "Pixelan Step Time" effects. IF you mean just a super fast look than with film you shoot slower...like in Jackie Chan's movies the fights are shot at 22 FPS so they look normal at 24 fps but they are faster than normal. They use the same effect for car chases as well...undercrank the camera so chase looks faster than it really is. problem is that only a few high end video cameras can shoot this way.

Here is a thought - and this is from the DMN forums, but if you did this and combined it with the Spice Master plug-ins you might get what you are looking for:
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take a clip and slow it down by control-stretching it down to 1/4 the original length and render it to a new track. Then put the original clip back to the normal time/length. Then stretch the new video track to 4x the new length and it will be the original length again, mute out the new audio and render the new video track with the original audio. I did this to a clip but repeated the first step to slow it down to about 1/16 of the original length, and then brought it back to the original length. I know there is probably an easier way of doing this but the effect is cool, its looks like slow motion but it is normal speed, it just has a lot of generated between frames, and the audio is normal so it sounds normal.
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farss wrote on 7/26/2003, 9:18 AM
I haven't sen either of the movies in question but I believe what your looking for is achieved by user a faster shutter speed in the camera. You'll only find that on better cameras and you need a lot of light.

Its used a lot lately on sports coverage, I'm told mostly because it gives better results when its streamed at a lower frame rate, it might be a good effect but its bloody annoying when its there all the time.

The results as has been said before is to remove the motion blur, at 1/50 sec shutter speed fast moving objects become blurred and our brains accept that. With the fast shutter settings, particularly at PALs 25fps the brains sees a rapid sequence of still images, there's no clues in each one of motion.

I'm sure you can make something equally annoying in other ways, but to get that exact effect you'd need to do it in the camera as I can see no way to remove the motion blur, adding it in yes.
SonyDennis wrote on 7/31/2003, 4:43 PM
Right click on event, select "Properties", set "Undersample rate" to .25 or .50 or whatever look you want.
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