After I saw The Hobbit at 48fps, I'm having a hard time watching 24fps movies. Yesterday I watched The Shining by Kubrik. It was jittery, and that's a slow film. HFR is superior to 24fps in every conceivable way. I suppose color and sound were not considered "cinematic" back in the day just like HFR now.
3D on the other hand... I wish it would die. You have to converge at a distance and focus at another, and that's really hard for some people. There are a huge number of cues[1] that are important in depth perception, but 3D movies make use only of parallax confusing the brain. The depth of field is usually shallow, and that's great for 2D, but catastrophic for 3D. In real life, objects that I make an explicit effort to focus to are not blurry, but in 3D they are.
Another annoying aspect of 3D movies is that they artificially augment the parallax to make the 3D effect more extreme. That's equivalent to objects being really close. Apart from strain on the eyes, that's really annoying for wide outdoor shots, where things should effectively be at infinity. It's like you are looking at a miniature, not at a vast valley.
HFR is superior to 24fps in every conceivable way.
Film makers have a wide variety of creative tools available to them to help them tell a story, of which HFR is one. We're talking about art, not a technical quest to reproduce reality as closely as possible.
It'll be interesting to compare this situation with what people thought colour film did to movies compared to monochrome. I can imagine people moaning eloquently about the loss of poetry in film, about how its not about the realism offered by colour, etc. ... though I do not know whether that happened. The state of 3D technology might be comparable to the realism of eastman colour.
Sure... And if I display the exact same frame twice in a row at 48fps I get 24fps.
So anything that 24fps can do, 48fps can do too.
And I don't buy the crazy idea that someone using 24fps during an entire movie would someone be the achievement of some visual art perfection.
This is wrong, wrong and wrong.
Also I have to laugh quite a bit at you describing a movie called "The hobbit" which shows dragon, trolls, elfes, magicians, etc. as "trying to reproduce reality".
Um, no. Motion blur is absolutely essential for smooth movements. Showing 48fps material by displaying every other frame at 24fps will look, much much choppier than 24fps material.
His point was that the motion of the video doesn't need to look like it's happening in person for the film to be entertaining. Just like the story doesn't have to explain why there are elves, trolls, etc. for you to accept their presence and move on. It's an artistic decision.
It reminds me of video games, in a way. GPU's are constantly being improved, and we get closer and closer to producing real-time photo-realistic graphics every day... and yet there is still plenty of room for games like Super Mario or Team Fortress 2, which don't want or need to look realistic to be fun.
Sure... And if I display the exact same frame twice in a row at 48fps I get 24fps.
So anything that 24fps can do, 48fps can do too.
I'm not sure what your point is. If a film maker frame doubled 24fps and projected it using a HFR system nobody would regard it as HFR.
And I don't buy the crazy idea that someone using 24fps during an entire movie would someone be the achievement of some visual art perfection.
This is wrong, wrong and wrong.
I didn't say that.
Also I have to laugh quite a bit at you describing a movie called "The hobbit" which shows dragon, trolls, elfes, magicians, etc. as "trying to reproduce reality".
I had the same feeling about 3D until I saw "Life of Pi" in 3D. They managed to provide imagery that wouldn't have been possible in a two-dimensional format. As with all other "tools" 3D can be used poorly, and it can be used well. As the technology matures, I have a feeling we'll see it skew more towards the latter.
Yes; Life of Pi is one of the most beautiful 3D movies I've seen, and a good story (based on an award winning book). I'm having trouble convincing people to go see it though...
I'm in the same boat (pun intended). Hardly any of my friends have seen it and I'm considering it in my list of top 10 movies of all time! It was moving, although I'm not sure if I would have enjoyed it as much if I saw it in 2D...
Another annoying aspect of 3D movies is that when you watch the non 3D version it usually is apparent the gimmicky shots only made because of the 3D version.
One very sore point I have with this film is just that.
Filmmaker here. There's a lot more to having good 3D than parallax, and 'painted on' is a necessity to get better 3D today on live-action films even if you film with two cameras.
The only films that truly have great 3D today are Avatar (in the 3D animated scenes -- most of the movie) and modern 3D animated films (Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks, etc.).
The reason is that you need different parallax settings (among other things) within the same shot. Let that sink in. There's no global setting for any of the stereoscopic cues that works well for all objects in a single image. Obviously, then, having two cameras alone doesn't really get you good 3D no matter how you do it.
