Digital Video - May 2008 - (Page 30)

Capturing the action with an Steadicammounted, overcranked HPX500. HOW SLOW CAN YOU GO? SHOOTING OFF-SPEED WITH THE HPX500. BY CHUCK GLOMAN H aving the Panasonic AGHPX500 on a shoot is much like your father giving you the keys to his brand new sports car for the weekend. Shooting with this high-definition P2 Ferrari opens up a whole new world to the filmmaker. DV ran a review of the HPX500 in the September 2007 issue, so I won’t rehash all that this camera does. Instead I’ll focus on one of its unique capabilities that sets it apart from the competition. While planning a short film opening for our film festival, my students at DeSales University came up with the idea of shooting the project in 720p utilizing the HPX500’s variable-frame-rate capability. In fact, that’s one of the main reasons they selected the Panasonic in the first place. My students have always shot in 24p dv may 2008 because they prefer the “film look” when using our DVX100A cameras. The move up to real high-definition (not HDV) over standard-definition was the easy choice. 720p is actually sharper than shooting in 1080i because you have 720 progressive lines rather than 540 odd and even lines. No matter how bad your math may be, 720 is a bigger number than 540. To make the decision even easier, the HPX500 offers variable frame rates only in the 720p mode, not the 1080i or 480i modes. You may ask, “Why not just shoot the video normally and change the frame rates in post?” The answer is simple: It actually looks better if you overcrank or undercrank when shooting rather than achieving the effect in editing, as the resulting “jerkiness,” for lack of a better term, is much less obvious if you import the shot at the correct frame rate. Now that we had determined we would be shooting in 720p/24pN, when should we use the over- or undercranking modes, and which settings would be selected? These answers had to be incorporated into the script, which features two students — Chris and Tim — racing through a building to the control room at the other end. Whoever gets to the switcher first will activate the start of the film festival. The comedy of the action is more pronounced if the camera is overcranked — shooting more images per second. The result, if the footage is later played back at normal speed (24pN), is that the racing students will be moving in slow motion. Because the normal speed is 24 frames a second (we were shooting natively in 24pN), 48 fps would have been slow and humorous, but a faster 60 fps (slower on the screen) would be even funnier. With papers floating in slow motion www.dv.com 30 http://www.dv.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Digital Video - May 2008

Digital Video - May 2008 Contents DV Update Close-Up AJ-HPX3000 Camcorder Sidecar Raid Zoom H2 Recorder Instant Expert 324 Flat-Panel Display Extreme 35MM Adapter Type-S JIB How Slow Can You Go? Global Gastronome Mixing It UP Long-Distance Runaround Tools & Technology DV 101 Production Diary

Digital Video - May 2008

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