Footage shot in slow-mo, trying to make normal speed

[SCoffman]

Hey everyone,

A DP accidentally left the settings on a Panasonic Lumix GH series camera on slow motion while shooting an interview. I need to convert the files from slow motion to regular motion, but I'm having a challenging time finding the correct time difference. He thinks he shot it at 180 fps, but it's pulling into the system as 29.97. When I pull it into a 29.97 sequence, it plays back as slow motion. The same happens when I create a sequence based on the clip settings.

I've tried to interpret the footage using 180fps, and a number of others (60, 80, 120, etc). I've also tried the Speed / Duration modification in the timeline, and while I can get close it's not there yet. Plus, I'm finding I'm losing frames... so while general talking may appear ok, if they do any type of quick movement it's a stutter that moves pretty quick.

I also pulled the clip into Quicktime to see if I could see a different series of settings... but they're the same I see in Premiere.

Have any of you run into this issue? If so, what was your work around?

I'm on Premiere CC v12.0.0 (Build 224) on an 27-inch late 2016 iMac using IOS 10.13.3.

Thanks much for your time,

s

[Meg The Dog · Accepted solution]

This is a bit of a mess.

What frame rate are you/do you want to edit on the timeline?

Is the audio, when you play the clip back, slow as well?

If for example, you want to edit on a 29.97 timeline -

Try dropping the footage into the timeline and then right clicking in the clip and choose Speed/Duration from the drop down menu.

Set the speed to 600%, and click OK.

Depending on the horsepower of your computer, you may need to render the results to judge the speed change correctly.

MtD

[DigitalSpatula]

Hey S

First thing is to figure out the frame rate at which it was shot. Cameras have to ways to record slow motion. In your case, the camera shot in whatever rate and then laid down at 29.97. You were right in using the interpret footage function to change the framerate. you just need to figure out the  framerate at which it was shot by experimenting with the re-interpret rate.

The footage will naturally be jumpy due to the shutter speed at which it was shot. If the footage was shot at 180, the fastest the shutter speed could be is 1/180 but in most cases would be even worse at 1/360. Generally, camera shutter speed should be twice the framerate so most footage shot at 24 has a shutter speed of 48 to look natural. 30fps would have a 1/60 shutter speed. On 180fps footage, thew shutter will be much higher which, when sped back up to natural speed, would cause a serious high shutter rate look similar to Saving Private Ryan's first 20 minute scene.

Unfortunately there's no real fix for such an issue that I know of. You could try an AE plugin that adds fake motion blur but that would be a long-shot.

Sorry for the bad news.

Steve

[chrish74371810]

Hi all

I'm having a similar problem. Shot an interview on two cameras yesterday, one of which was the GH4. A

ccidentally shot it with a frame rate of 30fps and the files turn out 25p (providing a slow/fast effect of 83%). I want it to be 25p on the timeline so by how much do I need to slow it down? Is it likely to look odd when that's done?

Chris

[DigitalSpatula]

You audio will not match because one audio track is slowed down. You need to comvet the footage using a frame conversion plugin like twixtor.

Steve

[SCoffman]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I tried a number of options, but it was the Plugin that finally helped.

The footage provided by the client was accidentally shot at 100fps, and I needed it to be at 29fps. It's an interview, which made simply changing the speed in Premiere a solid choice. It worked, but so many frames were dropped that when the interview subject moved it resulted in choppy footage - there weren't any frames between the start and end of the movement.

I used DigitalSpatula​'s suggestion of using Twixtor, and it worked well enough that I can use the entire interview. It's not perfect, but since re-creating the interview wasn't an option the plugin is great.

I did a test on a small portion of the interview speeding the footage up 400%, and totally fixed the stutter problem. It's not a real-time plug-in and has to render, so I'm setting up the full 1.5 hour interview to render tonight. Tomorrow, I'll try to sync it against the audio bed - but for the first time, we're feeling a little bit of hope here.

The plug-in isn't cheap ($330 for the non-pro version), but it certainly got us out of a jam.

Thanks again for all of your help, and for your suggestion in particular DigitalSpatula​

[SCoffman]

This is the answer that is marked as "Answered", so just wanted to re-post a reply I made further down in the conversation:

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I tried a number of options, but it was the Plugin that finally helped.

The footage provided by the client was accidentally shot at 100fps, and I needed it to be at 29fps. It's an interview, which made simply changing the speed in Premiere a solid choice. It worked, but so many frames were dropped that when the interview subject moved it resulted in choppy footage - there weren't any frames between the start and end of the movement.

I used DigitalSpatula​'s suggestion of using Twixtor, and it worked well enough that I can use the entire interview. It's not perfect, but since re-creating the interview wasn't an option the plugin is great.

I did a test on a small portion of the interview speeding the footage up 400%, and totally fixed the stutter problem. It's not a real-time plug-in and has to render, so I'm setting up the full 1.5 hour interview to render tonight. Tomorrow, I'll try to sync it against the audio bed - but for the first time, we're feeling a little bit of hope here.

The plug-in isn't cheap ($330 for the non-pro version), but it certainly got us out of a jam.

Thanks again for all of your help, and for your suggestion in particular DigitalSpatula​"