Live-action recording like the Hobbit only ever gets one set of 3D settings per frame, unless you do the 3D 'painted' thing you claim sucks, and even then, the '3D painted' technique is time-consuming, expensive, and still not as good as what you can get when you're doing 3D stereoscopic rendering and can actually use different settings for different objects within the frame at the same time. FWIW, I'm certain that the Hobbit also used the '3D painted' technique. Everyone does it when they have the budget for it.
If anyone is really interested in how 3D is actually done by those in the industry, subscribe to cml-3d. The 3D supervisors post their techniques on films often; it's quite an interesting read.
Not to mention that in true 3D you would be able to look anywhere you wanted in the picture instead of what's in focus. 3D will (hopefully!) go down as one of the most ridiculous fads ever conceived.
I don't want to be a hater of something everyone around seems to love, but I really didn't enjoy the experience of Hobbit 3D HFR, it was like seeing a God of War game at times, and I felt no connection to the characters, and no emotion at all.
And I really like the LoTR saga, having seen it several times.
I saw it last night in HFR 3D. It's actually the first proper feature film I've seen in 3D and I enjoyed it a lot.
There definitely were moments where it looked like you were looking at actors on a set. The fidelity was so good that it was obvious the characters were wearing prosthetics and makeup. However there were plenty of scenes where the increased detail and clarity were a huge advantage, especially some of the CGI scenes. The flight of the eagles was gorgeous and the feeling of actually being there you got from the combination of HFR and 3D added a lot to the experience.
It very much is a question of trade-offs. I'm very glad I saw it in HFR 3D because for a lot of the scenes it gives you an experience you couldn't get any other way, but if I were to see it in a cinema again I'd go for 2D, and I look forward to seeing it on TV at home. I'll quite happily watch the next film in HFR 3D.
I really liked the 48fps version too. It has so many advantages over 24fps, especially in 3D. I would quite like to see a 48fps 3D version if only for the increased brightness but that doesn't appear to be a thing yet :( I guess they had to cut it down from the already ridiculous number of variations though.
I guess it's due to the extra work they have to do to put the proper amount of color on the sensor, as the Red EPIC they used tends to mute them a little bit.
Odd, my experience was exactly the opposite. For me, 3D HFR was a totally immersive experience. It felt like the action was happening right in front of me, on a stage.
Bear in mind, I cannot stand those TVs that double the frame rate to make everything look like a cheap soap opera. I've heard this comparison, or ones like it, in almost every negative review I've read. In my opinion, this is false comparison.
Imagine if soap operas were filmed in colour, and proper films shot in black and white. Then a film maker comes along and releases a colour film. Suddenly everyone says it looks like a cheap soap opera. To me this is the psychological effect that is hindering the acceptance of HFR and thus the negative reviews.
Ten years from now our children will scoff at our luddism.
What's interesting to me (for background, before I ended up programming I trained in traditional film/animation) is that a lot of the 24/48fps discussion on HN tends to be around technical concerns, whereas a lot of film developments come out of artistic needs.
HFR is really interesting when contextualized in the history of cinema: frame rate was never a problem until directors started changing how they shot action scenes in the 1980s. It was realised that if you made the action fast and blurry you could get away with a lot more: what from a wide shot would look like a slow moving car chase could become a very dramatic action scene.
I think this is being reflected in a lot of the reviews coming out for The Hobbit (I haven't seen it yet): it seems a lot of people don't mind it during action sequences, but it becomes distracting during dialog and less frenetic moments. And this makes sense: why should dialog scenes be in 48fps? There's no technical or artistic reason for them to be.
I'd be really interested in watching a cut of The Hobbit which moves between 24 and 48 fps for dialog/action: people are happy to accept aspect ratio shifts (like moving from full-frame IMAX to CinemaScope in the Dark Knight, etc, and more artistically moving to Academy for a particular scene in Life of Pi), perhaps they'd be willing to accept frame rate shifts too?
Certainly captures a lot of my experience with The Hobbit. I saw it in HD/HFR, and I'm planning on going back to see it in 2D just so I can enjoy the Movie. I was distracted, and distressed at the experience - my entire "suspension of disbelief" was never engaged, and I constantly felt like I was watching a TV Show - one exception being where the Orcs where chasing everyone down inside the mountain, when I felt like I was watching a video game.
Like the OP, I applaud Peter Jackson's experiment - without courage like this, you won't be able to advance the technology of the art. But, in this case, it just didn't work for me. I'm interesting in hearing what other's thought.
