Peter Jackson's 48fps Presentation Of 'The Hobbit' Gets A Mixed Response

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/peter-jacksons-48fps-presentation-of-the-hobbit-at-cinemacon-gets-a-mixed-response-20120424

by adahm • 14 years ago

38 59 14 years ago

blogs.indiewire.com

MrFoof2• 14 years ago

"It doesn't look 'cinematic', lacking that filtered or gauzy look we're all accustomed to"

"Not all will like the change. 48 fps has an immediacy that is almost jarring."

"...he elaborated his thoughts, and essentially, the crisper looking image had the odd effect of making everything seem almost too realistic".

Lighting and set-design issues aside (sets shouldn't feel artificial), these comments seem ridiculous to me. It would be like a Triumph TR3 or Sunbeam Tiger owner lamenting over the Mazda MX-5 (Miata), saying that it's not an authentic British-style roadster unless it regularly hemorrhages its fluids when stationary in your driveway, occasionally fails to maintain an idle, or if an artifact of one the builders can't be found hidden in the trunk. Oh, wait -- people actually made those sorts of complaints.

People dislike change, even when it ultimately is for the better. I'm sure there were plenty of complaints when the industry moved away from nitrate film as well. Heck, since this film is digital I'm going to go find the "Death of the Projectionist" article I'm sure exists.

waterlesscloud3• 14 years ago

Film is an artistic medium. Many many many choices are made in the making of most films that intentionally deviate from reality.

It's completely reasonable to believe that 48fps will not be the right creative choice for all films.

MrFoof2• 14 years ago

I agree. Black and white, sepia-tone, deliberate flicker and visual noise (including cigarette burns) will all have their place when used appropriately and to further push well-thought stylistic choices that are brilliantly executed.

However, those films will certainly be in the minority. To dismiss higher frame rates on the whole seems goofy.

Additionally, googling "death of the projectionist" yields more articles than I'd care to mention, including some that honestly lament that nitrate film is no longer used.

visural• 14 years ago

If that's true, is there a technical reason that no one used different frame rates prior during the age of projected film? (for big budget movies)

andrewfelix• 14 years ago

I don't think the car comparison is fair. It's not like 24fps movies are technically inept and we're maintaining the standard for nostalgic reasons.

While I think it's probably just a matter of time until movie makers and audiences adjust to higher frame rates, there are some benefits to lower frame rates and lower resolutions in film. Higher resolutions and frame rates can reveal immersion breaking problems with sets, costumes and make-up.

abruzzi• 14 years ago

It's not simply nostalgia, but the fact that our eyes, brains, and expectations are firmly rooted in 24FPS, and anything else will have to overcome that aesthetic training. A good analog would be the diatonic system of western (Pythagorean) musical harmony. For 80 years beginning with Schoenberg, classical composers tried to get us to listen to non-tonal music, with extremely limited success.

lurkinggrue3• 14 years ago

Higher frames rates people unconsciously connect with Soap Opera's and other straight video productions that were to lower quality.

On top of that much film making is trying to hide imperfections. We hit the uncanny valley of sets/make up where it just is too clear to suspend disbelief at some level.

It will have a lot of getting used to the look.

gramsey2• 14 years ago

Perhaps the negative reactions are simply because most people aren't accustomed to seeing insanely high resolutions and frame rates in the cinema.

When I first got a high-definition plasma TV (which replaced my 20+ year old CRT), I felt the exact same way: as if all my movies were ruined, because they looked like documentaries. Now it feels like a degraded experience to watch poorer quality films. Perhaps the audiences of 2032 will feel the same about 48 fps/5k resolution.

SeanLuke• 14 years ago

I think this isn't a resolution issue at all. The issue largely has to do with motion blur. Here's how I understand it (and poorly):

When capturing video at X FPS you thus must hold open the shutter of the camera for some fraction of the time each frame in order to capture the scene. You can hold it open anywhere from 0 to 1/X seconds. If you hold the shutter open too long as a fraction of the frame time, you get too much motion blur and moving objects look blurry. If you open it for too short of a time, you have the opposite effect: things look jumpy. Your objective is to find just enough motion blur to trick the eye into seeing things as smoothly moving from frame to frame. As a rule of thumb, IIRC that amount is usually half the frame time, that is, 1/2X seconds.

