My dream job would be to teach a video productions class in a high school so I really want to strengthen up my software repertoire. Therefore, the thing I chose to research for my Practical Experience is Adobe After Effects. In my first one-minute-movie, I realized too late that I was going to have a problem with interlaced frames in my final export because I filmed in 24PF and didn't do the 3:2 pulldown.
Filming in 24PF is available on some video cameras and it allows you to film using 24 frames per second (which is the way Hollywood feature films are shot). Upon importing the footage the computer interpolates the footage into 30 frames per second. In order to do this, it splits every 2nd and 3rd frame and meshes them together to get extra frames to fit the 30 frames per second timeline. This is called interlacing. If you were to watch this on a standard TV, you would never notice because they automatically de-interlace footage. However, if watching on a computer screen or progressive scan TV (most new HDTVs), then you will see the interlaced footage and it will look funky with every 2nd and 3rd frame having split images (horizontal lines).
To get the footage back to a true 24 frames per second, you can import it into Adobe After Effects and choose "Interpret Footage", then remove 3:2 pulldown. There are five different ways the frames can be split up depending on your edits so it takes some trial and error. For example, the frames can be ordered (1,2,3,4,5) (2,3,4,5,1) (3,4,5,1,2) (4,5,1,2,3) or (5,1,2,3,4). After testing each out, it is very easy to see which cleans up the shot. Posted with this blog is a LINK to my Viddler account with a video showing both shots. The first without the 3:2 pulldown and the second with the 3:2 pulldown. Due to Viddlers compression for uploading, the example is most visible in full screen.
I think that teaching a film class would be awesome! Personally, I just do not understand the film language though, I viewed your rap and found it quite entertaining but I did not notice the difference in the 2 shots, I think I just did not know what I was looking for. I did notice that one was a little blurry but I am not sure if that is what I was supposed to see :) You spoke about many video cameras being able to film in 24PF is there any particular type you would recommend? and how much does Adobe After Effects cost? does it measure up to Final Cut?
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