Does the shutter speed affect the FPS past a certain amount of frames per second?

I've got a Sony TRV950, and if I crank up the shutter speed, I can make a bright room look dark, which is great for shooting "night" scenes.

What I want to know is what is technically happening when you increase the shutter speed. I noticed that the shutter speed at 30 tones the FPS wayyy down, but everything over about 120 looks the same (I know, that's a problem with the human eye).

I just don't want the movie to have that "too smooth" look if I shoot at a high shutter speed. I do know that a high shutter speed will make for that edgy Band of Brothers look when dodging bullets and stuff .

Thanks

Sony TRV950

hmmm, where do I start. Technically, the shutter speed won't affect the FPS on your camera ever. Your camera always runs at 29.97 FPS. Because the camera captures in fields not frames, you're limited to 1/60th of a second shutter speed. Now, some cameras will let you shoot at slower shutter speeds (some down to 1/4 second) and interpolate the picture over several frames. But your camera never slows down it's FPS. This normally shows a distorted, somewhat blurry picture.

So, what happens when you increase the shutter speed? Obviously, you're sampling a smaller amount of time for each frame. And this will give you less motion blur. Motion blur is a key component to how we, the audience, subconsciously perceive motion on screen. Depending on your subject, you should notice quite a difference from 1/120 and, say, 1/1000. Experiment by doing a whip or swish pan on each setting. Or go to a car race. Or turn on the shower and film the water. These should look quite different on each setting. Most people seem to think a slower shutter speed makes things look faster (because there's more motion blur).

If you are trying to replicate a film look, I'd try to keep your shutter at 1/60. This is the closest you'll get to the normal film shutter speed (24 FPS, 180° shutter=1/48th second). Unless of course you're trying to get an effect, like SPR or Band o Brothers. But you're gonna need more than a fast shutter to replicate that effect.

hope this helped
joren

Thanks, that helps. I notice the motion blur that the lower shutter speed produces, and it basically looks choppy.

I'm glad the FPS doesn't change. Thanks.

Sony TRV950

So now that we're on the subject, how DID they get that effect in SPR and BoB? There's a short motion blue, but it looks choppy and smooth at the same time, know what I mean.

When a bullet richochets or a mortar goes off and blows debir everywhere, the pieces look especially chunky, or jagged, or SOMETHING; and you can see every single piece of debris. It's a great looking effect.

I was told that if you just turn up the shutter speed you get a similar effect, but does anyone know hat they actually did?

Sony TRV950

Yes, that look was achieved using a 45 degree lens. I might be a little off in my technical explanation, but bassically they shoot less frames (less then 24, which is standard speed for film) but each frame is like a crystal clear still image. The result is a high speed/impact scene with alot of detail. I have seen the movie mode on an XL1 slightly sped up for running and action scene make a similar look.
R. M.

"Luck, is when opportunity, meets preperation." "There are 3 sides to every story. Yours, mine, and the truth, and none of us are lying" -Robert Evans

So is the "movie mode" on an XL1 the shutter speed? Or is it a combination of shutter speed and FPS tweaking?

Thanks for telling me. I figured they did it something like that. It looks choppy, but crystal clear all at the same time - I love that look.

Sony TRV950

all movie mode does is de-interlace the picture so you're getting only one field (lower) displayed on both the fields of the monitor. It doesn't change the FPS of the camera, only samples time half as much.

In SPR and BoB, they did use smaller angled shutters. But I believe they also undercranked the cameras, had a lens mount device designed that created random shakiness, used uncoated lenses, and all kinds of crazy tricks. In this interview with Jim Kwiatkowski, he talks about the effect:
www.chapman-leonard.com/newsletters/6-4/interview.html
He also mentions that one shot was step printed. This printing method ensures minimal artifacts in film printing, giving the sharpest image.

If that's the effect you're going for, set your shutter high and aperature high (big DoF), and in post, speed up the footage to 108% or so and randomly cut out frames to create jumpiness. This should give you a close aproxamation of the motion captured in these films. Additionally, if you have after effects production bundle, you can use the wiggler to create random shake very easily.

Talking about this makes me want to go out and make a film with this look. It's a good excuse to blow things up.

joren

^^

Thanks, man. lol I never thought of just taking out frames to creat that jumpiness.

Also, thanks for the interview link - despite the one extra "w" . Good thing I caught that.

I can get the After Effects bundle easily, it's just I'm a Premier nerd, so I'd have to learn to use some of the things in AE. For instance, I can do muzzle flashes like a savage, but I can't use the lightning because it involves keyframes. I've read all the instructions on how to use keyframs, but I can't get the lightning to cooperate. I need more practice

Anyway, the problem is that I'm out of town with my camera, but not my computer. Whenever I really want to try something out...I can't. Oh well.

Yeah that BoB/SPR trick really makes me want to go out and flick dirt in the air and film it lol. That sounds like one of those documenties Paul Reiser did on Mad About You :P.

Joran do you have an XL1?

Sony TRV950

sorry, Joren do you have an XL1

Sony TRV950

This is a guess assuming they film "28 days later" with an XL1. I get the same effect - when the action starts getting choppy (when the guy gets blood in his eye). Set it to "frame mode" and bump the shutter speed up to 1/120 or whatever you want the higher the choppier (and darker).

I bumped up the shutter speed on my TRV950 last night and threw pens at my bed. As the pens hopped up, the action looked choppy, like waving your hand in front of a TV screen. The effect is close enough right off the camera, which I am excited about. When I get back home, I'll use that effect a lot.

Like Joren said, then I can take out random frames if I want it to look choppier.

Also, I thought about taking the scene and transfering it frame by frame into Photoshop. Then I can sharpen each image in there, and then put it all back into Premier. That should mimic that crystal-clear effect they used for those scenes in SPR (if you read that interview you know what I'm talking about).

Sony TRV950

nope, I only own a crappy camera I capture and edit with. I own most everything else and know tons of people with cameras that don't know how to use them. Plus camera rentals are cheap if that's all you need. ...and the technology is always improving.

Sharpen frame by frame in PS? that's a ton of work. Just use a sharpen filter in your NLE or AE. There's only so sharp you can go with dv compressed footage, anyway. It's a limitation of the medium.

Yeah that's right. I forgot about that, if you sharpen enough, you can't tell the difference between one level and another - plus in PH if you keep clicking sharpen it starts to mess with the colors.

Sony TRV950

You could export video clip from Premiere as a filmstrip and open it with Photoshop. I found that usefull. Then you can apply effect to the whole sequence, you may rotoscope easier and do all kinds of stuff. If you have patience you can do wonders.

^^

That's true, also. There's a variety of ways I can do it. I'm sure no matter how I do it, it'll turn out pretty good.

Sony TRV950

That effect's getting over used. I've seen it in almost every action trailer of late. It was overused in "28 days later". It gave me a headache.

It should be used sparingly, and only during certain scenes I think. I've seen it before, but not with the impact it had in SPR. In MI2, Tom Cruise pulls out that C4 demo pack or whatever to blow up the wall. When he grabs it, they crank up the shutter speed, etc. but it's nowhere near the effect of HOW they used it in Band of Brothers and that kind of thing.

I didn't see 28 Days, but I wouldn't think they could use it too well there.

Sony TRV950

I got a JVC JY-VS200u for X-mas and realized that it has Progressive scan technology. This is when your camera captures both fields of a frame at once rather than the standard way. If any of you have it, you will know that it keeps your images sharp by not allowing any ghosting around your subjects when you go into slo-mo. This also makes it look more like movie film. I don't know if this is what you needed, but I just thought that i would throw my two cents in....

Wylie Earnhart