ONCE Advertising Cinematography Research | Advertising Cinematography Research 08/10

Research article and work analysis. This article separates documented production facts, technical explanations in official sources, our interpretation, and an unperformed test proposal. It does not treat extracted webpage text as a full-film viewing record or turn aesthetic judgment into sales attribution.

When a hockey puck strikes a transparent barrier, real-time viewing may preserve only the outcome: impact. High-speed capture can separate the approach, contact, panel deformation, ice spray and loss of balance into a causal sequence. But if every droplet in a beverage pour becomes as sharp as a glass bead, the liquid may also appear light, brittle and strangely lacking viscosity. Slow motion does not merely make an event longer. It changes how much process is available, how much motion each frame accumulates, how heavy the object appears, and whether technical spectacle overtakes the product.

Our argument is that commercial motion is written by four clocks: capture frame rate determines temporal sampling density; shutter or exposure duration determines how much movement each sample contains; the real speed and trajectory of the action determine physical behavior; playback speed determines how much viewer time those samples occupy. Slow motion is a relationship among these clocks, not one number in a camera menu. The production should first decide which physical character the viewer needs to read before choosing 120 fps, 1,500 fps, or no high-speed capture at all.

Method and scope: begin with disclosed conditions

This analysis uses four groups of verifiable material. The first is ARRI's 2017 interview about a corporate promotional film for hockey pucks and protective equipment. Gaffer Andy Stein disclosed capture at up to 1,500 fps, the resulting demand for greater lighting output, and the use of high-speed ballasts to avoid flicker. The second is ARRI's 2025 interview about Swatch x Tate Gallery's Where Will Art Take You. Cinematographer Ben Cotgrove disclosed the use of an ALEXA 35 at up to 120 fps for high-speed product and action moments, alongside tracking vehicles, Steadicam, dolly and track, and a skaterscope mirror.

The third source is RED's official technical account of shutter angle, used to distinguish frame rate, exposure duration and motion blur. The fourth group comprises the public abstracts of two Journal of Marketing Research articles: Yunlu Yin, Jayson S. Jia and Wanyi Zheng on slow motion and inferred human intention; and SungJin Jung and David Dubois on slow motion, immersion and perceived luxuriousness.

We read the accessible source pages and their visible text. We did not obtain controllable full-film files of the two commercial projects. We therefore do not claim frame-by-frame viewing or infer undisclosed shutter angles, lenses, viewpoints, exposure values or final retiming curves. Our contribution is to place disclosed production conditions inside one decision model, then ask when high speed reveals a product and when it mainly displays high speed.

Clock one: capture frame rate only determines how many temporal samples exist

Frame rate is the number of discrete images recorded per second. If footage captured at 120 fps is played with every captured frame preserved on a 24 fps timeline, it occupies five times the duration of the real action. Footage captured at 1,500 fps and played at 25 fps can theoretically occupy sixty times the real duration. In the simplest case:

Playback duration multiplier = capture frame rate / playback frame rate

This relationship stops being direct as soon as the post-production method changes. Editing can discard frames, a speed ramp can vary continuously, a platform can re-encode the file, and software can synthesize intermediate frames. “120 fps looks cinematic” is therefore an incomplete statement. The same capture can play in real time, at one-fifth speed, through a variable ramp, or for only a fraction of a second.

Dense sampling is valuable because it preserves real intermediate states for the edit. The faster the rupture, collision, droplet separation, fabric recoil or mechanism, the more samples may be needed to make the order of the event legible. More samples do not create causality by themselves. If the action path is unclear, the trigger is unrepeatable, or spray obscures the product, a higher frame rate simply prolongs confusion.

