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Hobbit Film Underwhelms At 48 Frames Per Second
bonch writes "Warner Bros. aired ten minutes of footage from The Hobbit at CinemaCon, and reactions have been mixed. The problem? Peter Jackson is filming the movie at 48 frames per second, twice the industry standard 24 frames per second, lending the film a '70s era BBC-video look.' However, if the negative response from film bloggers and theater owners is any indication, the way most people will see the movie is in standard 24fps."
Is this another version of the same issues people complained about when seeing their favorite newscaster (or "other" things) in HD?
Do we need some "masking" of the mundane reality of scenes (e.g., things "looking like sets") to sufficiently suspend disbelief?
Could you show me what this "70s era BBC-video look" is. Despite having seen lots of 70s era BBC-video, I'm unable to understand what you're talking about based on the description.
The only reason people don't like it is because they are used to film looking another way. It has nothing to do with what is actually happening on screen, or some magical quality that allows 24fps to transport you to another place.
If all films changed to this, in three years no one would have an issue with it. In 10 years, people would say that older movies looked to "fake."
It's all what you are acclimated to.
I'm one of the luck few with sensitive eyes. Watching movies at 24 fps is jarring. I can't wait til they move up to 60 or 120.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Everyone would say 24 FPS looked like old cell phone videos. The only reason people don't like high framerates is because that's what they were trained "cinema" should look like.
People have decided that 24fps is "cinematic" since that's what movies have been for so long and so they expect it and hate on things that aren't. They need to STFU and just take some time to appreciate a more real format.
We have cameras at work that shoot 60fps and I just -love- it. It is so silky smooth. When you first see it, it almost seems like something is wrong. Then you realize what is missing is the stutter of 30 (or 24) fps. Things are fluid, much more like they really are. Motion looks great.
We need that in movies. Spatial resolution is getting really good these days, we need better temporal resolution. Get that framerate up there and things will start to look much more real.
People have just come to associate the stuttery crap that is 24fps as being "cinematic". They need to tie a can on it and get over it.
I don't have links handy but they aren't terribly hard to find. Most of the population (more than 90%) can tell the difference between 24 and 48. Most (over 50%) can tell the difference on any 10fps jump (i.e. 60fps to 70 fps) up to 80 fps IIRC. Beyond that it starts to dwindle, but there's still a substantial chunk (20ish%) that can tell a 10fps difference at 120fps. By 240fps you reach the point where basically no one can tell the difference between that and anything faster, no matter how much faster (e.g. 240 vs 480 fps benefits basically no one).
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
lending the film a '70s era BBC-video look
Well, it's a story about olden-times in England, isn't it?
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Ooops you posted twice. :-) BBC video is 25 frames per second..... so I don't understand the comparision.
And HDTV is upto 60 frames per second; aren't people used to seeing a rapid frame rate by now? I guess people are just weird.
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"THE HOBBIT, frankly, did not look cinematic."
Is it because we are conditioned that the low frames per second represent a 'movie?' I remember seeing an FPS one time at 60 fps, not realizing right away that it was supposed to be a FPS and not a movie and my first and immediate response my brain gave me is, "wtf is this?!" It seems different frame rates make me think it's a different 'experience' of sorts, a game, a TV broadcast, etc. (Even say the 60fps black and white from back awhile ago... was it 60fps?) So I think I understand the feeling, even though I tell myself that I prefer the 48 frames per second. Because I then see the action in some other movies, say, Gladiator, at 24 fps and I see just how bad the action is represented.
I really *do* want to see more motion/information on the screen and I'm willing to put myself through reconditioning to do so.
But I'm not sure everyone else will, or even understands it this way.
Has anyone else noticed this effect?
Because the shutter is fixed, the exposure time of each frame is directly related to the frame rate. Lower frame rate = longer exposure = more motion blur in the frame. Shorter frame rate = shorter exposure = less motion blur in each frame. You need more light to shoot at a higher frame rate to keep the same aperture setting.
So, if they do project this at 24 frames per second (by throwing away half the frames in post), the frames will not have the necessary motion blur and it will actually look worse because half the frames are missing. This could also probably be fixed in post, but that would be a pretty big hack for such a large production.
