Director trying to convince me (producer) that 120 fps is a must!

cheetah78

cheetah78

Hi,

I am considering to produce a 5-minute indie short film. It is a parody of Hollywood action film cliches.

Currently, the director is trying to convince me that I need to arrange financing, so that we are able to shoot with Red One (=120 frames per second at 2K) to achieve slow motion that we can live with. I am of course doubtful whether it is really needed and terrified of the cost.

I have two questions if anyone could advise:
1. We are talking here about a relatively small-scale indie production (2 day outside shoot with a crew of less than five), but is the director still correct in that 2K & 120 fps will make a huge difference in the result?
2. What would be the alternative digital cameras (cheaper than Red One) you would recommend (capable of doing for example 60p fps at 1K)?
3. Are there some ways to achieve slow motion in post and still achieve decent results? Such as shooting 60i on basic HDV cam, de-interlacing and slowing it down to 24 fps.

Thanks for any views on this.
 
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The Canon APS-C cameras do 60 FPS at 720P. A good post guy can turn that into decent looking Slo Mo. Is it 120 FPS slo mo, no, but done right it can look pretty good.

Will 720P mix with your other footage? We'd dave to know what you're shooting the rest of the film on.
 
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As long as you are being paid, and as long as the expenses are not your responsibility, you do what the client asks for. You put together the budget package for your area of responsibility that complies with the clients requests, and have solid alternatives available when they squawk at the costs of what they want you to do.
 
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eraserhead@ That video is not about high speed filming, its about super high speed shutter (not frame rate) having a super high speed shutter lets plugins like twixtor work better, but its just making up data to fill in the frames.
 
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Thanks for comments.

@David.rhsc: The action to be shot is human movement (running, falling, fighting).

@Gonzo_Entertainment: I think 60 FPS at 720P should be ok. We just need to shoot the rest of the film with similar camera (DSLR or HDV+DoF) as the 60 fps part. So for DSLR it would be T2i/60D & 5D. On HDV side I don't know of any camera that could do 60p, they do 60i.

@PaulGriffith: Intended distribution is primarily festivals (but also YouTube).

@Alcove Audio: Good point, always need to have alternatives to offer based on the resources. Here the situation, however, is that I am not being paid (indie production) and the expenses are my responsibility (100% producer).

@wheatgrinder: Poor man's version: Shooting with our own ("zero-cost") equipment (XHA1+DoF) and then either shooting 60p scenes with some other camera or turning 60i to slow-mo in post.

@knightly: Great link! Really helpful, thanks a lot. Somehow I have missed this one. Again shows that Filmriot is excellent!
 
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Not going to lie, the RED is a killer camera that makes a beautiful image even in slow mo that's high resolution for theater screens.

YouTube (online) will probably be your biggest outlet though. That in mind, a DSLR will do great. Shoot slow mo scenes in 60p, slow them down 250% to 24p and shoot your normal stuff in 1080 24p and scale it or crop it down to match the slow mo resolution in post. Should look sharp with a talented team.

Hope it works out!
 
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cheetah78 said:
I am considering to produce a 5-minute indie short film. It is a parody of Hollywood action film cliches.

Currently, the director is trying to convince me that I need to arrange financing, so that we are able to shoot with Red One (=120 frames per second at 2K) to achieve slow motion that we can live with. I am of course doubtful whether it is really needed and terrified of the cost.
Click to expand...

How experienced is the director? Is he asking for this because he read about it online or because he has the kind of resume where he has shot with the RED ONE before?

Your post is very skeptical... which is absolutely justified since you are a producer and that's your job to challenge and question a director who is in your employ. Renting a RED is not that expensive all things considered.
 
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If you are going to rent RED, your whole film will look better. A DSLR is a photo and video camera. I use one, and I love it. In the right hands it yields indredible results. Nevertheless, a RED camera is a digital cinema camera. It's results are much more comparable to those obtained by a film camera, in contrast, definition, and dynamic range.

It's not about resolution anymore, it's about the whole thing.

Now, getting a RED just for the slow-mo? I would factor in that budget for better talent, audio, etc... specially when you can shoot good looking slow-mo with a DSLR@60FPS.

Bottom line, if slow motion is a key for the whole thing to work, go with the RED. If it's a parody or gimmick, use a DSLR or a video camera.
 
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@Gonzo_Entertainment: I think 60 FPS at 720P should be ok. We just need to shoot the rest of the film with similar camera (DSLR or HDV+DoF) as the 60 fps part. So for DSLR it would be T2i/60D & 5D. On HDV side I don't know of any camera that could do 60p, they do 60i.