I think this is interesting. Like yourself, and the author of the article, I applaud Peter Jackson for having the courage to try, and reserve judgement until I have the chance to see it myself next week. That said, I still think it's very much an open question whether people's responses to this are due to the intrinsic nature of 48fps or just due to how alien it feels.
Personally, I can't see how anything that replicates reality better can be intrinsically bad. When I was a very young child and watching films for the first time I remember being distracted by its artifice: the depth of field, the way camera perspectives changed, and the motion blur, though I couldn't have put a name to these back then.
I think the bad reaction to 48 fps is largely for three reasons: legacy associations, with home video and the like, a lack of experience making films at 48 fps (could Peter Jackson have made a better 48 fps film had the industry had more experience doing it? probably), and sheer alienation (if every single film you've ever seen is 24 fps, and you've acquired a suspension of disbelief for 24 fps, then you're going to lose that at 48 fps). I think this last point is worth emphasising: I don't think we innately are capable of a suspension of disbelief for film. I think it's something we learn over time, like I did as a child, and it's something we haven't yet done for 48 fps.
So I'm optimistic. And sad too, because perhaps next week I won't enjoy The Hobbit as much as I should. I think back to Technicolor films and how crappy they looked at the time compared to how beautiful black and white films looked (and continue to look) at the same time. Yet here we are now, and we'd never go back these days.
But who knows. Maybe I'm wrong and there's something intrinsically bad about too-fast a frame rate. Perhaps, as the author alludes, filmmaking is as much a decision of what information to lose as it is what to keep. But I can't help but ask the question: the author says that certain scenes looked like a video game to him, but I ask what would it look like if you'd never played games in your life? If you lacked that association...? Maybe it'd be something a little bit magical.
> "I think back to Technicolor films and how crappy they looked at the time"
Technicolor films looked fantastic when they were first released. There are a lot of bad transfers that have been done since, but three-strip technicolor (the kind used on the Wizard of Oz, where you shoot using three separate film strips) had incredible saturation.
There were other, considerably less expensive alternatives that you might be thinking of, but Technicolor was the process to use for color: the problem was that to do so required a huge budget (unsurprisingly shooting on three film strips simultaneously requires three times the processing budget), and lots of light (the film speed was very low). One-strip Eastman became the dominant format for reasons of cost, but most people would agree the Technicolor 'look' was in most cases superior.
A lot of film stock from the 30s/40s has deteriorated significantly, and studios do not always take the greatest care when transferring (especially for films not so well known or renowned) - but I personally think three-strip Technicolor films like the Wizard of Oz have great, vivid color.
It's actually Wizard of Oz I had in mind when I was saying that. I appreciate for its time it was a huge advance, but I always thought it looked considerably less beautiful than black and white films of the same era, but perhaps this was as much because people didn't really understand how to use colour properly then as much as the technology itself. Anyway, thanks for the info :) I consider myself enlightened.
Directors of that time were accustomed to choosing oversaturated colors to help viewers distinguish between different elements in black & white productions. This practice continued well into the 1960s. Look at a color set photograph of "I Love Lucy" for an example of this.
3-strip Technicolor, by its own nature, tends to oversaturate colors as well.
These two facts help explain the garish colors seen in The Wizard of Oz and other 3-strip Technicolor films of the era.
With that being said, I find The Wizard of Oz (and most other 3-strip Technicolor films) to be indescribably beautiful.
> Personally, I can't see how anything that replicates reality better can be intrinsically bad.
I think a potential problem with replicating reality better is that the reality is that the set/props/makeup/etc are all fake. Unless you really take some exceptional care, and probably do way more post-processing work than you would normally have to, replicating reality better means revealing reality better.
> Personally, I can't see how anything that replicates reality better can be intrinsically bad
Books have the best graphics (followed closely by nethack)
(Relatedly, my disappointment started when they pronounced the dragon's name as Smah-oog, and I've been calling him Smorg for years. The version of the story that happened in my imagination with my personal tastes taken into account FTW)
Funny, since British/Canadian accents tend to separate series of vowels like that more than American accents. (Similar to "about".) Maybe that played a part? :)
There are lots of people out there (me included) that can see the "home video" effect and HATE it. For me, the 120 & 240HZ features on LCD TVs drive me absolutely batty when trying to watch a movie. It's fine for sports but completely ruins the movie experience for me.
MCFI is awful, yes. But that's because it's really hard to interpolate frames that aren't there to begin with, not because 24 fps is somehow the ideal framerate for video.
As for me, 24 fps is incredibly noticeable, especially during panning scenes. To the point that it often takes me out of the movie; I've been wishing for higher FPS movies for years.
