sped up camera

[Jin Yong]

hi ,

I just want to know, in many movies they sped up the camera for making the fight faster.

But if the camera was so accelerated, the fights won't look nice.

Did any one here already try on on filming those hand-to-hand fights ?

How can people use the camera for making the fight flowing, fast ?

[resevoir]

did you see the final fight of drunken master two? have you seen any of jet li's movies? dragon gate inn? taichi master? just about every jackie chan movie. all have the majority of the action shot at a low frame rate. speeding up the movements.

If you want to have faster movements in a shot, you need to dial down your frame rate. normally we shoot at 24 frames persecond. if you want the actors to seem faster, you drop down to like fifteen frames a second or in some cases like georgeous 12 frames a second.
hong kong and chinese stunt teams uses this alot, because it is more important to have the movements clean and clear, and timed correctly when shooting. and it is dangerous for some unexperienced fighters to try to throw blows at someone at full speed. in the case of many actors like say keanu reeves. although he did alot of work and got up to an impressive level for a late thirties guy with no previous artial arts experience. that is alot of discipline as and actor.
but the key is to keep the shots short and change up the angles often. And don't use it on every shot. also another great trick is if you have any actors in the back ground have them moving in slow motion. so setting up action in the back ground and sometime in the foreground is important. this way if you have people moving slowly, when you speed up the frame rate they will appear to be moving at a normal speed. and that sells the trick a little better.
ofcourse if you are shooting on video you can just speed up in percentages when you edit if you have that option on your editing program.
that is sometimes even a better technique, because then you can speed up individual section of a motion inside the same shot.
play with the rythm and the power of a sequence if the actors don't have any
play around and try things out.

[samurai deli]

Using a tripod-mounted camera often produces better results for sped-up shots, otherwise the camera would be shaking too fast and would look unnatural. Also, rather than shooting an entrie shot at a low speed, shoot at a normal speed and take frames out where needed when you're editing. For example, don't speed up those moments where a fighter is just in their stance; that will look awkward, as they will be shaking around and such. Rather, take 2 or 3 frames out of every kick, punch, sword slash, etc, and make sure the frames you omit are evenly-spaced (for example, try removing every third frame). Tell your performers that very fast blows aren't important, since you can speed each blow up just by taking out a few frames...but stress that they move at a fast PACE, as you cannot convincingly speed up the time between blows without it looking just plain weird. Shoot at a normal speed and worry about speeding up what you need to, later on in the editing process.

Hope this helps!

[HungKuen]

I wouldn't use samurai deli's way if I were you. Frame clipping looks really bad in 90% of the cases (no offence deli - it's just a matter of opinion). Speeding up something that has been filmed with video doesn't look good at all. The only way to make an undercranking look good is to do use film (which most of us can't afford) and to shoot at a lower frame-rate. Another thing you can do - if you're in the US, try to get a PAL-camera (standard in the rest of the world) instead of NTSC. A PAL camera records at 25fps (frames per second) which naturally makes movements look faster than NTSC which records at 29.97fps. It is also easier to achieve that "film-look" with a PAL camera.
Otherwise, you should just practise to get the movements fast instead of undercranking them.
That's the way I do it - and IMHO it produces a much better result.

[ricebowlcinema]

Ovvurding to Daonnie Yen the normal undercranking frame rate Yuen Wo Ping films is 20-22 frames a second. Then agian it could be alot lower consider they both over undercank it. If you want a faster fight spend more time on perfected the movements. Practice them for days until you can do the movements fast and with great flow then you can undercrank it. If you just rely on undercranking then you fights will look like the Three Stooges ( yes I relize I'm a horrible speller).

[HungKuen]

Yeah, 20-22fps is normal. Lower than that and it get's ridiculous. But changing the framerate is impossible with any videocamera I know of, so I'm afraid that won't help him very much. However if you speed it up on a computer, never do more than 5%.