You could shoot the rest of the film with a 5D, but can't do the slo mo. 5D doesn't shoot 60fps (sensor is too big, the data stream would overwhelm the processor).

I own a 5D and rent a 7D when I do stuff where I need slo mo. a T2i is on the "to get" list as a camera for purely for that purpose (times I need 60fps).
 
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cheetah78 said:
Thanks for comments.

@David.rhsc: The action to be shot is human movement (running, falling, fighting).
Click to expand...

Let's take falling and fighting as examples. For simplification, let's say that a fall from a standing position takes 1 second in real time. A punch takes 0.5s. Not real numbers, just making it easier to think about. (edit: Chances are these times are too generous, and could be cut by as much as half. I just wanted to make the math easier.)

Given a delivery frame rate of 24fps:

Overcranking to 60fps stretches an event by 2.5 times its actual duration: 60 = 48+12.

120fps stretches it by double that again, so 5 times its actual duration: 120 = 24x5.

So unscientifically speaking, we can estimate that a falling human at 60fps will be falling for 2.5 seconds, and at 120fps 5 seconds of screen time. The punch is half that, or 1.25 seconds at 60 and 2.5 seconds at 120.

That should help you and the director visualize which of those will suit the production. I'm going to play devils advocate here for a moment, then I'll go back to making sense. :D If the goal of the piece is to lampoon modern action movie tropes, then it is possible the director wants to get as close as he can to the current "ramping" trend (see 300, Immortals, etc) - which means you are going to want as fast a frame rate as you can get. Ultimately those shots are greater than 120fps (sometimes by several orders of magnitude). However, it is possible to stretch your overcrank out slightly in post to make it longer. Having more frames to work with will make those smoother. If it were me, and the budget were feasible, I would go RED in this case. If 120fps is overkill, the post guys can always make it look like a lighter overcrank with no loss of quality. Conversely, working in 120fps will give you more post leeway to interpolate extra frames and possibly push as far as 160-180fps before it starts to look funky (maybe farther, I'm not a post guru). Finally, if your output is destined to be 1080, then 2K also gives you some "pan and scan" room if you decide later that you want to "punch in" on something after the fact.

Now for making some sense:

1: Alcove is right. Make a budget for what the client wants, and make an alternate budget in the event the cost is too high. Show them both. Make sure to budget for post in the case of Red. (see item 3)

2: What about the director's experience? (See Sonnyboo's remarks)

3: What about post? Does your director have the editing horsepower to work with R3D files, transcoding into an offline format, grading the source images and giving them a solid de-bayer?
 
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re: #3... enough Drive space as well for 5x as much file size / second on already huge files form the red.

You may want to consider shooting higher shutter speed @ 60p, then using software to get to 120p.
 
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The OP said: "It is a parody of Hollywood action film cliches."

Your film is a SHORT and its a PARODY.

Me thinks the director is hitting you up for $$$ to bolster his own reel. I'm wondering what YOU want to gain out of this? You will not gain any money, that's for sure. If you're doing this to gain producing experience, then be a producer and say no to expensive gear, rented or otherwise. Wait until you're producing a feature film before you entertain expensive proposals from directors -- at least then you'll have a shot at getting some of the $$$ back.

Good luck.
 
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Thanks for comments all.

Experience of crew:
1) The director is an indie short film-maker with some international festival success. No experience of Red.
2) The DP/operators don't have experience of Red (but are generally experienced in DSLR / DV cams)
3) The editor (director himself) does not have experience of R3D post work flow, but assures me it will be no problem (for off-line editing)

I cannot help thinking that considering the experience of the crew and the overall production value (near zero-budget beyond camera costs), Red is an overkill for this production.

The director is just throwing arguments why this production cannot be made with Red and not really listening the options that I try to offer. It is not really a discussion, which might be a bad sign for the director-producer collaboration during actual production & post.
 
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no argument either way here, just a couple of clips of our Red at 120 - 300 for you to look at and compare.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9RcwSAf2rw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oIaVEOYC_U
This one turned out pretty bad, but shows combining red with frame interpolation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp0GxnrWYQo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9FAX86zQNA
and finally, shot at 300fps and interpolated out to over 1000 in post

A note about your production crew's experience with the Red. If you do rent a red, rent an epic. The menus are way easier to navigate and your crew can be up to speed on an epic in 1 day (at least in terms of being able to enter settings), whereas a red one took us several days to get used to, just because the interface was poorly structured.
 
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