Of course, I'm also one of the very few people that can see phosphor decay in plasma TVs, so...
> Personally, I can't see how anything that replicates reality better can be intrinsically bad.
I'd agree if you were trying to display reality, like in a documentary, or a reality TV show. But when it comes to fictional settings, people wearing prosthetics, props made of plastic, etc. I think exposing the whole of reality certainly has potential downsides.
I saw it in 2D because I didn't want to wait until next weekend for a seat in the local IMAX and I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised - I was delighted by the whole film and looking forward to the next episode in pretty much the same expectant way that I used to look forward to the next LotR episode.
I did see the movie in 2D (the parallax effect in 3D movies distract and give me headache).
My experience was that for the first half hour, I felt that some scenes were there just to please the 3D movie. A tree that goes into the screen, a big rock on top of the characters to give perspective, a bird that goes to the depth of view...
Also, the first part (will avoid spoilers), all the CGI was noticeable, and also felt the gamma filters were way too high (fake HDR ?).
For the rest of the movie I did not feel it, so I either forgot about it and decided to enjoy the movie, or maybe they did stop using the tricks.
Interestingly I thought roughly the same while watching the 3D HFR version - the first half of the movie felt awkwardly paced and didn't engage me much, the second half was much more enjoyable.
At the risk of drawing this thread off-topic, I saw it in 24FPS and didn't think much of it. No amount of HD or FPS can make up for a mediocre film, in the same way that fantastic graphics don't make a good game.
(Spoilers ahead.)
Bilbo and the dwarves were caricatures - overdoing their roles as a surprised hobbit and a fat, funny disney character with a single personality. (Seriously - there's a fat one, a stupid one, an Irish one, an old one etc...)
That would be ok, since The Hobbit is a children's book, but this is certainly not a children's film. I did not like the mixture of comedy and seriousness that was attempted. Whereas LOTR (which I really enjoyed) had moments of Merry and Pippin being funny, these dwarves never seemed to stop taking everything as a joke (obviously apart from Mr. Serious Dwarf). Some bits were genuinely funny (dwarves with Elrond), but they're in obviously safe environments.
If the overarching plot is to kill a dragon, there are some difficulties when trying to stretch it out into 9 hours of films. Sauron had a command structure and it was perfectly possible to kill mini-bosses (Saruman) and get some feel that you're doing something useful. A dragon has no such web of power, so the various evils they vanquish in the film appear disconnected and irrelevant to the main plot.
Gandalf has seemingly random amounts of power at any given time. I guess this also cropped up in LOTR, but it was much more obvious here.
> If the overarching plot is to kill a dragon, there are some difficulties when trying to stretch it out into 9 hours of films.
From what I've gathered the dragon will be dealt with in the second movie (hence the name), while the third movie will deal with the aftermath, as well as being padded with content from the LOTR appendix. Personally I think the first movie will make more sense in light of the sequels, though that of course doesn't really defend the somewhat lackluster nature of it.
"Only last winter an extensive poll of film fans showed them relatively unsatisfied with sound pictures and desirous of once more seeing silent pictures."
I have just been, for the first time, to see and hear a picture talk. "A little late in the day," my up-to-date readers will remark, with a patronizing and contemptuous smile. "This is 1930; there isn't much news in talkies now. But better late than never."
Better late than never? Ah, no! There, my friends, you're wrong. This is one of those cases where it is most decidedly better never than late, better never than early, better never than on the stroke of time....
I bet I could find similar reaction to the introduction of color movies, colour television, GUIs for personal computers, etc. (did anybody ever critique Gutenberg for 'form over function' on his bibles?)
In all cases, we had to discover how and when to properly use new technologies. This will not be different.
Also, I expect we will eventually go beyond 48 Hz, as 48 Hz is slightly below human perception thresholds. http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Flicker_fusion gives limits around 60Hz. Those are for bright lights, large areas, and peripheral. You will not normally see that with old-syle television sets and won't see it in most homes, either, but in cinemas, one can easily get there.
I think you'll be far more likely to see a split, in the same way today we have films shot in CinemaScope (2.35:1) and widescreen (1.85:1). The complement, rather than replace, one another.
48 FPS is probably analogous to 3D, rather than talkies. When the talkies came along there was a rapid transition: the big five studios were exclusively shooting talkies about two years after the Jazz Singer was released. Whereas 3D is more prevalent today, but some film-makers choose not to use it. There is not quite the same demand by the audience.
