"Additionally, and to clarify, my mention of "step printing" was not to suggest 
that it was a form of fast-motion"

Hi TL, I did appreciate your lexical lag in earlier messages. My post script was 
more a response to Paul's post. My apologies - I should have clarified that. I 
would still like to comment on some of your ideas if you will indulge me.

"my understanding is that the intervalometer is a dial on the camera which 
allows for altering the frame rate, such that one can produce, for example, in-
camera time lapse"
For well over 20 years now motion picture film cameras have come with an on 
board variable frame rate of about 1 to 75. If you were after a continuous non-
standard frame rate ( there are five standard ones: 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, 30 
fps) then you simply set it and watch it - I would strongly advise against 
leaving it. You need a sync box if you want to change speed during a shot. 
Given the prohibitive costs of buying or hiring motion picture film cameras I 
imagine most producers would insist upon the use of a stills camera for 
timelapse of any considerable duration... it would (to my mind) be kind of like 
hiring a ferrari for a driving lesson - long timelapse is not really what motion 
picture camera technology was designed for.
"It's used to capture things like watching the clouds race across the sky, the 
sun set, a flower bloom, etc. "
No, not really. The camera can be set to do this easily and efficiently.

"part of my practice involves doing these sorts of things MANUALLY on an 
optical printer or through rear projection using an analyst projector."
Wow. That's hardcore. I guess you don't want to take it to a lab or put it 
through a digital process for artistic or economic reasons.
"I would suggest that this is far more difficult to do in-camera than in post, 
especially if one wishes to do it somewhat seemlessly (without a cut), simply 
because of issues around exposure"
Not really. If you are working with reliable equipment and people the camera is 
accurate to one hundredth of a second with its variability. What will be visible 
is the increase/decrease in grain depending on the speed of the stock you are 
using. Grain filters in telecine chains and digital processes are pretty good at 
cleaning this up.

"I have shot in fast motion at times when there just wasn't enough light, and 
then reshot the footage in slow motion during post when the conditions were 
controllable."
That is pretty out there! I would always consider shooting in low light at 
normal speed and then pushing the film at the lab (have them deliberately 
underate the speed of the film in its development to get more latitude out of 
the stock) and suffer the grain. I would only consider your path as an 
intended creative aesthetic preference. If there is simply not enough available 
light at that time then I would come back when there was or when I was able 
to supplement it. Once upon a time I shot a twenty minute short film entirely 
at 3fps then had it transferred at 24fps but only because it was essential that 
the visuals had a sense of there being a lot left unsaid, undone, left out - so 
it was very much a part of the narrative.

"There's a scene in Cassavete's "Shadows" (1959) that takes place in a train 
station...there wasn't enough light to shoot the two men, and no time to set 
up lights in a train station stairwell where there's no permission to shoot, 
people coming and going, etc., so the scene is shot in fast motion -- not as 
comic relief, I would suggest, but simply because it would have been 
technically impossible in terms of exposure to get a decent image otherwise."
I know the scene. I am anything but an expert on Cassavetes but to me it is 
comic as from memory the soundtrack goes decidedly Laurel-and-Hardy-esque 
for the running sequence. The fact that the film contains a number of other 
shots in the same location at the same time with the same lighting conditions 
and are at normal speed suggests that this was an improvised creative choice. 
There are lots of camera shadows on the actors in "Shadows"- a joke I 
remember we all giggled about in film school - attesting to the presence of 
travelling lights on location - particularly the night time station scenes 
towards the end of the film. So he did often use lights.

Many thanks for sharing your thoughts, TL, and I look forward to reading more.

brooke

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