If you're going to 24P you have to shoot as for 24fps, but I guess you understand that. If that raises any questions, elaboration can be provided!

Yes, please elaborate. How do you shoot differently for 24p? I understand shooting for Film or Video (kind of), but I didn't know there was a technique for shooting 24p.
I hope other folk find this as interesting as I do.

Shooting for 24p and shooting for film are essentially the same thing. Slower pans, greater attention paid to movement/zooms/crane speed, etc. is critical. Otherwise, you'll see what appears as "strobing."
If I remember right, you've got a Z1? Shoot in CF 25, and move the camera a lot. Shoot cars from a perpendicular angle, pan fast and hard. You'll see many of the same challenges.
Also be aware that lighting is slightly different, because you're exposing differently for fewer frames.
John Skidgel has a lot of useful writing on the subject if you'd like to go deep.
Put it this way, IMO;
24p isn't for everyone, it's definitely not for shooters who like to shoot without thinking hard about the shot. It's not for high speed action, and definitely not for most sports. Acquisition in 24p can be gorgeous or hideous. It's all about the technique. It's more difficult, but for some projects can be more rewarding. If you want a film cadence at acquisition, it's a necessity.
That said, many folks are shooting 25p, 50i, or 60i, and get what to some, is a preferable final output, because they get much of the film-like cadence of 24p while starting with a higher temporal resolution.
My recommendation; Rent a 24p cam for a few days, and shoot, shoot, shoot. Shoot on sticks, shoot handheld, shoot shouldered, and read a bit on acquiring film before you start to shoot.
Barry Green's book on the DVX is a very good book on 24p acquisition, his DVD on the DVX is even better.

Spot has said it all, really. Camera movements have to be more carefully controlled because the eye is unhappy if there is too much difference between successive frames. Your mind will happily merge some things (eg. frame of car followed by frame of explosion=car exploding) but a pan that is tolerable at 60i will be utterly horrible at 24P. Of course motion blurring helps to smooth these things so there are no hard and fast rules for a particular situation. Panning speeds recommended in the American Cinematographers Handbook are 23 seconds for a 90 deg sweep for 35mm using a 50mm lens at 24fps 180 deg shutter, or 6 seconds for an object to traverse the FOV. Faster pans OK for higher framing rate; at 60fps the recommended rate is about 3 seconds. This is for panning a static scene -- following action is quite a different matter.
We've been watching 24P for a long time (cinema) with many fast action scenes (including sports) without problems, so we can get into a debate about using 24P for action. But generally you don't want action normal to the line of sight and will arrange fast movement more towards towards and away from the camera. A lot depends on what you want to show. Filming a boat race I had a child running along the beach cross my shot (not my intention!) and looking frame by frame he appeared blurred in 3 frames: portion on right, in centre and portion on left. Yet on viewing you see this kid run across the frame, but of course we're not watching him, we just "see" him cross when we're looking at other action.
I think people get away with a lot of horrible camera movements at 60i; they must because I see so many waving their DV cameras at arm's length. 24P demands great discipline in camera handling and direction, but that is a most useful skill under all circumstances.

And for a really stomach churning experience watch a few hours of typical home movies shot on 8mm at 18 fps.
Of course also all the advice regarding shooting 24fps holds pretty good for HDV even at 50/60i, you don't have to worry about motion artifacts so much but it's a good way to minimise compression artifacts.
Bob.

What camera will be used? Is it a *real* 24 P mode (Pana and newer Canon XL) or a *faked* one (Sony)?

"I think people get away with a lot of horrible camera movements at 60i; they must because I see so many waving their DV cameras at arm's length. 24P demands great discipline in camera handling and direction, but that is a most useful skill under all circumstances."

I couldn't possibly have said this better. I aso think not understanding this is the source of many people's frustration with 24p.

just for clarification, the Canon isn't "real 24p" either. It's called "24f" for a reason. It's just as faux as the Sony HDV camcorders are.
JVC and Panasonic are true 24p, while Sony and Canon are not.
Notice that the JVC and Panasonic are lower resolution than the Canon and the Sony...? It's related to the bandwidth that progressive requires.