I mentioned this earlier, but I'd love to see a screening of The Hobbit with 24fps for dialog and 48fps for action.
To take it a step further, they could use an adaptive framerate. Have an algorithm (or, more likely, this being Hollywood, a person) select specific shots or pieces of shots with too much lateral movement and ratchet them up to 48fps.
I imagine that in 5-10 years all films will be higher resolution and 48fps. The youth of tomorrow will look back at the low-res, fuzzy films of today the same way we look at black and white flicks from the past, "Did people really like this crud?!".
The Hobbit - good or bad, it doesn't matter - is really just the first of the next generation. It means makeup artists and prop creators have to step up the quality based on complaints like those in TFA, but that's technology for you.
And the movie industry needs this. There are only so many stories to tell. If the back catalog was still first tier entertainment there wouldn't be nearly as many new movies.
Timeline:
• Silent movies: Tell all the stories.
• Sound!: Tell al the stories again, no one will watch a silent movie.
• Color: Tell all the stories again.
• Style change: Never look like a play. Look "real". Tell all the stories again.
• Decent CGI: Tell all the stories using special effects again.
• High frame rate? 3D? HD?: If one of these hits the industry is set for the next decade.
␄
[1] This is where I came in. Movies from before the '70s have either a video sitcom or musical theater look that does not engage me as "real".
[2] My 18 year old daughter can't really engage in a movie filmed before about 2000 if it has special effects. They are just too campy looking to her. She can tolerate some cinematography from the mid '90s, but before that it looks cheap and fake to her.
The assertion that new movies exist and are watched because they are higher tier than older movies seems completely ridiculous. There are movies made before the 70s with absolutely amazing cinematography on beautifully detailed film stock; "Lawrence of Arabia" comes to mind as one that stands up quite well, perhaps with the exception of modern pacing. Do you really think people watch "The Hangover," "The Hobbit," or "The Avengers" because they are higher tier entertainment or more realistic than "Lawrence of Arabia?" I'd also counter that "The Bicycle Thief" feels more heartbreakingly realistic than anything I've seen recently from a major studio. Of course there's no multi-million dollar ad campaign/media blitz or major studio release for it.
I think the problem is that any film made before those that the viewer was first introduced to the film format with (or is used to watching) is going to seem old and be judged as less appealing. This mostly unconscious judgement made in a a few seconds based primarily on the 'look' of the film (b/w vs color, film stock, lenses etc.) and secondarily on it's pacing and editing style.
There may be older films that have good cinematography but the viewer is still going to judge it as 'old' before they get to appreciate that.
Plenty of films do seem dated in a negative way to me, and I can get that someone expects carefully mastered soundtracks with impressive thumpy sound. But I think there are some films were well made that stand the test of time.
The LA Times ran an article[1] arguing lack of interest in old movies stems largely from new films having a social function that is similar to fashion. I'm inclined to agree.
Therefore, while 48+fps might become the fashion, I doubt it's required to retain interest in new movies as referenced in the great-grandparent post.
I certainly wasn't around when The Seventh Seal was filmed, yet I find it astonishingly beautiful and impressive (which makes the parody film De Düva even better.) Of course, I can't talk about it the way one talks about the weather or of theater run films-- "Did you see Argo yet? I want to check it out, the trailer looked cool."
> The youth of tomorrow will look back at the low-res, fuzzy films of today the same way we look at black and white flicks from the past, "Did people really like this crud?!".
Speak for yourself... there is a certain art form in black and white movies that can never be reproduced in color (for example, great use of shadows). Many people enjoy watching the great classic masterpieces. It's a shame more movies are not made this way.
Much like a local news anchor that really should retire with the advent of the evening news in HD... (I suspect every market has at least one of those)
This is a well-written article, but it seems to me like a lot of words to say, "The association with other high-frame-rate media made me uncomfortable and the movie harder to sit back and lazily process." The author says as much in several places, but then does not seem to think that that should be considered in their points about "magic," immersion, and art. I found very little relevant evidence (even given that the premise is subjective and somewhat abstract), and they make foggy points like this with no real assertion:
> In the opening hour of The Hobbit shown in 3D HFR – I don’t recall hearing a single sigh, or laugh. Not one.
Okay? Correlation does not imply causation. Maybe the audience of the 3D HFR show was more Tolkien and/or cinema fans that were taking the movie less lightheartedly, or were more introverted. And what does this even mean to say? The related point further on saying that the movie is too comedic - and in the wrong places - doesn't serve his premise any better.
