Slow Motion Investigation

Slow Motion Investigation

Slow Motion is the slowing of time in a film, it was invented in the early 20th century by August Musger an Austrian priest. A term for creating slow motion is Overcranking which refers back to old fashion hand cranked cameras and how if early cinematographers wanted to produce slow motion, they would have to crank the camera faster to increase the fps.

The style is best achieved by filming at a higher fps or Frames per Second. By having more frames when you edit the footage and slow it down you are given a clean, smooth, slow motion video. It can also be created by taking normal footage and slowing it down but the results can be choppy based on how much you slow it down. Film is created by taking pictures, lining them up, and playing them at a fast speed. A clip with low fps that is slowed down has wholes in the footage because a picture wasn't recorded at that exact moment so it must jump to the next. When increasing fps those gaps are filled because more pictures are taken in the same span of time. The higher the fps setting the slower you can edit a video with still getting a clean result. The one disadvantage of shooting in higher fps is that it takes up a lot more storage so you might need multiple SD cards when you go out shooting.

Slow motion itself is used to create drama in a film and to stress a moment in time. This can be a wide receiver catching a pass and scoring the game winning touch down, or the intimate moment between friends when they forget everything wrong with the world and just live in a moment and enjoy life. Another use is to illustrate Romance but I am not interested in that kind of slow motion for my films at the moment. I mostly wan to focus on everyday things that everyday people see, and not glorify sex and women and all that shenanigans.

An idea I have for my Concentration piece is to crest a documentary styled film about what it's like to live with ADD. I was to include flash backs in this film that occur in slow motion and emphasize the effect ADD can have on a persons social and cognitive abilities. I feel by really slowing down facial expressions and actions I'd be able to show viewers who do not necessarily know what it's like to live with ADD micro expressions of slow thoughts, distraction, and other symptoms of the disability.

https://youtu.be/JtNqRUwNmgc

I am committed to play soccer at university of Tennessee and I found this video and it's a similar style of what I want to do. In the video they are informing viewers of the new god technology that tracks how far players run, their vitals, and how hard a kid works. But instead of just a boring interview they edited in segments of practice and games. And slow motion video and cuts that all help to emphasize the need for this technology. By slowing down and seeing how serious and hard these girls work, the need for the technology become greater and it backs the creators claim. This is how I want to use slow motion in my project. I want to be able to emphasize the importance to acknowledge and accept people with ADD and see it as an illness and not an issue.