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When my old TV finally gave up the magic smoke, I replaced it with a modern 240Hz LCD panel. The first show we watched on it was Lost. Everyone immediately said it looked fake. It was compared to a low budget History Channel documentary instead of a high budget network show. Within a week or two no one I lived with seemed to notice the difference any more. It was just different, therefore something for most people to complain about, until it became the new normal.
Stop thinking of "movies" and "TV shows" as being separate entities. It's all basically the same (actors on fake sets), and the only distinction that exists is all in your mind.
In fact a lot of 2000-era movies don't even use film anymore..... they're using HD videocams. Same thing TV productions use.
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While true, that is all utterly and completely irrelevant to what I posted. The reality is that the higher refresh-rates and "processing" going on in modern HDTVs makes "film" look like "video", regardless of the source. If you haven't seen the effect I'm talking about, you should make an effort.
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The more fast motion/pans you have, the more noticeable framerate is. If I shoot someone sitting and talking there isn't a ton of difference between the 60fps source and 30fps final product (the AVCHD cameras I use shoot at 60fps progressive). You can see it, but it isn't something that jumps out at you. However if I shoot someone running, the difference is extremely noticeable.
I have tried time after time to get used to it but I can't. The overly smooth look pulls me out of what I'm watching and makes it look fake, to the point that it doesn't seem natural. There is something off about it but I don't know what it is, real life doesn't have that look so I think there is some other factor at play here that makes people (myself included) react this way.
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640fps should be enough for anybody.
I totally understand. When I got my HDTV I found the wide aspect ratio to be completely annoying. So I taped black construction paper to the left and right side of the screen, and while it isn't perfect, it is a lot less visually jarring.
The 24 fps frames in film are all Fluid Frames. Games use Still frames since they have no natural motion blur, and when you increase the frame rate you start to improve the blur by overlapping frames. This is the same Audiophile Videophile BS because your eye sees frames at a far lower frame rate, but utilizes the blur in interpret motion. Reducing the blur in the frame by increasing the frame rate will screw with the motion of the image.
Try reading a book on the subject. The entire reason they went to 48fps was to try and reduce eye strain during 3D movies. They seem to have forgotten that a 72 refresh rate with a 24 frame rate will do the same thing. Frame by Frame the 48fps will look better when it's still, however, the 24fps will look more natural to your eye when it's playing.
But if something moves between one field and the next of the interlaced frame, it's 50 fields per second. That's why 48fps is said to look like television.
that's something that also makes it look "cheaper" than the final product will be - something that only a few people would notice consciously - but it makes a huge difference. anyways, the 24fps framerate is one thing that we are conditioned to associate with cinematic movies. i doubt it's really bad looking it's just a type of look associated with tv. the lack of color-grading probably underlines the tv-look even more. the only thing i'm afraid of.... i don't see any theater in my country switching to 48fps projection. and even if some of the big multiplexes do.. those are the ones who only play shitty dubbed versions of films. so i'll probably have the worst of both worlds - jerky 24fps projection without the 24fps motion blur (which will probably make it even more jerkier). this sucks.
Well, I think this is down to the question of motion blur vs frame rate, It has been shown that humans can perceive frames that are only on screen for an extremely short amount of time, but not that the fluidity matters. That is for example if you record a plane passing by in 24 fps and you miss it - the distance between frames is so that you don't see it - on the other hand if you recorded the scene at >>24 fps, like say 1000 fps and then slowed it down to 24 fps, people would notice the plane but it's not sure they'd be able to tell the 1000 fps clip apart from the 24 fps clip. In fact in high velocity clips they're often down to 18 or 12 fps in order to get the right slow-down effect, without giving the impress that it stutters. Personally I'm in favor of as high frame rate as possible, it can always be scaled down but never scaled up.
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Is that what happened to the original trilogy for LotR too?
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On my TV I turned all of the processing off. The "sharpness" is turned down to 0 and ditto any other filtering. Same on my Bluray player. The video is already near-perfection and doesn't need that other crap which was initially included to "clean up" the older DVD and VHS signals.
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In France, at the Futuroscope, there is a experimental projection 2D at 48fps since 1988. I enjoyed it for it brightness and flicker free movement. I remember that I was thinking that any movie theater should be like this. The realism sensation is way better that for 3D at 24fps. Can't wait to see 3D at 48fps.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt since it appears as though you are asking a valid question, but I do have to say I'm tired of hearing the argument implied in this question pop up in every discussion of framerates, whether in film or games.