I hadn't read much from the perspective of those against HFR, but if this is the only real argument, I think it's time to start pushing. There's no reason not to have all the visual information we can, and lower technology-imposed limitations. If filmmakers actually think that stuttering and blurs improve a movie, they can still add them! That's no reason to limit the technology, though.
For the record, my experience was similar. It was hard to shake the "home movie" feeling as I was watching it, and suspension of disbelief was a little harder. However, I recognized this as a personal limitation, and I was able to enjoy the visuals and the experience regardless. I don't think that seeing more movies like this could be anything but an improvement.
I saw it at the weekend, and I guess I am in a minority judging by reviews, but I honestly didn't think the HFR was that bad. (Maybe my opinion will change when I re-watch in 2d?)
Firstly, I normally come away from a 3D film with my eyes feeling extremely strained, but the Hobbit was the first film where this wasn't the case, which was a refreshing change.
There were a couple scenes, particularly at the start, that somehow felt weird as described in the article thanks to the HFR, but to say it stopped people laughing at the jokes seems pretty extreme, that wasn't the case with the audience I was sat in.
In other scenes, the benefits were clear:
Panning landscape style shots were judder free. You could actually see what was happening in action scenes, rather than the usual mess of blur. (Made worse in many films by their insistence on making things more "exciting" by going into shaky-cam mode)
Ultimately, I think what we will settle on is a variable frame rate set-up, where talking heads, indoor scenes with little action can be shown in 24fps to prevent the "soap opera" look that people hate, and action/high motion scenes can reap the benefits of 48fps.
I think that sometimes, the fact that the medium you are using is not perfect/too realistic makes your imagination do a lot of the work, and that makes it easier to be immersed in the experience you are having.
That is why I jump into immersion really quickly when playing Mario or even more so reading a book, but a game like Skyrim has a really hard time hooking me in.
I think realism may in some cases be a kind of a red herring when striving for immersion.
For example, I, as a programmer, can be completely immersed in what I am doing without my text editor being "realistic" (whatever a realistic text editor could be :) ).
I think that the state of "flow" and the immersion in some kind of experience (movie, game, book) go hand-in-hand.
So I hear a lot of people saying that they really enjoyed the higher frame rate during the action scenes, but not so much during the quiet scenes. Would it be feasible for directors to switch between the frame rates as needed? For action scenes, let it roll at 48fps but for all other scenes, simply chop out half the frames and display one duplicate frame per frame to simulate 24fps. I wonder if the transition would be too jolting.. perhaps you could ease into it by ratcheting down the frame rate over a period of a few seconds. At any rate, it seems like you might get the best of both worlds.
I watched some of King Kong on an HDTV that does the interpolated 48fps. It switched between 48 and 24 fps depending on scene when it could. The switching was quite irritating, going from very smooth motion to now-apparent jittery "normal" motion. Jolting indeed.
This is exactly what Freddie Wong is talking about doing for Season 2 of VGHS (a web series) - HFR for the "video game" scenes and regular for the rest of them. I think it will work very well.
Almost every aspect of your post is wrong (regarding the author and the post) or irrelevant (regarding the content).
The author is a filmmaker and was comparing film formats. He watched the Hobbit multiple times on the same night at a state of the art cinema. He watched the (same) film in this film format order: 3DHFR, 3D, 2D, 3DHFR.
Therefore, the content could technically have been any film and the elements of immersion compared were across the same content.
It is shame there was no 2DHFR format to compare though.
Also, given that he says he couldn't hear dialogue very well in the 3DHFR version makes me think he either sat in a bad seat or the cinema had issues.
Did he sit in the same seat for all showings?
His stuff about motion blur is complete rubbish as well. They (Weta) had to add motion blur in post because the shutter speed meant they didn't get much of that on recorded footage. (They also had issues matching the motion blur on HDR shoots they did where they did multiple simultaneous exposure bracketing). Any CG out of PRMan will also have been rendered out to match that exact same shutter speed (48 fps at 270 deg). So I really can't understand how he can think that watching the 2D version - which he himself admits has half as much motion blur as it should do - gave a better impression of motion. It might look less "cinema-ry", but that doesn't seem to be his point.
My experience is the opposite of the author’s. The only really different thing I noticed while watching The Hobbit in 3D at 48fps was that panning shots weren’t distractingly jittery. The film was enjoyable and didn’t feel fake or unconvincing. I can only guess that, being younger than Vincent, my familiarity with 2D is simply less ingrained than his.
