I have a frame rate issue and I am caught in two minds (I am going to post this on the Premiere Forum as well and the after effects one) in which programme to use to solve my problem. A cameraman friend of mine recently shot some slow motion footage, he used the Panasonic AG-HVX200 with a P2 card to shoot at 38 frames a second. The final edit is in SD/25 frames a second/PAL.
I use the new production premium CS3 package on PC so I have both Premiere Pro and After Effects. Both programmes can take the P2 footage but I was wondering if either one would be better to use?
If I was to take it into After Effects should I change the Comps frame rate to 38 and then export to an SD 25 frame AVI? or can Premiere handle the 38 frame rate? Should I export to mpeg2 HD and then resize it in a 25 frame project?
Is there anyone that knows both programmes well enough to advise me please?
I appropriate the strangeness and round about way I have asked this question but as this is my first feature edit I really want to be able to advise in the most professional way possible.
Re: Frame Rate Question by Kevin Camp on Dec 14, 2007 at 6:55:10 pm
in ae, you can easily slow the footage down from 38fps to 25fps..
import the footage
with the footage selected choose file>interpret footage>main, set the frame rate to 25fps.
drop that on a the make comp icon and render it out, it will retain the new 25fps frame rate.
if you have many clips:
after setting the fps in interpret footage for the first clip, choose file>interpret footage>remember interpretation
select the rest of the clips and choose file>interpret footage>apply interpretation. they will now all have the same frame rate
select all the clips and drag onto the make comp icon. choose multiple compositions and check the add to render queue
now you are set to render out all the clips with the new frame rate.
i'm not familiar enough with premiere to be much help there, but it may be quite simple to just define the new frame rate for the clips and use a 25fps timeline.
Re: Frame Rate Question by Kevin Camp on Dec 14, 2007 at 7:44:56 pm
one thing to note for future slo-mo projects... the hvx can shoot at higher frame rates and record them as normal frame rate, avoiding the need to convert the frame rates later...
i have a cameraman friend with an hvx too... he has shot footage at 60fps that was captured/recorded as 30fps to p2. when we took it into ae (or fcp) the footage played back as slo-mo without having to adjust a thing... however i do seem to remember him mentioning something about certain frame rates, so you may be limited to the frame rates you can shoot at though. you might have to check into that before shooting.
Re: Frame Rate Question by Dave LaRonde on Dec 14, 2007 at 7:05:09 pm
The reason to overcrank would be to create slow motion.
If this is your goal, then import your footage into AE, and in the Interpret Footage settings, conform the frame rate to 25fps. Put the footage in a 25fps comp and render.
NOW......
If your footage was shot erroneously at 38, you MUST fix it, and there are NO easy fixes. Sorry, but none of the methods you mention are worth a minute of your time. Oh, you can try them, but trust me: you won't like the result.
Frame rate conversion is best done with a third-party plugin. Such plugins use various motion algorithms to literally interpolate and extrapolate the locations of pixels in the image, creating new frames at the proper frame rate. Google Magic Bullet, Twixtor, and ReelVision. The results are iffy at best, so you might want to consider reshooting.
Re: Frame Rate Question by Ross Bradshaw on Dec 15, 2007 at 12:57:51 pm
Cheers for the advise lads.
The footage was shot in 38 frames intentionally. My friend has other frames rates as well (50 & 25) for the sequence so it hard getting my head around it but I will defiantly give your suggestions a try and let you know how I got on (Monday)