If you are shooting at, say, 48fps rather than 24fps, and you're using 1/2X shutter speed to get the right motion blur, the total amount of time your shutter is staying open (during a length of film) is exactly the same, but for each frame you're staying open only half as long. Thus each frame is only getting half as much motion blur in 48fps as in 24fps, and this has an effect on the psychological "look" of the medium. The "feel" of film is largely due to its low frame rate, resulting in shutter speeds of 1/48 seconds and corresponding large motion blurs in each frame. Video has a shutter speed of 1/60 and thus smaller motion blurs in each frame, making it feel more "live" or "realistic". Move to 1/48 FPS or 1/60 FPS and you're talking very small motion blurs per frame (shutter speeds of 1/96 or 1/120), resulting in an exaggerated "live" look. It doesn't feel archival any more, it feels like you're watching through a window at something going on now. And this can really break the fourth wall.

BTW, the faster shutter speeds have another effect: they make it much harder to shoot dark scenes. You don't have many good options: your aperture is already dictated by the look you want to achieve, and all you have left is upping your ISO, and no one wants a grainy video. Given all the other problems that the RED cameras have given Jackson's team, forcing them to exaggerate set colors and makeup etc., I'm surprised they'd add this problem to the pot.

stephen_g2• 14 years ago

"Given all the other problems that the RED cameras have given Jackson's team, forcing them to exaggerate set colors and makeup etc."

This was actually a really strange thing - it comes from a comment in one of the making of clips but (as a RED owner) it really doesn't make any sense to me...

The uncorrected preview output from a RED cameras can look quite dull on a monitor, but after grading the RAW footage we've only found it to have better latitude and colour rendition than most other cameras. I don't know if it's a problem with their post workflow or what, but it doesn't sit right...

jerf2• 14 years ago

I think it all breaks down into three categories:

    * People who like it
    * People truly not liking it because they're not used to
      it, but someday they'll look back and think 24fps looks awful
    * People trying to send hipster social signals by being more
      cinema snob than thou

Not sure what the exact breakdown is, but I wouldn't underestimate that third category.

If it seems like I've not left space for people genuinely and indefinitely not liking it... no, I haven't. It's a proper superset of capabilities. If for some bizarre reason 24 fps is truly called for, it can be used. I expect that to happen about as often as we bizarrely have a sudden need for 12fps footage in the movies of today, which is to say, never. (No, I don't mean slow-mo, I mean a sudden frame rate drop for its own sake.)

skore2• 14 years ago

With 90% of the negative comments breaking down to "It doesn't look 'cinematic'", a single word judgment that seems to spare them deeper involvement with the subject - I would agree that it whiffs strongly of hipsterism.

lhnn• 14 years ago

How about the breakdown of people who like it?

  * People who think it actually looks good
  * People trying to be so hipster they look down on hipsters who wax nostalgic about 24fps

Seriously, I have noticed the "too real to be cinematic" phenomenon since Blu-Ray and Spider-Man 3 came out. It looked like I was watching the people 3 feet away from me, and I don't feel like I'm watching a movie, I'm watching a Spanish soap opera.

I like 24 fps for the same reason I like deadtree books: the experience.

jerf2• 14 years ago

Sorry, I'm totally more metacontrarian than thou. Don't even try.

Let me reiterate the most important point I had, which is that if 24 fps is so wonderful, directors will choose to use it (after the initial rush has worn off). Nothing stops them.

But they won't, because if 48fps has any fundamental problems, it's that it's still too slow.

I'm sure you can Kickstarter up some shutter glasses to blink at 24fps if you get that desperate.

lurkinggrue3• 14 years ago

We are so used to high frame rates in Soap Opera's low frame rates for films and things with special effects we have trained generations to look at this and think Soap Opera.