I think this is one of those "problems" where the only rational response is to deal with it and get over it. If movies had always been shown at 48 FPS and somebody came along in 2012 arguing that they should instead be projected at 24 for a more "cinematic" look, they'd be laughed out of town.
Good grief, it's a significant change to the way movies are made and displayed, and movies are huge part of the entertainment culture. It's got a fascinating technological component which HN tends to love, and a fascinating artistic component as well. Further, the implementation seems to be pretty divisive, though the tech-savvy HN crowd seems more forgiving/accepting of the technology than the public at large.
I think it's OK if we discuss it for a little while.
I'm not saying that higher frame rates aren't an interesting subject for discussion and further refinement. I'm saying that the move to higher frame rates in general is a pointless thing to fight, and I've provided a trivial proof.
The objective fact is that the existing 24 fps standard blows goats. What can/should be done to improve upon it?
I don't find your objective fact objective at all, especially if the alternative is what I saw in The Hobbit, or 90% of what is implemented in 3D movies.
We can both be right, of course. 24 FPS is not OK, and maybe the current implementation of 48 FPS isn't, either. As has been noted, increasing the frame rate demands changes throughout the production process... everything from better makeup to better lighting.
The porn producers already had to confront similar issues to some extent, when HD started to ramp up. Nobody wants to go back to fuzzy porn, do they? :-P
That's true, and I'm not averse to change. I'm hard-pressed to believe that scenes involving dialogue and little movement will seem improved by any framerate increase, but I would be the first to applaud the movie that shoves that in my face.
Considering he's focusing on the fact that it's a 48FPS movie when watching it, a second time no less, doesn't that kind of detract from the conclusion that it's a bad thing?
I thought it was pretty magical for a movie to flow like this, I felt the 3D was well focused and in many cases hard to notice (As it should be), and not just a layer slapped on.
All in all I'd rather watch it in 3DHFR first, and 2D later, to make a fair judgement on whether it's a good thing.
I agree that in the start I was a bit focused on the looks of it all, but after a few minutes it added to my immersion rather than detract from it.
Isn't it possible that the reason you're distracted by this new way of doing things, is because it is in fact new, and different from other movies? If everything looked like this, we can focus on the right things instead.
tl;dr version: movie critics are now experiencing what audiophiles once did, and are longing for the days of pleasant distortion. (Can't come up with an analogue of "euphonic" this early in the day.) Yes, it's true that directors took advantage of the limitations--but now they can learn to take advantage of what HFR provides, and eventually audiences will learn the new conventions.
Reminds me: during the transition from 8 bit color images to 24 bit color images in early 90s, some were complaining that 24 bit images looked worse than 8 bit images.
I agree. After watching Avatar, I was arguing that this 3D thing will be over really soon because no one would want to wear those cumbersome glasses and tolerate the eye-strain. But then I got used to it and it doesn't bother me at all.
It's quite possible the 3D film-making is going to see more advances both in the theater and during filming.
I take fault in the post's back & forth collusion of 48/3D being responsible for the bad story & acting. It seemed like Jackson directed on the same level he left off with from the previous series, but the cast wasn't in the same place and weren't operating from that level of experience and familiarity with their characters. They ended up just "acting".
The 48p/3D was memorizing. I think it will take another 2 years to work out the kinks and a decade or more to really explore what can be done with it.
The immersion was amazing. I was flinching every time something flew at the screen. I can't say I ever did that for Avatar.
Furthermore, the audience and myself were all gasping and laughing etc unlike what the author states with his anecdotal 'proof,' clouded by preconceived notions and order bias.
I think in general, more realism is a challenge for the director. I've seen many HD movies and television shows where it feels like I'm really on the set, rather than really in the place the movie is set in.
Anyway, I haven't seen the Hobbit or any HFR movie. But I do think that while extra realism in the filming process will ultimately be a boon to the art form, currently there are a lot of challenges. The realism just makes me feel like I'm on a set with a bunch of costumed actors and props rather than in the film's universe with its characters.
Realism currently makes the suspension of disbelief harder rather than easier. But when they finally figure out how to overcome that, watch out, because it will be awesome.
This is exactly what watching The Hobbit in HFR felt like to me. It was something of a cross between a play and a video game. There were some scene that felt more cinematic, but especially scenes without much camera movement felt like watching actors on a set.
Like the author, this pretty much ruined the movie for me, but I'm not prepared to totally write off HFR. I think directors will just need to learn how to properly adjust filming techniques to keep HFR feeling like a movie, similarly to how they had to learn to incorporate green screens without having an obvious separation between the actors and the CGI (which a lot of directors still get wrong).
