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Editing a strobe light scene

rianlemon

rianlemon

Hi everyone, I'm very shortly going to begin shooting my zero budget feature length and I'm worried about a certain party scene that involves strobe lights. I'll be shooting on DSLR and the strobe leaves a horrible artifact in the footage, I checked and apparently this happens for all DSLR's, the shutter can't keep up with the strobe. I don't have access to any other kind of camera, so I was wondering is a strobe light effect something I could edit post production? (while still looking reasonably good)

What I mean is, could I light the room in a certain way, but have the light continuously on (not strobing), and then edit the scene frame by frame, darkening the majority of the frames? Would this look like an actual strobe or would it just look like I've edited it frame by frame? Thanks for your time
 
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You could I suppose depending on how good your crew is. You can do anything within their skill set so long as they don't mind donating their time.

I suggest that you test what you're trying to do and see if you can generate the effect you want before you waste everyones time shooting something that could be useless.

Or.... you could rewrite the scene to something you can do.
 
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I'm tempted to say it won't look anything like an actual strobe, but the best way to know is to test and see how you go.

Is it necessary for the party to have a strobe light..? Or, perhaps consider renting a different camera for the party scenes if it's really an imperative.
 
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Test it! I think you could pull it off, especially if it's just supposed to be one strobe from one direction and no other lights. Just play with how many frames you leave out, does the black layer fade on and off a half frame or is it a hard cut, does it go 100% black or only like 90%, stuff like that.
 
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I can't understand why DSLR would have a problem and not another camera if it's shutter speed related.

The other cameras shoot too at 24fps and respect also the 180° rule.
 
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TheArtist said:
I can't understand why DSLR would have a problem and not another camera if it's shutter speed related.

The other cameras shoot too at 24fps and respect also the 180° rule.
Click to expand...

You can read more about it here, I dont think I fully understood the problem but it seems something recurrent among all dslr cameras
 
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Is there a specific reason you need strobe light in the scene, a specific effect or look?

If you were to try and do it in post, I might try experimenting with raising the shutter speed of your camera, to give that strobing effect. Then you could try and add the light effect to match. Raising the shutter speed gives your footage that stuttery motion, similar to the effects of a strobe light. If thst is the effect you are trying to achieve. Or is there another reason you need the light?
 
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Jeff Troiano said:
Is there a specific reason you need strobe light in the scene, a specific effect or look?

If you were to try and do it in post, I might try experimenting with raising the shutter speed of your camera, to give that strobing effect. Then you could try and add the light effect to match. Raising the shutter speed gives your footage that stuttery motion, similar to the effects of a strobe light. If thst is the effect you are trying to achieve. Or is there another reason you need the light?
Click to expand...

Yeah the reason I needed the strobe was for a party scene, with people dancing and the strobe adding to the whole party effect, but also in the scene the main character is quite nervous and paranoid, and I think I the strobe adds to that anxiety
 
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Lucky Hardwood said:
Personally, I would nix the strobe and use a lighted disco ball head or an LED Moon Flower unit to get the "party vibe" without the rolling shutter artifacts.

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Elimina...Multicolor-Effect-Light-104612171-i1155711.gc
http://www.guitarcenter.com/Chauvet-LX5-LED-Moonflower-Effect-Light-104810890-i1380890.gc
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Yeah but don't things like the moon flower unit destroy the dslr? I dunno, I saw a video of some guy at a concert and a laser kinda similar to that flashed on the camera and there was a massive permanent black line, hold on I'll get it for you...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0TgaGePhJA
 
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Lasers will fry the sensor in almost any camera. Never point a laser directly into the lens of any camera unless you are trying to damage it. LEDs are much less powerful. If you shine a powerful LED directly into the lens of a camera, the light intensity can overload the sensor, causing it to white out (usually only temporarily). I would block the scene to prevent the light source from being in the camera's view. That will prevent any direct into sensor light from the source. Look up the inverse square law of light falloff to calculate how much the intensity of the light is reduced by the distance from source and reflection.
 
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I don't see why it can't be done. Though, I wouldn't just darken frames, I'd make them completely black.

In the real world, if you have only one source of light, and that light is a strobe light, when the light is out, it's completely black. So, to recreate that effect, you simply need to use just one source of light, your pretend strobe light. In editing, just black out a bunch of frames.

This test-edit took me no more than a couple minutes to put together. In this, I've got three frames of black for every one frame of light. You can play around with the timing. In this video, it doesn't quite look right, because I've got a million sources of light, but I imagine if I only had one, it would look legit.

https://vimeo.com/59542485
PW: indietalk

Test it! :)
 
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Lucky Hardwood said:
Lasers will fry the sensor in almost any camera. Never point a laser directly into the lens of any camera unless you are trying to damage it. LEDs are much less powerful. If you shine a powerful LED directly into the lens of a camera, the light intensity can overload the sensor, causing it to white out (usually only temporarily). I would block the scene to prevent the light source from being in the camera's view. That will prevent any direct into sensor light from the source. Look up the inverse square law of light falloff to calculate how much the intensity of the light is reduced by the distance from source and reflection.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the heads up, I had some idea but wasn't sure if it was all lasers or just extremely powerful ones like the one in that concert
 
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Cracker Funk said:
I don't see why it can't be done. Though, I wouldn't just darken frames, I'd make them completely black.

In the real world, if you have only one source of light, and that light is a strobe light, when the light is out, it's completely black. So, to recreate that effect, you simply need to use just one source of light, your pretend strobe light. In editing, just black out a bunch of frames.

This test-edit took me no more than a couple minutes to put together. In this, I've got three frames of black for every one frame of light. You can play around with the timing. In this video, it doesn't quite look right, because I've got a million sources of light, but I imagine if I only had one, it would look legit.

https://vimeo.com/59542485
PW: indietalk

Test it! :)
Click to expand...

Wow cool, I did a similar edit to test it and I was quite happy with the result. I intend to use an LED light in one corner of the room , with some glycerin smoke on the dance floor. In fact I think it might look a bit better editing it this way. At least I'd have more control in post production with how frequent I want the strobe. Thanks for the help everyone!
 
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