Clock two: the shutter makes each frame either a slice or a trace

RED's official guide defines shutter angle as a way to describe exposure duration relative to frame rate. A useful approximation is:

Exposure duration = shutter angle / (360 x capture frame rate)

At 24 fps and 180 degrees, exposure is approximately 1/48 second. At 120 fps with the same angle, it is approximately 1/240 second. Raising frame rate by five while holding the angle constant reduces the light collected in each frame to one fifth. The camera is not merely taking more pictures; each picture receives less light. In ARRI's hockey case, the gaffer explicitly describes needing more output as the director increased frame rate and using high-speed ballasts to address flicker. That is a production consequence of temporal sampling, not a mysterious look contained in a camera model.

A smaller shutter angle creates a shorter exposure window and usually clearer moving edges. It also enlarges the gap between exposure windows, which can make playback feel fragmented, tense or granular. A larger angle records a longer part of the trajectory and can produce smoother flow, but it may smear a label, contour, droplet edge or mechanical contact point. RED likewise explains that small angles can preserve crisp detail in fast action, while larger angles can feel softer and more fluid. It does not prescribe a universal number because subject speed, direction, image scale and creative intent all matter.

This is where the product acquires character. Defined particles, frozen powder and isolated fragments can suggest analysis, brittleness or explosive energy. Continuous trails can suggest viscosity, mass or flexibility. Neither is inherently premium. The important question is not how much detail survives, but whether the surviving detail is what the product actually needs to demonstrate.

Clock three: physical action determines forces that post-production cannot rewrite

Slowing the file does not change the collision that occurred on set. Puck velocity, liquid viscosity, gravity, elastic recoil and the performer's hand force belong to the clock of physical action. Cinematography can redistribute viewing time; it cannot retroactively turn an incorrect force relationship into a truthful material behavior.

That is why product action should be designed as a path before frame rate is discussed. Does the shot need to reveal the approach to impact, the instant of contact, or the deformation after contact? Is a liquid shot about splash height, wall cling or the mass of the pour? Does a mechanism need to communicate precision, speed or safety? Each answer changes the trigger point, prop condition, motion direction, background contrast and sampling requirement.

When a technical discussion begins with “How many frames per second can we get?”, the action often collapses into making something explode, fall or cross the image. A stronger cinematographic thesis works in reverse. First write the physical sentence the product must complete, such as “the flexible guard distributes a fast impact through visible deformation.” Then decide how many temporal samples are required to make that sentence readable.

Clock four: playback determines how long the viewer is asked to stay

The same high-speed recording can complete its information in one second or become a ten-second spectacle. Playback duration is not a technical afterthought; it is rhetoric. It determines whether the viewer identifies an instant, understands a causal chain, or dwells in texture. Too little slow motion and the event remains unreadable. Too much and the product meaning finishes before the shot does, leaving only admiration for technique.

The disclosed production account for Swatch x Tate Gallery's Where Will Art Take You provides a useful scale. Cotgrove says the ALEXA 35's capacity up to 120 fps covered high-speed product and action moments. The same project used tracking vehicles, Steadicam, dolly and track, and a skaterscope mirror in a campaign built around movement through the city. High speed did not make the entire commercial slow. It joined a larger motion grammar: selected moments could expand while other passages retained forward propulsion. The value of 120 fps lay in its place inside that grammar, not the number alone.

The hockey promotional film used up to 1,500 fps for a different task: turning an extremely brief impact into visible evidence of force and protection. The two figures are not levels of prestige. The former needed elasticity inside a city rhythm; the latter needed enough intermediate states to unfold impact. Copying a 1,500 fps mode of attention into a film about a watch, skateboard and city movement could remove its propulsion. Using only 120 fps for a very fast barrier deformation might fail to preserve enough stages. Frame rate follows event duration and the process that must be understood, not numerical spectacle in a budget.

Two studies point in different directions, which is precisely the warning

Jung and Dubois report 12 experiments with a combined sample of 27,227 participants. Their abstract says that, under specified conditions, ads showing products in slow motion increased immersion, expected hedonic value and perceived luxuriousness; the effect weakened when blur or buffering disrupted the immersive experience. This is not proof that slow motion universally makes products premium. The research identifies product categories, stimulus designs, immersion conditions and audience predispositions that limit the inference.