I have just written a message to another forum on this very subject, which I find of interest, as I am planning to progress to HD soon. I am most interested in the comments about camera movement and it's effect when using 24p. I make a lot of videos of high speed racing cars and motorcycles using a regular NTSC MiniDV camera and notice that if a vehicle passes through the frame quickly I get two (ghost) images on each frame due to the time difference between the two fields, which impairs the sharpness of the image. I was hoping that 720p would overcome this problem, but after reading through this thread I am not so sure now if 24 fps is the only progressive format available.

Does anybody have any thoughts on this?

RonR

Reality-type stuff is often well-served by shooting at a high framerate, like 60p.

The Panasonic HVX200 will shoot/record at 720p60.

The JVC HD100 will shoot/record at 720p30, which isn't a lot higher of a rate than 720p24, but it does have more motion information.

When things cross the frame quickly you don't want sharply defined images because the motion will look very jerky. Blur is the thing that makes the motion look continuous. Your 60 fields per sec is giving you a series of moderately blurred frames of half vertical resolution. At 30P you would need the same amount of combined motion blurring for it to look real. At 24P you need more. If you freeze each image using a high shutter speed (at whatever frame rate) you will need a minimum number of images for the motion to look continuous (you can work out the number from the information on panning speeds). One option available in video is shutter speeds as long as the frame duration (e.g. 1/25sec at 25P), whereas film cameras allow no slower than half the frame rate (e.g. 1/50 sec at 25fps) -- unless specially engineered. Your eye doesn't expect to see a sharp image of a quickly traversing object, except when the eye is tracking it.

I second Spot’s suggestion to rent a 24p cam and shoot, shoot, shoot… but if you are in a rural area or on a tight budget that might not be an option. Many people have digital still cameras that also shoot video and those can be used to learn the importance of a slow, steady pan, and no zoom lens. The Canon S1,2, &,3 series of still cameras shoot at 30 fps (mjpeg) with a decent resolution but give motion smears somewhat similar to 24p. The time limit imposed by a still camera’s flash card doesn’t allow lengthy or extraneous shots and forces you to evaluate each shot carefully. If you can tell a good story with video shot on a “still camera” it might be a poor man’s way to explore techniques for the film look and 24p.

The Canon S1,2, &,3 series of still cameras shoot at 30 fps (mjpeg) with a decent resolution but give motion smears somewhat similar to 24p. The time limit imposed by a still camera’s flash card doesn’t allow lengthy or extraneous shots and forces you to evaluate each shot carefully. If you can tell a good story with video shot on a “still camera” it might be a poor man’s way to explore techniques for the film look and 24p.

I'd never considered that as a means of testing. Great idea!!

Just a word of caution regarding anything 24p.
As said above many times over, make certain you really know what you're doing. A friend of mine was just telling me how they 'bounced' a rather expensive production shot 24p, the rolling credits were just too juddery to pass muster. This has probably cost someone a lot of dollars in a lost sale.
It's not just how you shoot, it's how you do everything that matters.

I've never tried rendering motion graphics in vegas at 24p but I'd imagine whithout the use of Supersampling to simulate MB (i.e. the 180deg shutter of film) you could get some nasty unintended FXs.

Bob.

Very educational stuff, my friends! I'm glad we "had this discussion." I did learn a lot. I'll slip the Z1U we shoot with here at Work into modes OTHER than my usual 1080 60i, and see what happens. You suggested to just experiment and learn. I plan on doing that.
Thanks very much!

they 'bounced' a rather expensive production shot 24p, the rolling credits were just too juddery to pass muster.

This credit roll problem happens in top level HD productions too, the solution is to apply a small amount of blur.

The blur is not to correct for a software problem, it is to correct for a human visual perception issue.