Your Guide To High Speed

Part 2: Frame Rate

Summary: In Part 2 of our series on high speed videography, we cover how to pick a frame rate, since the speed greatly depends on what you are filming and how it is going to be used. Next we go through a huge list of examples–including ones with speed ramping–and why they were shot at certain frame rates. We also touch on how resolution affects frame rate.

Length: 6:27 minutes

How To Cinematically Light A Corporate Video (Cinematic Lighting Lesson 20)
How To Light Quickly (Cinematic Lighting Lesson 19)
Your Guide To High Speed, Part 6: Five Tips For A Successful Shoot
Your Guide To High Speed, Part 5: Lighting Six High Speed Sets
Your Guide To High Speed, Part 4: Common Lighting Problems
Your Guide To High Speed, Part 3: Camera Operation & Workflow
Your Guide To High Speed, Part 2: Frame Rate
Your Guide To High Speed, Part 1: Introduction
Lighting For Extreme Frame Rates (Cinematic Lighting Lesson 21)
6 replies
    • Tim
      Tim says:

      Hi Frank,

      The flower burst at 4:09 minutes was dipped in liquid nitrogen, then shot with a bullet to make it appear to explode. The two flowers colliding at 4:15 minutes also were frozen with liquid nitrogen.

      [Thanks for the accolades! 🙂 ]

    • Tim
      Tim says:

      High frame rates normally involve a special camera that can capture distinct frames at 1000 frames per second or more. Changing the speed and duration in non-linear editors like Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro just changes how long those distinct images are shown. For example, a 24 frame per second video clip can be made to last twice as long, but it will be very jerky. If instead the clip was filmed at 48 frames per second then slowed down half, the result would be played at 24 frames per second and not be jerky at all.

  1. Ash
    Ash says:

    Hello Tim. Hope you’re keeping well. It has been a relief to come across this tutorial video on flickering problem while shooting high speed, esp. your diagram detailing and explanation of using 5K, hence, thanks a lot. However, I need to ask you if there is a formula for the following passage? –
    ‘When filming at 300 frames per second, each second you record is going to take roughly 12 seconds to playback at 24 frames per second. So a 10 second event, will take about 2 minutes to view’.

    • Tim
      Tim says:

      Hello Ash, I’m glad our high speed video series has benefited you! Here is the math for calculating how long it takes to actually watch a video shot in high speed:
      300 fps x 1 sec = 300 frames; to play back at 24 fps would take 12 sec to view. MATH: 300 frames / 24 fps = 12.5 seconds.
      300 fps x 10 sec = 3000 frames; to play back at 24 fps would take 2 minutes to view. MATH: 3000 frames / 24 fps = 125 seconds = 2 minutes 5 seconds.

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.