24P Animation Question

I have created an animated film from stills in FCP, as a 24P Project. My ultimate hope was to output to film, but that may not happen for budgetary reasons.

The film is animated "on threes" that is, 3 frames for each image, "33333333" each second in 24P. Conversion to 30 FPS I believe adds frames to create the pattern "44434443" for each second. In most films, this is not noticeable. In mine, because of the nature of the animation, it creates a noticeably jerky rhythm.

When I look at the film on the computer in FCP, it looks good. When I output to a file and project digitally, I notice the jerkiness. Short of printing to film or re-editing the film to create a 30 FPS version, is there any way to avoid this?

I'm curious, why are you converting to 30fps at all? If you want an SD NTSC output (tape or DVD), the frame rate should be 29.97fps, interlaced. For web, you can stay at 24fps. For HD outputs, you should use 23.98fps.

Also, when you said you were at 24, did you mean true 24, or 23.98fps?


www.derekmok.com

When you go out to DVD you stay at 23.98 as well. And when you go to tape you get pulldown inserted in real time. There's really no reason to render 24p material to 29.97 in Final Cut.

> And when you go to tape you get pulldown inserted in real time. There's really no reason to
> render 24p material to 29.97 in Final Cut

Not always true. Not everybody has a capture card. But yeah, FCP is the last place you want to do frame-rate conversions.


www.derekmok.com

>Not always true. Not everybody has a capture card.

If you were going to tape, you would have a capture card, and most, if not all are able to add a pulldown.



www.strypesinpost.com

> If you were going to tape, you would have a capture card

Not if you were using FireWire.


www.derekmok.com

Dang. I didn't see that coming! My bad.



www.strypesinpost.com

Derek - Before creating the sequence, I selected "ProRez 422 1920 x 1080 24P" as the sequence setting in AV Settings. When I look under "sequence settings" it says the sequence is 1920 x 1080 23.97 1080i, which seems rather different. I just repeated that process and got the same result.

To show the film, I have been outputting a Quicktime file and running that file off a fast laptop to a video projector at film festivals. But as I say, the result looks subtly and rhythmically jerky, as if frames are being interpolated. The Quicktime file exhibiting this behavior is 1920 x 1080 H264 compressed 23.97.

24p is 23.98fps. You only edit in "true 24" (24fps) if you're working in film, or RED. If you want true 24fps, you need to go into Sequence Settings and change the frame rate manually. And that can only be done if the Sequence has no contents. Once a clip is edited in, the frame rate is fixed at whatever it was set to.

> To show the film, I have been outputting a Quicktime file and running that file off a fast laptop
> to a video projector at film festivals.

That doesn't tell us much. How big was the file? What was the bit rate? What was the storage medium for the file? If you set the bit rate to something insanely high, it will play back jerky. If you're trying to play the file from a USB flash drive or a data DVD, it will never play back smoothly, either.

You might want to consult some film/post-production professionals before you proceed. It appears to me as if you're trying to guess things out as you go, without the necessary background knowledge. You don't seem to know much about editing and finishing standards. We can only help you so much over the internet. Personally, I think you need an editor or a very experienced assistant editor/post-production supervisor.


www.derekmok.com

The file is 1.52 GB, playing at 15.35 mbits/s. I play it off the internal hard drive of a Mac. It plays just fine and smoothly on the screen of my 2.16 Ghz Imac. However when a festival played it back from the internal hard drive of a faster Mac, through a video projector, I got the interpolated look. It does not seem to be data choking up, which I experience with larger files, slower computers, or playing from external drives. So I thought it might have something to do with the file going through the video projector, about the workings of which I know little. Do all video projectors play 23.97 files as created and without any frame interpolation?

David,

Just a thought... Your problems could be associated with the lack of applied motion blur when you rendered your piece. You could do a quick test by applying a minimal slow motion effect and rendering out and testing it on a system where you previously had poor results.

Also, how where the stills compiled into one file? In FCP or in QuickTime Player? I have better luck compiling in QT and then importing into FCP.

-Russ

Russ,

I don't want motion blur; my animation depends on crisp cuts from one image to the next, every three frames. That's why dropped frames (if that is the problem) would be noticeable.

The film was edited in FCP. It's 14 minutes long, involves thousands of stills, uses FCP motion parameters and nesting and is intricately cut to music; I am unaware of any way to do that sort of work in QT.

David