Getting good slow motion out of a 360 booth

Slow motion is the reason people book a 360 booth. It is also the part of the
clip that most often comes out flat, and when it does, the instinct is to go
looking for a setting to fix it.

There usually is not one. Three things decide whether a slow motion clip lands,
and all three happen before the arm starts moving.

1. Why does slow motion need so much light?

This is the one that surprises people, and it is the most common cause of
disappointing slow motion.

Recording for slow motion means capturing many more images every second, and
each of those images gets a shorter slice of time to collect light. Less light
per image means the camera has to amplify what it did get, and amplification is
where noise comes from. The result is grainy, smeary footage, in a room that
looked perfectly fine to you.

So the effect people book you for is the effect with the least margin for a
dark venue. A ramp that looks cinematic in a well lit room looks muddy in a dim
one, using the same phone and the same settings.

If your slow motion looks soft and you have been blaming the phone, start with
lighting instead. It is the cheapest fix
available and it makes more difference than any other change you can make.

2. Why does slow motion only reward movement?

This is obvious once said and almost never said.

Slowing down footage makes movement readable. It does nothing for stillness. A
guest standing still, smiling politely, slowed down, is an expensive still
photograph with a slight wobble in it.

The clips that work have something in them that was moving fast enough to be
worth stretching. Fabric, hair, a jacket opening, a drink raised, confetti,
a jump, a spin, a high five between two people. The action does not have to be
big. It has to be fast, because speed is the only thing slow motion has to
work with.

This is a briefing problem, not a camera problem. The single highest value
thing an operator does at a 360 booth is tell the guest what to do in the four
seconds before the arm moves. "Do something with your hands" outperforms
"just be natural" every time, and it costs you nothing.

Groups are easier than individuals here, because groups move on their own. A
solo guest usually needs a prop or a direction.

3. How does the effect decide where the slow part lands?

The nine built-in effects do not all slow the whole take down. Most of them put
the slow section in a particular place, and the moment has to be there when the
effect arrives at it.

3x Slow down with Boomerang and Hero Moment treat one part of the take as
the payoff. 1x to 3x switcheroo changes pace partway through. Rewind Reveal
and Warp Rewind play with direction as well as speed. Photo Finish,
Yo-yo and 360 Showcase each have their own shape again.

You do not need to memorise which does what. You need to know that they
differ, and to match the effect to the kind of guest in front of you. A group
doing something continuous suits a different effect from one person doing one
big movement. The effects tutorial
covers what each one does.

If none of them frame the moment where you want it, the app has a builder for
chaining your own sequence of plays, freezes and rewinds. That is covered in
build your own effect.

Why is the take as long as it is?

Worth knowing, because it explains a limit you will hit.

Slow motion spends recorded time faster than it plays it back. A few seconds of
real movement becomes considerably more than a few seconds on screen, which is
why the take length and the effects are tied together, and why stopping a take
early does not save you time so much as throw the clip away.

That has its own article:
why a 360 clip is ten seconds.

How do you diagnose bad slow motion?

If your slow motion is not working, it is almost always one of these three, in
this order.

Grainy, soft, muddy. Light. Not the phone, not the settings.

Technically fine but boring. Nothing was moving. Brief the guest.

Good moment, wrong place in the clip. Effect choice. Try another one, or
build a sequence that puts the slow part where your guests actually peak.

The short version

Light it properly, give the guest something to do, and pick an effect that puts
the slow part where the action is.

Everything people usually search for at this point is a specification. The
specification is not what is wrong with the clip. These three things are, and
all of them are free to fix.