It has become a kind of unconscious culture.

chops• 14 years ago

As excited I am for The Hobbit, I'm also leery of the 48fps. If you've ever noticed the difference between watching movies on a 120Hz/240Hz, it's definitely extremely noticeable and distracting. It makes movies look like reality TV.

Why this is, I don't fully know. The fact that this is filmed at 48 fps (rather than simple interpolating the extra frames) might make it better, but I'll just have to see for myself.

What I do know, is that if watching a film at 48 fps is like watching a typical bluray at 120Hz, I'm going to find it distracting. It really does mess with the "feel" of the movie. Whether it's simply cognitive dissonance or not will take time to determine.

Here's a relevant article from last year that really hits home for me: http://prolost.com/blog/2011/3/28/your-new-tv-ruins-movies.h...

ComputerGuru2• 14 years ago

Thanks for that read. It's splendidly written and really hits home - and is the last straw to convince me to get a plasma instead of an LED for my new apartment :)

baq• 14 years ago

you can disable those extra features on every tv set i've tried, so it really shouldn't be the deciding factor.

gramsey2• 14 years ago

I understand how you are experiencing problems like this with your personal television, but the situation is different with the Hobbit.

> Why show a mere 24 frames per second when we can magically build, or interpolate, new in-between frames and show 120 or even 240 frames per second?

The problem you are experiencing is "interpolation"- or, inserting extra frames that the movies was not intended to show.

The Hobbit is a movie that runs natively at 48 frames per second. Natively, as in the movie theatre will not have interpolation because 48 fps is the rate the film was originally shot in.

cynicalkane• 14 years ago

The reason it's notable and distracting is because it's not supposed to look like that. You can't reconstruct the "correct" signal from motion blur. You can turn the frame interpolation off, by the way, and everything will look fine.

As anyone who plays video games knows, more frames can easily mean more realism. We're just used to films being blurry.

tsotha• 14 years ago

Reminds me of people who said CDs would be a flop because they reproduced sound too faithfully, and consumers would be uncomfortable listening to music that didn't have the distortions and white noise record players produced.

In other words... BS.

waterlesscloud3• 14 years ago

Did people say that? I just remember the other side of it, people saying that CDs were lower fidelity than good vinyl recordings.

Of course, now we listen to MP3s.

KaeseEs• 14 years ago

People still say that, and there is a tremendous market for things like tube amps based on the idea that the lower-fidelity stuff 'sounds warmer'. And it does, because you're passing your signal through a filter than adds a small amount of mostly low-frequency distortion which some folks have grown accustomed to.

sliverstorm• 14 years ago

To be completely honest, I actually still prefer radio for casual background listening because of the distortion and white noise.

evoxed• 14 years ago

As a counter argument, people on the high end do actually buy equipment to suit their preferences in that way. If you want classical music in perfect clarity, many people feel that Grado cans are like sticking a sharp needle through their skull. Even if the reproduction is more faithful, the experience isn't enjoyable and so they might opt for high end Senns instead (still extremely accurate across the spectrum but a tad darker).

ahi• 14 years ago

People will still be buying record players long after the last cd player gets tossed.

skore2• 14 years ago

> Terms like "artificating" and "juttering" are terms still best known among hardcore tech heads, not moviegoers, and frankly, that's because when most people watch movies, they aren't seeing those "problems."

I suppose they just have to ask my mother "Hey, what did you think of the first minutes of Quantum of Solace?"

The argument for 48fps is a simple one to make: With faster cuts and pans, photographing a scene 24 times a second only gets you so far.

24p was mostly an economical decision - made decades ago. Unlike, for example, digital audio, which is modeled after the maximum detail that the human ear can perceive, 24 fps was simply set at that limit because that's when people stopped noticing the flicker - in movies at that time.

I would say that any change as big as this will take a while for directors to get used to. I don't think it will get quite as ugly as 3D, though, and I'm not sure why people are trying to make this connection. A lot of digital content is already in in frame rates far beyond 24 fps, so we're getting more and more used to this every day. Finally, this new technology is just another tool - now it's up to the directors to use it in a way that entertains audiences.

pgrote• 14 years ago

No home video formats support 48fps, though TVs do.