First and foremost, everyone should visit this link: http://boallen.com/fps-compare.html Put simply, the human mind, and eyes, can perceive far more than 24, 30, or even 60 frames per second. Not consciously well enough that we can point out which image is operating at 58fps and which at 60fps, but our minds perceive the difference even if we don't know it.
As far as it pertains to film, there is a long history with 24 frames per second that we don't need to go into here, but suffice it to say it's an stylistic choice that films have been shot in for a century. The problem is that it's really a rather slow framerate, which looks just fine - I would argue great - on normal films, but on 3D, due to their doubling of frames to create the depth illusion, ends up looking muddy and, frankly, gives many people a headache. The idea behind shooting at 48 frames per second was that, since 3D is double the frames, just double the framerate and you'll solve all those pesky problems with 3D.
Apparently, people still aren't liking that, but I'll hold out judgment until I see for myself.
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This is a bit like TV that has a frame rate of 30 (29.97) but a field rate of 60 (59.94) because it's interlaced. It prevents jerky motion because the eye believes it's getting a frame rate higher than the true frame rate (e.g. it perceives the field rate to be the frame rate). When film is put on a DVD it has to undergo a telecine process to raise the field/frame rate.
Some people I know [with better eyes than mine] can see flicker in 24/48 film content. They actually prefer video because of the higher frame rate.
Like a good neighbor, fsck is there
I spent several years in movie theatres. Most customers couldn't tell the difference between 4k digital and a base-scratched print with a strobing bulb and too much jitter and weave. I take that back. It's not that they couldn't tell the difference, if you did a study where you showed them side by side or one after another, but 95% of them aren't going to notice the difference in quality unless it is pointed out. I would imagine 24 fps/48 fps will be the same story. One after another, or side by side, it'll be obvious. Otherwise, only enthusiasts are going to notice (or even know that such a difference might possibly exist in the first place).
15 years ago, back when we had CRT's for monitors, this was widely studied. 24 fps was used for movies as it was the minimum frame rate required for people to detect motion. 60 fps was determined to be the rate at which 85% of people could no longer detect frames. I remember one person we tested could detect frames up to about 85 fps. I'm not sure where these other numbers came from (i.e. 120fps, 240 fps, etc).
The studio has announced that the movie will be released in two parts. The general audience will see the 24 frame-per second "A" frames version in theaters, and only die-hard fans will be given an entirely new perspective with the $65 collecter's edition "B" version of the movie.
a solution might be to show the movie at 48 fps but keep most of the source 24 fps... ramping up to 48 fps during scenes that require it (such as camera panning)
So basically what you'd do is shoot everything in 48 fps, but for most scenes take out every other frame, and just show the remaining frames twice. Then it would look like a regular 24 fps movie.
For scenes with lots of motion, DON'T take out every other frame, show the full 48 fps.
Seriously, what could be wrong with 48 fps? That it didn't flicker enough?
The problem isn't that it is fundamentally better, it's that it is a change from what people expect. Every time I see a high fps recording of something the motion looks like it's going to fast. I fully expect the video and sound to drop out of sync but it never does. The results look fantastic and smooth as they should, but it takes my brain conditioned by years of 24fps shit a while to adapt to the new look.
Any change from the norm is likely to attract serious criticism, whether good or bad.
The entire reason they went to 48fps was to try and reduce eye strain during 3D movies. They seem to have forgotten that a 72 refresh rate with a 24 frame rate will do the same thing.
Yep, you're right, and Oscar-winning directors Peter Jackson and James Cameron are wrong.
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Don't forget the lightning production schedule, that needs to churn out 5(?) episodes a week. Urban legend has it that they get at most two takes on something, and in some long forgotten show some character said "As I look into your thighs... I mean your eyes..." and they didn't have time to fix it.
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Actually the "motion blur gap" is only half the width you think it is - in the olden days the shutter would be closed for half the time to allow the film to spool on, so each frame is a snapshot of 1/48th of a second.
Shooting at 48fps, I would expect them to aim for a 1/96s shutter speed. I've worked on motion graphics at 50fps, and 100% motion blur still looks bad at the higher frame rate - 50% looks perfect.