Yin, Jia and Zheng report seven studies in which slow motion depicting people enjoying products could backfire. Prolonged behavior was more likely to appear intentional and extrinsically motivated, reducing product appeal; the pattern changed under conditions including nonhuman influence agents. The two research programs are not truly contradictory. They show that viewers do not respond to an abstract property called slowness. They respond to the object and causality being slowed. Product motion can offer immersion and texture, while prolonged human performance can amplify the question, “Why is this person acting that way?”

For cinematography, the useful move is to separate three shot functions: revealing a product's physical process, extending a person's intention, and producing sensory dwell for its own sake. They may share a frame rate while carrying different interpretive risks. Without a study on the actual new ad and its audience, neither paper can be converted into a sales forecast.

When technical spectacle steals the product

A simple “remove the technique” test helps. If returning the scene toward real-time playback leaves the product proposition intact but makes the image less spectacular, high speed may be functioning primarily as style. If the relevant physical process disappears at real speed and that process is the brand claim, high speed is carrying evidence.

A stricter question is what the viewer remembers: what the product changed, or that the filmmakers used a high-speed camera. Powder, droplets, sparks and fragmentation become commercial clichés because they can make almost any object look dramatic. If replacing the package with another brand leaves the shot fully intact, the motion is closer to generic visual inventory. A product-specific high-speed shot contains a relationship in material, force, trajectory or rhythm that cannot be replaced without changing the claim.

This also extends the previous installment in this series on bodies and product relations. Slow motion applied to a person needs particular scrutiny: is the body revealing product experience, or merely magnifying evidence of performance? See People Are Not Product Props.

A proposed minimum test: compare information before preference

The following is an unperformed pre-production test. It is not presented as an experiment with results. Choose one repeatable product action: drop a flexible object from a fixed height, pour liquid at a controlled flow rate, or move a mechanism with motion control. Fix camera position, lens, framing, background, light direction, product condition and delivery frame rate. Record three versions:

  1. 24 fps at 180 degrees as a near-real-time baseline;
  2. 120 fps at 180 degrees, played at 24 fps;
  3. 120 fps at a smaller shutter angle, played at 24 fps, with light adjusted to keep exposure as comparable as practical.

Do not begin the review by asking which version looks more premium. Record four observations instead: when the product contour is easiest to identify; whether the path feels continuous; whether impact or flow carries the intended weight; and whether reviewers name the technique before the product causality. If repetition varies, if additional light changes surface reflection, or if the display adds motion artifacts, the test is contaminated and should be labeled as such rather than graded toward a preferred answer.

This test can expose visual trade-offs. It cannot prove memory, preference or purchase behavior. Decisions that depend on those outcomes require a separate audience study with comparable edits, sound, copy, placement and sample conditions.

Replace “How many frames?” with “Which causal interval must become visible?”

Useful high-speed production questions are more specific than camera capability:

  • How long does the event last, and which interval must the viewer understand?
  • Should the frame freeze the product edge, contact point or ejected material? Which blur is responsible for weight and continuity?
  • Can the action be repeated? Are lighting output and frequency stability sufficient? Will added light change the material response?
  • Is the slowed subject a product or a person? Does extension increase physical credibility or suspicion of performance?
  • At the end of the shot, is the brand proposition clearer than the method?

The four clocks are not another equipment checklist. They form a chain of responsibility: capture supplies samples, exposure shapes traces, real action supplies physics, and playback arranges attention. Together they make a product feel sharp, viscous, heavy, flexible, precise or fragile. When slow motion is doing its real work, viewers do not need to praise the camera. They understand something about the product that previously happened too quickly to see.

If your brand is developing a product film that depends on high-speed cinematography, motion control or multi-format delivery, ONCE can design a verifiable visual language from action tests through capture and edit. Explore our video production solutions.

Sources and observation limits

No third-party commercial frames are republished here. We do not claim access to private production records, unpublished client material or the full controllable film files. Observations are limited to the source material described above.

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