"Both blu-ray and ATSC do not support 48 fps at any resolution. Both do, however, support 60 fps at 720p."

http://sayspy.blogspot.com/2011/04/framerates-for-movies-and...

Does anyone know if there is newer information or standards planned?

esonderegger• 14 years ago

The folks over in Europe watch their 720p at 50fps, which is awfully close, but would still require pull-down for material shot at 48fps.

I wouldn't expect any new home video standard formats any time soon. I think for viewers to see The Hobbit in their home theaters at 48fps, it would require them releasing the movie as a digital file (still a long way off) and for there to be both a file wrapper and playback software capable of handling new frame rates.

tantalor• 14 years ago

> theaters will need to upgrade the software on their 3D projectors to handle 48fps, about $10,000

For a planned software upgrade? Is this some kind of obscene vendor lock-in?

Is that figure per projector or per theater?

waterlesscloud3• 14 years ago

I'm sure it's per projector.

I wonder who will pay, though, the exhibitor or the studios? The studios financed the current round of projector upgrades...

trafficlight• 14 years ago

As a general rule, if a product in anyway is meant to be used by Hollywood or any kind of video production, it's super expensive. Just go browse around B&H Photo's site for a bit to see what I mean.

rangibaby• 14 years ago

I am cautiously optimistic that this will NOT be as jarring as the "soap opera effect" on modern (120/240Hz) TVs -- which for the most part is caused by hilariously crap interpolation and sharpening filters that TV manufacturers seem to love these days.

icarus_drowning• 14 years ago

I googled native 48fps footage and found a couple of tests uploaded to viemo from the Scarlet-X, and didn't notice much, however, I'm wondering if any experts on HN could weigh in on whether flash video does any frame dropping or other degradation that would make such examples different than the actual experience. Are there any examples of sites that have native 48fps footage at a high resolution?

Like many other commenters here, I was wary of the use of a higher framerate based on my experience with 240hz TV's, which look so distractingly hyper-real I can't watch them for any sustained length of time, but I'm not sure of how much that has to do with frame-doubling or other "tricks" that might be applied.

calloc• 14 years ago

I for one am looking forward to 48 fps. I have too often that I am watching a movie and I can see "juttering" as the camera pans across a scene. I find it extremely annoying. I have also noticed that it is in various other aspects of life as well.

There is a traffic light near me that has three lights on it, and there is a noticeable difference between when the first light goes from green to orange to red and when the second goes through the same progression. My friends thought I was insane until I took high speed photography of the same traffic lights and proved them that it was off by the tiniest amount (don't remember exact figures). The same thing can be said for PWM'ed LED's, such as the ones in certain cars...

reneherse2• 14 years ago

Here's another example you might spot if you're a commuter: Some weird timing in the brake lights of some Ford Fusion models. (c. 2010 I'm guessing? The one's with the cheesy shallow-stamped trunk/license plate area.)

The three areas of brake lights come on at different times, creating a subtle horizontal flow.

I assume it's due to poor wiring harness design, but IANAEE.

X-Istence• 14 years ago

I am not sure what car you are talking about, but if it has three physical different lights it may be because of differences in the relays that turn them on and off that cause slight timing differences, unless it is on every Ford Fusion...

I too have the same issue that I am able to see slight difference in timing for certain lights. I've learned to ignore it rather than let it get to me, but I've got a friend who is extremely sensitive to them and has a hard time behind the wheel of a car because the timing on LED brake lights in some model cars causes her physical pain and that causes her to lose her concentration on the road. Her husband drives her most of the time due to this issue.

gwright• 14 years ago

I wonder if 3D-48fps is a different experience than 2D-48fps? Perhaps the effects of 3D and 48fps don't work well together?

lurkinggrue3• 14 years ago

Less flicker and should also be brighter. The one aspect of the Hobbit I look forward to.

erichocean2• 14 years ago

I've wondered about variable framerates. Higher framerates are very nice when panning, or during fast motion, but as viewers have noticed, are less "dream-like" during periods of slow motion.

