The Hobbit Filming at 48fps

An anonymous reader writes "Peter Jackson has announced via his Facebook page that The Hobbit is being shot at 48 frames per second, ameliorating the '3D headaches' that many viewers have complained of in the last few boom-years for the format. Film has been shot and projected at 24fps since the 1920s, with the exception of Douglas Trumbull's 60fps 'ShowScan' format, used for the Universal Back To The Future ride, amongst others. Jackson himself predicts that the widespread adoption of 48fps workflow could not only improve the 3D but also the general cinematic experience, though it may earn itself some backward-looking critics. But until digital principal photography completely usurps celluloid, this may be good news for Kodak, who now have even more reason to lament the death of Stanley Kubrick."

Comments

It won't help

[peragrin]

Fake3D is still fake3D.

i will still get headaches while watching and I will still not see a single special 3D effect. the movie will appear dim or over saturated trying to correct the color balance caused by wearing sunglasses indoors against a dark room.

There are some things you just can't fix as they are broken by design. Fake3D is one of them. Please Hollywood give it up, and just dump the money into hologram research.

Re:It won't help

[geekoid]

You keep saying fake3d, because everyone listen to a whiny pendant.

If you want to be a pendant, at least be good about it.
All movies are 3d. Height, width, and Time..bitch.

Re:It won't help

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Oh, I see, you can't enjoy it, so nobody else should either.

Re:It won't help

[dunkelfalke]

Avatar in 3d was awesome. If you personally cannot enjoy this - tough luck for you. If you were totally colour blind, you'd probably bitch and moan about people preferring colour movies to black-and-white ones.

Re:It won't help

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

No i am just getting tired of people going ooh ahh it is so awesome when in reality it means that 45 million americans will never see one of those effects.

255 million can.

Re:It won't help

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for focus and depth of field -- if 3D movies were to *really* be indistinguishable for the 3D world our eyes are used to, we'd be able to focus on elements in the background or foreground. The headaches in 3D movies are because the director is dragging our lenses' focus around against our will, something we're not accustomed to.

Re:It won't help

[Hatta]

And the rest of us will continue not giving a shit whether you get headaches and enjoy our 3d movies.

Not the problem

[proslack]

It isn't the frame rate that's going to be the problem with The Hobbit, it's Peter Jackson's altering Tolkien's story and characters.

Re:Not the problem

[glwtta]

It isn't the frame rate that's going to be the problem with The Hobbit, it's Peter Jackson's altering Tolkien's story and characters.

No, the real problem is going to be ceaseless whining from Tolkien nerds. Preemptive whining, in some cases.

Re:Boom-years

[elrous0]

The reason it's so "popular" is because studios can get away with doubling their ticket prices to a 3D movie. It has nothing to do with giving the public what they want. It has everything to do with giving the studios and exhibitors what *they* want (i.e., more money).

When they started showing car commercials at the beginning of movies, the public certainly wasn't demanding more of that. But the studios and exhibitors loved them because it gave them a new revenue stream. So guess what you see at the beginning of every movie now.

Wait...

[WiglyWorm]

The hobbit is being filmed in 3d? Ugh...

3d is a gimmic and it is helping to further ruin cinamatography. There are very few exceptions.

Re:Wrong problem anyone?

[SpryGuy]

I have to say that I think this criticism and line of reasoning are utter crap.

I heard all the same thing before the switch to digital. Everyone bemoned the "video" look, and lamented the passing of the "film" look. Then again with the switch to HD. "you see everyone's pores! the makeup is obvious!"

Complete bollocks.

It will take directors and artists a while to get use to the new tools, their paremeters, and their behavior, but they'll be making things look just as good and probably a whole lot better in a short period of time, once they gain experience. Just like they did with digital filming and projection, and just like they did with HD on TV.

This "crappy flickering smeary motion stuff looks better" nonsense just really needs to stop. You sound like the nay-sayers bemoaning the arrival of sound to moving pictures a hundred years ago. In other words, in ten or so years, you'll look back on these statements with shame and embarassment. And rightly so.