Mixing 1080p and 720p due to a slow motion scene

IndiePaul · Dec 14, 2013

Hi

I have a query for you post-prod gurus...

I shot a recent movie using my Canon 6D. We used 1080p (24 fps) for all scenes except a single slow motion shot in one scene shot at 720p (60 fps) - the Canon 6D does not offer 1080p at 60 fps.

The movie is for the film festival circuit so will likely be shown via a DVD.

My editing software is Premier Pro.

We are about to start editing.

I have never had a mix of 1080p and 720p footage in the same movie before. How should it best be handled?

It seems a shame to drop the resolution of all the scenes shot in 1080p down to 720p just because a single slow motion shot had to be shot in 720p.

I have heard that upscaling footage shot in 720p to 1080p is possible but often looks terrible...

If need be, we can drop the 720p shot but I would prefer not to. We could also re-shoot it in 1080p and simply forget about the slow motion - but the shot does really look great in slow mo.

Any advice would be huge appreciated.

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PaulGriffith · Dec 14, 2013

For the one shot, you're probably fine upscaling it. Add in a little sharpening too.

Obviously not ideal, but it happens pretty often. Favreau complains in the Iron Man commentary about some of the stock helicopter city shots they used for establishing shots were lower res and didn't hold up, but I'll pretty much guarantee you that no audience member even noticed.

Especially once it all renders out to 480p for DVD, you won't see it at all.

PaulGriffith · Dec 14, 2013

PS: Mastering in 720p for online distribution isn't taboo. Vimeo doesn't like 1080p and will make you jump through a hoop to keep from down-converting it. YouTube hardly ever defaults to 1080p when it's an option unless a user has it set for it. Even the majority of screens that view online content (think phones/tablets/laptops) aren't 1080p or greater, and if they are people are probably watching it in a window scaled down.

If your main distro is online and DVD, I personally think 720 is fine.

But, again, you're probably safe upscaling it to keep it all 1080.

moonshieldmedia · Dec 15, 2013

Edit: Paul beat me to it...

If your final exhibition format is DVD, which is smaller than 720, why not to just down convert all footage to match the slow mo shot? Although I would color-correct first before the downscale.

BUT personally I would't do it that way because you may want the option to screen it on Blu-ray or HD on the internet later. You might have to bite the bullet and scale the one shot up, or cut it out completely. Then again, 720 still looks great on the internet.

At least now you know for next time to maybe use a different camera for slow mo stuff.

IndiePaul · Dec 15, 2013

Thanks PaulGriffith (x2) and moonshieldmedia. Super advice.

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moonshieldmedia · Dec 15, 2013

Going off on a little tangent...

I actually had a pretty rude awakening a few months ago when I was trying to burn my 100 minute feature film to DVD for festival judges.

I can't believe how antiquated DVD actually is. We don't really notice because when professional studios make DVDs they use equipment and complex precesses that cost thousands and thousands of dollars, and the result is a DVD quality that you can sell to the public, even though at the end of the day it's still not even HD.

When it came time to burn my film on blank DvDs the quality, frankly, was unwatchable. I tried half a dozen different burning softwares, optical drives, and media discs, but a feature length that long has to be written at an incredibly low speed to fit on the disc. Every scene was pixelated, and the dark scenes were pitch black.

Luckily some festivals accept Blu-ray and/or HD Vimeo links, but it was heartbreaking to spend years making a film with everything I had put into it, only to have to send in a piece of shit copy for judgement. I don't think I'll ever be satisfied until festivals accept uncompressed .mov files uploaded straight to their FTP

Zensteve · Dec 15, 2013

moonshieldmedia said:
When it came time to burn my film on blank DvDs the quality, frankly, was unwatchable. I tried half a dozen different burning softwares, optical drives, and media discs, but a feature length that long has to be written at an incredibly low speed to fit on the disc. Every scene was pixelated, and the dark scenes were pitch black.

Are you using single-layer DVDs? :hmm:

IndiePaul said:
We used 1080p (24 fps) for all scenes except a single slow motion shot in one scene shot at 720p (60 fps) - the Canon 6D does not offer 1080p at 60 fps.

If you have not already, download the free GoPro Studio software from www.GoPro.com

It's used to manage the many fps rates & resolutions of the GoPro camera, and you'll prolly find it useful for what you're doing. You should be able to get a great-looking 720p upscaled to 1080p, no problem. I doubt anyone will notice the difference. (Much easier to see, stretching a 480p out)

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jax_rox · Dec 15, 2013

moonshieldmedia said:
... when professional studios make DVDs they use equipment and complex precesses that cost thousands and thousands of dollars, and the result is a DVD quality that you can sell to the public, even though at the end of the day it's still not even HD.

Features that are distributed properly are usually duplicated on DVD-9's or dual-layer DVDs, which gives you double the size of a single layer DVD. On top of that, they've spent a lot of time getting the compression settings right to balance quality versus size.

If you're using single layer DVDs, and letting any piece of software up to it's own devices for the encoding, then your results will be wildly different.
Last year I received two DVDs of two different movies I'd shot, both on single layer DVDs. Both were shot Alexa, with similar lenses. One had been mastered and burnt by someone who knew what they were doing, the other by the Director using whatever program he had at home. The one done properly could've been sold in a store. The one done by the Director looked terrible, and not long after I went and picked up a ProRes .mov file.

I don't think I'll ever be satisfied until festivals accept uncompressed .mov files uploaded straight to their FTP

Not even movie theatres use such files for projection, so why would a festival do so simply for submission viewing? Most higher profile festivals won't accept anything but DVDs or similar for submission, despite the fact that they require DCP or 35mm print for exhibition.

moonshieldmedia · Dec 15, 2013

Zensteve said:
Are you using single-layer DVDs?

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I was using both single layer and dual layer, only maybe 3 out of the 12 festivals I submitted to actually accepted dual layer DVDs and even when they did, they required a backup single layer. The difference in the quality was almost unnoticeable anyway with all the compression.

jax_rox said:
One had been mastered and burnt by someone who knew what they were doing, the other by the Director using whatever program he had at home. The one done properly could've been sold in a store. The one done by the Director looked terrible.

Yeah I am in the same boat as that director, couldn't afford to hire a professional "DVD writer." The difference is I spent weeks and weeks online researching how to do it the right way, spent way too much money on wasted discs, optical drives, etc. so in the end maybe hiring someone would have been cheaper.

jax_rox said:
Not even movie theatres use such files for projection, so why would a festival do so simply for submission viewing? Most higher profile festivals won't accept anything but DVDs or similar for submission, despite the fact that they require DCP or 35mm print for exhibition.

That's my whole point. They don't accept anything other than 4.7GB DVDs or the occasional 25GB Blu-ray. MY feature film was well over 100GB so that is a ton of compression. I won't be satisfied until we can send them a copy of our film in a format close to the way it will look during exhibition. burning/shipping DVDs costs money and wields poor quality, where as uploading a file to their FTP is free (as long as they invest in the hard drive space), great for the environment, and the quality is perfect.

AND I would go as far to say that smaller film festivals that don't require DCP or 35mm should default to playing a .mov file at their festivals because it's simple, cheap, and once again better quality than a DVD or Blu-ray.

IndiePaul · Dec 19, 2013

A belated additional thanks to moonshieldmedia, Zensteve and jax_rox.

All the info provided is very helpful and will be heeded. Thanks!

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