Finn and I decided to head over to the Concord Skate Park to meet up with a friend of ours to see what we could capture using the 7D at 60fps and some added digital slow motion, courtesy of After Effects and Twixtor.

We shot for about an hour and a half at various shutter speeds and using a couple of different lenses.  Then we spent about 2 hours editing and working out the slow motion.  We took the 60fps shots and interpreted them back down to 24fps, giving us true slow motion.  We’ve done this overcranking effect with real film before, and wanted to see how digital compared.  If we wanted some additional slow-mo, we implemented Twixtor.  Do a little bit of color grading, throw some cool music on there, and it’s ready for export.  I don’t remember how long rendering took, but that’s irrelevant anyway.  Here you have it, a quick and dirty but fun little test.

Tests like these serve more than to look cool, they give us a better understanding of how to successfully accomplish the kind of shots and effects we want to do in future projects, as well as serve as a base of inspiration to more complex effects that might be built on top of these kind of effects.  It also shows you what doesn’t work.  For example, there’s a pretty good amount of distortion on a few of the digitally enhanced slow motion, simply because the shutter speed on the shot wasn’t high enough to get a clean image of quick movements.  The balance between available light and a high shutter speed is a hard one to walk, and these test shots help define that line. All that said, a faster lens helps compensate for light loss from high shutter speed.

The more familiar you get with using and experimenting with effects also helps you become more efficient with the software and the faster your workflow becomes.  The one rule of getting better and more creative with your film and effects is to just go out there and do it.  It doesn’t have to perfect or awesome or even make sense.  It doesn’t matter how good your ideas are or how cool your “vision” is if you don’t shoot it.  So get out there and experiment!  Have fun!