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Creating Slow Motion Effects in Post Production

Slow motion video is cool, there’s no doubting that. But slow motion cameras are often prohibitively expensive, even to rent.

High frame-rate cameras designed specifically for playing back images in slow motion, like the Phantom Flex camera featured below, can cost upwards of $150,000

So what’s a budding young cinematographer to do?

As it turns out, there are some neat ways to create the effect of slow motion footage in post production. Twixtor, a third party software pluggin for Adobe After Effects and Final Cut Pro, is one option; however, if you have a camera that shoots even 60 frames per second, you’ll be able to do a fair bit using included Final Cut Studio applications such as Motion and Cinema Tools.

As part of our on-going guide to DSLR cinematography, I’ll be making a couple of video tutorials on some of these techniques sometime in the coming weeks.

For now though, here’s a video I did last year with my friend Flavius (a true athlete) from the University of Waterloo’s parkour club. All of the slow motion effects demonstrated in this experimental video were made using footage from the Canon T2i, a DSLR camera retailing at about $600 (a far cry from $150,000).

Stay tuned!

Jon’s DSLR Video Guide – Part 6: Shutter Speed & FPS

Part 6 of an ongoing series of short tutorials covering the basics of shooting HD video with DSLR cameras.

Part 6 considers shutter speed and frames per second; how they differ, how they relate, and how to use them to get the amount of motion blur/sharpness you’re looking for.

Be sure to also check out:

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Lens Assembly
Part 3: On/off & Recording in Movie Mode
Part 4: Focal Length & Prime VS Zoom>
Part 5: Perspective

Federation of Students Voting Promo 2012 Edition

Last year we made a video for the University of Waterloo Federation of Students to promote the executive election. Our ‘actor’ is the Feds’ Clubs and Service Director, Dave McDougal. Dave received a crash course in acting last year and performed like a pro. Our video services were very well received and the campaign was a success.

Well, it’s that time of year again and we just wrapped up the new promo. This year we tried to make the shots a little more elaborate. Take a look at both videos and let us know what you think (please watch in full-screen).

Take a look at some behind the scenes footage. We’ll show you how Dave made his dry exit from the uWaterloo swimming pool.

Jon shooting video in Waterloo on the Glidecam.

Have a creative idea for a web video? Contact REAP Media and we’ll help you make it happen.

Jon’s DSLR Video Guide – Part 5: Perspective

Part 5 of an ongoing series of short tutorials covering the basics of shooting HD video with DSLR cameras.

Part 5 looks at perspective, and demonstrates how it can be used to get different shots without moving your subject or background.

Be sure to also check out:

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Lens Assembly
Part 3: On/off & Recording in Movie Mode
Part 4: Focal Length & Prime VS Zoom>

The new Mac is here!

We’ve upgraded our editing suite!

Our latest edition is a 27″ iMac running with an Intel 3.4GHz Quad-Core i7 processor, a 256GB internal solid state drive, a second internal 2TB serial ATA drive, 2GB of dedicated GDDR5 video memory, 16 GB of random access memory, and a second cinema display unit.

Best of all, we’ve set up a Pegasus 12TB R6 RAID System with a Thunderbolt connection.

So far everything runs like a dream!