Stop Shooting In Slow Motion

Capturing footage at higher frame rates and playing them back at a slower 24 or 25 frames per second is a really useful filmmaking tool for heightening the emotion or tension in a shot. Actions that would usually happen in the blink of an eye can be extended out for the audience to not only see what’s happening but also feel the moment that it happens. Slow motion shots are the perfect way to tap into your audience’s suspension of disbelief and captivate their attention. But only if you use it right!

There is no shortage of tutorials on YouTube teaching you how to ‘FILM EPIC SLOW MOTION BROLL’ or ‘Shoot CINEMATIC slow motion like a PRO’, and chances are you’ve probably watched and learned from them too! In fact, they’re really great resources to learn how to accomplish the technique! The problem is that most of these tutorials end it there. They don’t take the next step and tell you the why or the when you should be using slow-mo footage.
If you’ve read any of my other articles you might have noticed that I have brought this up before, but knowing why you should be using a technique or a tool is often more important than knowing how to do it.
As a result of this readily available information, and with so many aspiring filmmakers all too eager to learn the techniques and put it into practice, there has been an explosion of short films, travel videos and even wedding films that are using an excessive amount of slow-mo footage. However, as cool as slow-mo shots look they have a pretty specific purpose when making a film or video.

So why should you not be shooting slow motion footage? By the very nature of slowing down a shot, you are signalling to your audience that this is something important and that they should be giving it their full attention. It’s kind of the video equivalent to changing the tone of your voice, writing in all caps, or sticking a bright neon sign on a shop window. You are trying to draw people’s attention to something in particular.
In traditional big-budget TV and filmmaking you will notice that slow motion shots are sparingly used, if even at all, through a movie or series. You might see it being used to signal the first time a character meets a love interest, during a fight scene to really draw attention to the impact of a hit, or maybe even as a hero has a near-death experience. All of these moments are times when the people creating the film want the audience to be right on the edge of their seats, drawn further and further into the story of the world they’re creating. The slow-mo shots always have some kind of significance or meaning attached to them.

Think of any video you’ve seen recently that used slow-mo footage. Now think about the shot that stuck with you from it. I’d take a guess and say that the reason it’s resonated with you is that it drew your attention to a moment of heightened emotion or added a bit of visual flair to an otherwise average shot.

And that’s where I think that most new filmmakers get hung up on shooting and editing everything in slow-mo. The slowed footage is making them feel like their footage is better than it actually is. When it’s converted to a lower framerate while editing it is taking their ‘average’ shot and creating the illusion that it is somehow better than it was before.
Truth be told, I’ve been guilty of this in the past too. Recording at 50fps and playing it back at 25fps somehow made my bad footage feel more professional. In the earliest videos I made, the majority of my footage was playing back in slow-mo making me believe that my videos were great! Unfortunately, all I did was make my bad shots drag on for much longer than they should have…

All of this is to say that it is very easy to fall into the trap of using high framerate footage as a crutch for poor filmmaking. You should be putting your effort into your lighting, composition and storytelling before you even consider filming a shot in slow motion. Know and understand what utilising slow-mo footage will do to the narrative you’re telling before you make the decision to use it.

How then, are you supposed to figure out when is the right moment to capture slow motion footage? Really it will depend on your project, the story you’re trying to tell and the emotions you want to try and evoke in your audience.
Take travel films and vlogs on YouTube for instance. I’ve found these to be by far the worst offenders when it comes to using too much slow-mo footage, so it makes sense to draw the comparison here. Dragging out shot after shot in slow motion, each one telling the viewers that it is something ‘important’ to look at without delivering anything of real visual or emotional value, only serves to distract the viewer and draw their attention away from the video. Instead, the creators would do their work much more justice to use the slow-mo shots sparingly and at moments that they want to emphasise.
For a travel filmmaker who is making a film about hiking up a mountain, this could mean only using slow motion footage once they reach the summit at sunrise, or using it to accentuate a moment of connection with a local who opened their home to them for the night. Making these conscious decisions of when and when not to use slow motion footage will only serve to make you a better filmmaker.