Any videographer’s toolkit should include the ability to shoot in slow motion. Here’s everything you need to know about if you want to slow down a video, including tips on how to capture and edit them.
What kind of targets are you aiming for? Events and weddings, commercial work, goods, music videos, and your creative endeavors: what do you do? The right slow-motion movie can do wonders for just about everything. But if you get it incorrect, you’ll be made aware of it.
For the most part, it’s not difficult at all. All you need is a basic knowledge of video capture and playback speed, a few shooting techniques, and a basic comprehension of video editing. All of that, as well as more information, can be found right here that can assist you in your endeavor to slow down a video that grasps your audience’s attention instantly.
Table of Contents
So, How Does Slo-mo Video Work?
It’s okay to skip this part if all you need are some pointers on how to film and edit better. If not, make sure you stay around for the rest of the important information.
Video played again at a slower frame rate than when it was recorded is known as slow-motion or slow-mo. The problem is that this won’t work with any video — or it won’t work very well. Ensure that you capture at a fast enough frame rate.
There are cameras that can shoot up to 120 frames per second, but even if you’re using a more modern DSLR or mirrorless camera, 60 frames per second are enough to slow things down. 24 or 30 frames per second are the norm for video playback.
To illustrate, let’s take 120 Hz and 24 frames per second as an example since the arithmetic is simple. For example, if you capture 120 frames per second and then playback that video at 24 frames per second, your film will play in 5 seconds since 120/24 = 5. This video has been sped up five times.
The connection between capture and playback speeds may be applied everywhere, even if the exact numbers change. It’s that easy.
Things to Keep in Mind when Creating a Slo-mo Video
There’s more to it than merely setting your camera to 120p and expecting decent results if you aim to slow down a video. Fortunately, there are a few crucial shooting tactics that will get you back on track.
It’s crucial to keep in mind that greater frame rates may have some drawbacks. Your camera may crop the image and capture only a portion of the sensor, or it may restrict you to a lesser resolution than its standard video capabilities.
If you’re in a PAL color profile location, which includes most of the world outside of the United States, you might be able to get some extra frames out of your camera by converting to NTSC. You’re unlikely to notice a difference if you’re editing and viewing on a computer rather than a television. Let’s get to the tips now that that’s out of the way.
The 180-degree shutter angle guideline is the first and most significant tip we have for you. This one may be obvious if you’ve worked with regular video before, but it’s easy to ignore while switching between settings.
Remember to keep your shutter speed at around twice your frame rate, exactly like you would when shooting 24 or 30p. Of course, this rule is merely a suggestion; you are free to explore, but it is worth remembering. Many people find that doubling the shutter speed delivers good results.
Depending on your frame rate, you’ll almost certainly need a lot of light and a fast shutter speed. Our second piece of advice is to keep in mind that some light sources will flicker when captured in slow motion if you’re shooting under artificial light.
Adjusting your frame rate and shutter speed to reduce or remove the flickering effect, which varies by country, may assist, but it’s preferable to get some test photographs before committing to a shoot or just shoot with video lighting from the start.
Our third point centers on mobility. It’s tempting to emulate your regular camera actions if you’re new to slow-motion video; bear in mind that the playback will be 5 times slower once you decide to slow down a video.
As a result, a traditional pan will appear to be slow. To put it another way, don’t be afraid to move around a lot with your camera. Anything moving in your shot should be moving at a decent speed.
The aesthetics have previously been discussed, but what about the sound? You can speed up an audio clip to match the speed of the video, but the result may sound strange and twisted. Your camera could not even record audio when filming at a high frame rate.
To get the best results, in any case, you’ll almost certainly need to use some post-production effects. But don’t worry, there’s an entire library of stock sounds developed just for this purpose.
Finally, but certainly not least, employ slow-motion sparingly. It has its time and place, and when used excessively, it loses its power. Similarly, when shooting, you should be aware of what will be played back in slow motion and what will not; don’t just shoot everything in 120p just in case you want to slow it down later.
If a special effect is overdone, the purpose is gone. Calculate the best times to use slow motion and slow down a video. You can get away with using many slow-motion sequences in product demonstrations, for example.
A highly creative or conceptual work, on the other hand, is likely to be used just once. When it comes to slowing down the action in sports, the referees have a lot of leeways. Try removing your camera off the tripod if you’re recording slo-mo instead of regular footage. Higher frame rates will be no problem to handle because of the flexibility.
Wrapping Up
So summing it up, here are two key takeaways that you should know regarding how to slow down a video. To begin, include slow-motion segments in your story, but don’t make the entire video slow-motion.
Regardless of how much you enjoy this effect, using too much of it may not be enough to hold your readers’ interest. Second, remember that slowing down a video has an impact on the audio as well.
And while it may appear to be amusing or suitable at times, it is almost always rubbish. That’s why you might wish to mute the original audio track and create an audio overlay instead. Slow-motion videos are said to go well with classical music.
