[EnVoy]

Hey all,

My video camera has a Interval Recording (sudo time lapse) function, but can't record only one frame as I would like. The minimum it will record is one second at a given interval. As a result, when I do a long time lapse shot, I end up with many, many, many sets of 1 second video over the time span of the shot. In FCP, I have to go and delete every frame except 1 in a given 1 second interval. The remaining frame from each interval is stacked up against each other, and a true time lapse starts to emerge.

Can anyone tell me a way to have FCP delete these frame automatically? A function that deletes every 28 frames, skips one, deletes 28, skips one, etc....


TIA....

[Steve SpotOn]

Not sure you can in FCP.

Now if you were back at square one you could use a specific timelapse program such as the one below to record straight to a QT movie (takes picture from your camera via the firewire and records direct to your computer hard drive a single frame at whatever interval you require).

http://www.bensoftware.com/btv.html

Steve

[dlefebvre]

It's probably not the best solution but maybe it's worth a try. You could accelerate the clips. Unless you get a single clip made of many 1 second shots, edit all your 1 second clips to your liking. Create a new sequence and drag your edited sequence in so it become a single nested element (This won't be necessary you have a signle clip made of many 1 second shots to begin with. Then change the speed of the clip to about 3000%, (Simple math: 1 sec =100%, then to make 1 second last 1 frame you multiply 30 frames X 100% = 3000%). For different results, try with the Frame Blending On or Off. The frame blending on seting should give a blurry trail feeling, but it my be interesting.

I hope it works.

[brianb]

The other thing you could do is batch capture all of the clips and only set the batch to 1 frame per capture and then assemble all of the clips on the timeline. Granted it would be a bit of a hassle and probbaly take more time than you want.

[EnVoy]

Hmmmm, looks like the batch capture function might be the only way, kind of a pain though. I don't have a computer with me when shooting, so cant use the btv app, although it looks nice. Accelerating the clips wont give the desired effect, but I like the frame blending idea.

Thanks for all the input.....

[dlefebvre]

When you accelerate a clip, frames are dropped. If a clip is accelerated to 200%, it will drop one out of two frames to maintain the 30 frames per second video frame rate. A 2 seconds clip will become a 1 second clip with 30 frames. Frame blending will blend previous and next frames to create a more fluid result, but without frame blending you should have clean frames. So if you accelerate a clip at 3000% it should drop 29 frames per seconds to maintain the 30 frames per second video frame rate. You should give it a try, it shouldn't take that long and maybe it works.

[EnVoy]

dlefebvre: You are right. I accelerated the clip and it loks almost ecactly the same as my single frame technique. Thanks for the tip, this will save me loads of time

[dlefebvre]

Glad I could help. Too bad I usually get these time saving ideas right after I spent too many hours doing it the wrong way.