[resevoir]

actually, speeding up on the computer is a good technique, and basically your only viable option when shooting on video, unless you are shooting onand HD camera like the ones they used in episode 2, (which, are great to use, but if not lit properly can still come out looking like a digi- beta)
when using your editing program to speed up though it has to be done artfully. you can't just speed up a whole scene. it looks silly, one of you mentioned the three stooges, more like chaplin.
but sometimes just speeding up a movement can look bad.
parts of a movement can be sped up to different percentages. sort of giving the movement more acceleration and a higher rate there of.
And yes getting your moves down is a must, but someday most of you will hope to be out of the home video and personal kung fu movies. one day if you work proffessionally you will have to deal with budgets and schedule and annoying producers standing at your back telling you to hurry up, despite the drama director took so long to shoot a 3 line dialogue.
when you get to that point they best way is to get your actors to fight at a slower than normal speed. or just a lazy speed.
but making sure each move is clean precise and at the best angle for framing.
depending on your medium you either dial down the frame rate, if you are on film or HD. or you speed it up in post production.
keeping it fast but real.
and yes definately go for fixed tripod shots.
One other tip to remember that when shooting action one needs to use all the tools at hand. sometimes all you need to speed up the feling of a sequence is a strategic camera move. A fight at a below normal speed can be excited and livened up with extreme camera movements and pans. also shooting from multiple angles and cutting it up as much as possible can give life to a slowly performed sequence. many time s when an actor has bad rythym, we will chop up the sequence into many angles, that way the fast cuts give you speed, and you can shoot the initiation of a movement from one angle and it'st execution and delivery from opposing or complimentary angles.

also sometime speeding up isn't the answer. if a move is beautiful enough or a plot moving move(plot moving in the action, as each action sequence should tell a story in itself) Maybe you want to speed up your frame rate. thereby giving you slow motion. this is great for jumping techniques and falls and big power moves.
and when you have the contrast of slowmotion on several moves, other parts of a sequence shot at a normal speed will feel faster to the audience.

[HungKuen]

With 'episode 2' I suppose you mena Star Wars Episode 2. Those cameras aren't too good if you ask me. Well, not that I wouldn't want one (;) ) but it doesn't look half as good as film.

Anyways, I'm aware of that the only way of speeding up a video is in post, but all I'm saying is, it doesn't look very good. Because when you speed up in post it will result in frameblending which can look very bad!

[limeyninja]

12 fps? If you think that shooting at 12 fps produces the effect they use, you have never shot on film. As someone already said, they use 20-22, anything lower than that and it looks ridiculous. Even 20fps looks too choppy. The best thing to do as been said is to speed it up in post.

From the audio commentary on Crouching Tiger, they talked about this very thing, with experimenting with the frame rates, and they went down to 21 fps and then sped the rest up in post.

[HungKuen]

Yeah, 12fps is ridiculous! 21-22fps and it might look good, but less fps than that - naah!

EDIT: Once again, speding up in post doesn't look as good as undercranking the camera since speeding up in post results in frameblending which gives away the effect. This is obvious at places in Crouching Tiger, and many, many other action movies.

[resevoir]

Yes 12 fps!
Not for the whole scene that looks ridiculous I agree, but for a single shot or in the case of post production speeding up, for a single technique.
Usually it is not that fast, but it gets there, and more that you think.
and yes on film.
examples being the last fight of drunken master two,
The fights in Georgeous,
as well as the pachinko fight in thunderbolt.
also you have to think about what and how you are shooting action.
Those examples are examples of scenes with lots of precise kicking, in two examples by ken Ho. all by Jackie chan, and also brad alan in georgeous.
when shooting those scenes the emphasis is on the perfection of the technique, so in that case, the techniques are performed at much slower that real fighting speed. and the only way to make them look super fast, but not ridiculous is to shoot at 12 fps. no offense taken at your disbelief.

[HungKuen]

Um, no!
12fps is impossible to get it to look good!
Where have you heard this?

[resevoir]

Nothing I can say I guess. :hat

[bjv]

nt

[ricebowlcinema]

When I undercrank I import a 29 fps movie and then convert it to 24 fps in film like with TMPEG then change the framerate in Virtual dub (drop about 3 to 4 frames_ and convert the avi right back to mpeg, Can there be a better way?

[limeyninja]

As it has been said before, you've never shot on film if you think 12 FPS is what they use. They never go below 20, because it looks bad. It looks choppy. It looks completely unnatural. You can tell when something is shot at 12 FPS.

Also, the cameras used for Episode 2 don't have variable frame rates, neither did the ones for Episode 3 for that matter. It was all done in post. Sony still needs to get on the variable frame rate thing like Panasonic.

Speeding up in post is always easiest, and it can look good, depending on the program you use. I use mostly Adobe Premiere, and I never usually go over 120% and it looks fine, in terms of both the image itself and the actual action.