With the technology that we have, it'd be possible to have 24 fps (or even lower) during the "slow" scenes, with instant speed up when desired. This would add one more aspect of the filmmaking experience for filmmakers to exploit.

BenoitEssiambre• 14 years ago

I have one of those TVs that does a good job at extrapolating frames (Samsung 7000 led) and when you turn that functionality on, it does make everything look more 'fake'.

It makes movies feel more like theater than cinema. When I first got the TV, I really noticed the makeup and excessive hairspray on men a lot. Also, the props in sci-fi movies looked like they were foam or plastic (since that is what they actually are). Iron Man's costume, for example, looked very plasticy. I don't know why that is. Our brain must be filling up the missing frames of 24fps such that everything looks more real.

It only took a week or two to get used to it and now I mostly don't notice it anymore and actually prefer the crisper looking images. It's especially great for documentaries such as Planet Earth where everything is more life like.

I know some people have difficulty getting used to it because the guy who sold me the TV told me he was getting some returns with complains of things looking fake on the TV.

ender7• 14 years ago

To everyone raising their noses at these cinema hipsters who doubt the attraction of 48fps: take care. Human perception is a fickle thing and does not always follow the logical path one might expect.

Consider the uncanny valley, where adding fidelity to an image actually reduces the perceived pleasure rather than increasing it.

In my experience, even the jump from 24fps to 30fps is enough to lose the feeling of 'magic' that people are used to in the movies. There's a reason that most non-reality, non-sitcom TV shows are filmed in 24fps rather than 30fps (the native framerate of television).

It may be that the movie industry will find a way to make movies that take advantage of the characteristics of 48fps, but it's not going to be like sticking a new video card into your rig and receiving an instant experience improvement. The fundamental way that movies present themselves (photography, scene design, set design, storytelling) will have to change.

erichocean2• 14 years ago

The argument for 24 frames per second is that:

a) adequate sound sync is maintained when projecting film

b) reducing the frame rate to the minimum humans need to perceive something as continuous motion leaves the maximum amount of detail "missing". This in turn produces a dream-like quality, and frees up the mind to spend brain cycles on non-visual things, like the story, acting, etc.

(a) is now outdated: we can get rock-solid sound playback at any frame rate today, thanks to digital projection. Personally, I find playback of 24fps material on a 60fps LCD monitor to be annoying – there's always that judder.

This makes me wonder if we shouldn't drop the frame rate further, to 20 fps. This would have a nice even multiple for our 60 fps LCD screens, and also maximize the dream-like quality we associate with films, but with zero judder.

Anyway, food for thought. :)

excuse-me6• 14 years ago

Alternatively you could run your TV at 50h so you can simply convert 24/48 fps film while saving yourself 4% of the time to make a nice cup of tea

GB_001• 14 years ago

Reminds me of this. http://xkcd.com/732/ (Hover over the picture.).

huhtenberg• 14 years ago

It's an established perception issue. Not only people expect blur from the movies, but they also associate the lack of blur with lower quality production.

To explain - the same problem exists with never LCD TVs. Many of them has a logic for resampling 24fps source and interpolating it into higher frame rates. In theory, this is supposed to remove the blur and make dynamic pictures more detailed. In practice, it actually does that, but it also makes movies look like soap operas. A quick google search brings up ton of complaints of this nature, and the root of the problem is that soap operas are shot for TV broadcasting and at higher frame rates. Hence, the visual aesthetics one typically associates with them. In other words, you bump up FPS, you get the soap opera impression... which hardly the vibe Hobbit should have :)

ramblerman• 14 years ago

"Oh no. Not a fan of 48fps. Oh no no no"

Don't know the man, but I'm pretty sure I don't really care for his opinion now.

Peter Jackson's 48fps Presentation Of 'The Hobbit' Gets A Mixed Response

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