Final Cut Pro Quick Tip #20
I love the Sony PD150. It is a great DV camera that has continued to be a favorite among video professionals. One of the features it touts is the ability to do Interval Recording. For many the thought of doing time-lapse shots brings to mind rapid sunrises, the opening of a flower, showing the life cycle of an object in mere seconds! But alas, the ability to do Interval Recording on most video cameras doesn’t even allow us to come close to capturing our masterpiece… unless we use Final Cut Pro.
Here is the main problem with Interval Recording – while film will allow you to capture one frame at a time, video cameras need some space to get up to speed (the time when the video heads and tape mechanism are moving at the optimal speed). When a camera is up to speed, it is impossible to record just one single frame of video. Instead, the camera will usually capture several frames at one time. Another advantage of a film camera is that you can set the duration of the interval from several seconds to even days if the need arises. Video usually has a preset interval duration.[an error occurred while processing this directive]For example, if I want to record a sunrise above some trees, my PD150 allows me to capture footage at intervals of 30 seconds, and 1, 5, or 10 minutes. It also allows me to adjust the record time to be either 15, 30, 45, or 60 frames of video. Depending on your application, you will probably want to set your camera to the lowest interval and record time possible. In order to record the morning sunrise, I set my camera to record at 30-second intervals and to record 15 frames of video during each recording burst.
The way Interval Recording works presents a problem when played back. Instead of a nice smooth motion, you end up with a jerky, stop motion effect that looks just awful.
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| Click image to view raw Interval Recording of sunrise |
Fortunately there is a solution to get your video to play at a more appropriate rate. The solution presents it self in a little bit of math, and your ability to remember what your recording rate was. Take the length of the ending footage and divide it by the number of frames you set for the camera recording burst. In the case of the above sunrise example, I had two minutes of footage total (120 seconds) that I then divided by the record burst rate (15 frames) that results in a duration of 8 seconds to get my time lapse to appear smooth once again.
Hint: If you forget what your record burst rate was, you can always park your timeline indicator at the beginning of your clip and then advance frame by frame until the image jumps. Counting the number of frames before the jump will give you your record burst rate.
So how do you get your 2-minute video down to 8 seconds? Use Final Cut Pro’s Fit to Fill feature.
In the Timeline, park your play head where you want to begin your edit. With the Timeline window selected, press the + key on the numeric keypad and then enter the number of seconds you wish your edit to be. In this case I typed +800 (8:00) for 8 seconds). By pressing the Enter Key, your play head will jump to this new location and you can set an Out Point.
Then from the Viewer Window, drag your clip to the Canvas Window and drop it on the Fit to Fill pop up. The result is a great time-lapse clip.
| By using the math equation you can get the full length Interval Clip to play at the proper rate. |
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