Increasing motion blur to 1/16s on a 48fps shoot would be a complete mess.
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You could of been nicer about that, you know.
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So... 240 fps ought to be enough for anybody.
I'm sure that one day, you will accomplish something of value in your life, and you will no longer need to use trivialities to build your sense of self-worth.
Thank you for that informative reply and corrections. Interestingly, it turns out they're shooting the Hobbit with 1/64s shutter speed (as said by more than a couple of comments in one of the links). So a little more blur than what you may have expected.
Also interesting that you say 50% shutter looks good with 50fps footage, and that 100% looks over blurry (and presumably not cinematic in a good way). Have you tried 25% or even a near 0% shutter (if that even exists) to see what that would look like? If so, does it improve the look even further?
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What good are blind people for studies regarding frame rates? (kidding...)
24fps is actually the LOWER threshold. The level below which most people no longer perceive smooth motion.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
And your opinion can be safely ignored. Did you know that in conventional 24 fps film projectors, the shutter displays each frame twice? Do you know why? Because 24hz would produce flicker! Old films which ran at 16fps flickered, because when projected they were being displayed at 32hz. The concept of refresh rate certainly applies to even conventional cinema. You could construct a projector to display every frame 6 times, for 120hz (which is what those new Tvs do), or you could display each one once and have everybody's eyes explode.
Just because it is shot at 24fps, does not mean it has to be displayed at 24hz.
Your quotation marks are inconsistent.
"Then" and "than" are basically the same, for all intensive purposes.
The 3:2 pulldown gives you 3 refreshes of one frame then 2 refreshes of the next, then 3 of the one after that. That variation in timing is what is annoying. Now with 120 Hz, it does NOT do 6 refreshes then 4 refreshes and such. It just does the obvious 5 refreshes each time. Now motion at least looks consistent. If it detects that the source material is already goofed up with the 3:2 pulldown, and corrects it to 5:5, that's a plus.
Motion interpolation can then play hell with that, turning your beautifully balanced-in-time 5:5 into an effective but lousy 1:1:1:1:1:1:1:1:1:1 that looks like someone just video'd it.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Actually it's 15fps. 24fps was used so that audio running along side the film wouldn't have gaps. Learned about that in animation school.
If you install BS Player, ffdshow, and several AVISynth packages (windows only), you can see what the interpolated effect looks like, which approximates what real high-fps viewing might look like. Here are the instructions on guru3d.com. I would recommend not using the "frame doubling" method, but instead interpolate to 60 hz native refresh rate of your LCD screen - this can be done by changing the second to last script line to "source.MVFlowFps(backward_vec, forward_vec, 60, 1, mask=1, idx=idx1)".
Fire up some 24fps movies. You will notice that things seem to happen faster, and movements are quicker. This is because your brain is no longer putting together a perceivable slideshow - you can get the same "almost looks like slow motion" effect of film from old digicams that at 15fps. This effect will pass, and you start to see that things start to look more natural, the flowing of Thor's robes, the flames of the fire, you have a higher "looks like you are there" feeling. Poorly done CGI effects stick out though, the fast motion quickly reveals artificial non-physics-based movements and the too-smooth computer camera fly-throughs.
For a good example of real 60fps vs 24fps, you had to dvr the 30 Rock live show. They shot the live show at 1080i (30fps interlaced - 60fps motion equivalent when properly deinterlaced), and it looks like video instead of film.
Lens manufacturers in the 60ies and 70ies and the entire film industry bent over backwards to get rid of the bokeh effect, or at least dimish it. Lenses that reduced or dimished bokeh were way up there in terms of cost and quality. Today compositor and 3D software vendors are struggling to offer the most realistic bokeh effects, and in variations too. People have gotten so used to it that scenes in which bokeh would occur but doesn't (due to digital effects) consider it unreal and 'somehow not fitting' i.e. good looking.
A simular thing happend in the Fashion industry when fashion fotographers would skip the bleach to preview prints before moving them into print production when they were in a hurry. Then the designers and fotographers got used to the look and started printing them in ads, unbleached. Nowadays 'bleach-bypass' is a regular set of digital post production effects and when you want to present and sell hip fashion in an ad, it's just about the only way to go.
I bet this bickering about 48fps movies falls in the very same category.
My 2 cents.
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