I think there is a place for high frame-rate: stories that are aiming for fly-on-the-wall realism (I'm thinking particularly of The Wire, or Paranormal Activity). I could also see new film-making styles built around the tech. Unfortunately, epic fantasy is exactly the wrong type of film for the HFR effect.
In addition to looking lifeless and flat, everything seemed to move too quickly, and human movement looked cartoonishly fluid (curiously, CGI creatures looked more real, and people looked like CGI creatures). I found the scenes that looked best were the ones in slow-motion, and I can't help but feel the whole movie would have been improved through using effects to slow down everything.
Why sound Makes Film Less Magical?
Why colors Makes Film Less Magical?
In my opinion this will happens all the time new technology will be use in Films.
The peoples just need time to accept it.
I hope that future Films (especially 3D) will be made in with 60 FPS !
I'm wondering what it will look like in 2D because not only was it shot at 48fps, but it was presumably also shot with a shutter speed of 1/96th of a second. 24fps films are shot with a 1/48th second shutter speed, so the motion blur helps to compensate for the lack of temporal accuracy. Showing a film shot at 48fps, 1/96th shutter at 24fps by presumably throwing away every other frame would result in much more "choppy" and stark motion than a film that was shot for 24fps to begin with. I'm wondering if they used some kind of process to generate fake motion blur for the 24fps version, sort of the opposite of what our 240hz TVs do?
There is a small cynical part of me that thinks that being the first to use HFR could be very profitable if everyone is so curious that they pay to see the same film several times in different formats.
I think this comes down purely to opinion..I watched it at 48 fps and thought it looked great. The story line was interesting and well developed from the book - the frame rate and quality weren't issue because I was engrossed in the film.
Had the film been a run-of-the-mill hollywood action flick reliant on the latest HD and VFX to mask a reptitive and overdone plot, then I would likely be complaining about 48 fps and why it looked dull.
This is a natural step forward in terms of quality of medium and before long will seem normal.
Disclaimer: I haven't seen the movie yet, in any format.
But I did see the clip of the Bilbo and Gollum scene played on Colbert the other week. Martin Freeman (who I've loved in other stuff, like Sherlock) was fucking terrible.
If the calibre of delivery is like that, I'm expecting unexpected rubbish. Even one of the scenes from McKellen Colbert played was pretty shit. Maybe I'm expecting too much from what is meant to be a kids book.
My point is, forget FPS -- if the acting is shit, nothing will help.
The first and only movie I saw in 3D before was Avatar and it was almost painful. I avoided 3D since then.
Last weekend I saw Hobbit in HFR 3D by accident: we thought it was in 2D, but got handed the 3D glasses at the entrance.
And what can I say: I enjoyed it, to the point where I think that seeing it in 2D would be a lesser experience. Some fast moving action scenes were still uncomfortable, but nature shots were simply gorgeous.
Meh, I think it will just take time before people are A) used to HFR and B) directors/producers are accustomed to working with the new framerate.
The porn industry thought HiDef was going to be the end of their career, since suddenly everyone could see that the porn actresses were really just people with makeup on. Porn certainly hasn't died yet. Cinema won't either.
Waa waa waa. I saw the HFR 3D version of The Hobbit by choice. Yes, for the first few minutes my brain was thinking "what am I seeing????" but then I forgot to think about how I was watching an HFR 3D movie and just started to enjoy the story, the acting, the visuals, the humor -- you know, the actual movie.
I believe Jackson is onto something here, and I bet in a few years HFR 3D will be the gold standard of movie presentation in theaters. We may begin to see HFR take off in the home theater, but that's a less certain prospect. In terms of cinema, though, this is the future. And goofs like this article writer can protest all they want but audiences are used to the frame rates of games and it's only natural to wonder "why can I play Halo at 60+ fps and then I have to watch a movie at 24fps?" 24fps is a relic of a bygone age. Kids won't have the nostalgia factor here to cloud their judgement.
I wonder if we can fix the "too little motion blur" problem by creating a camera that doesn't have a shutter - one that's continuously filming with a sensor that has the same excitability properties as our eyes, and you can read off the sensor at whatever speed you choose.
I remember when we bought our first flatscreen full HD TV (I think full HD - honestly I lost track of what means what, I guess it has a somewhat higher resolution than the old tube). Everything looked shocking at first, too - like HFR is described here, suddenly lighting and makeup were painfully obvious.
After a while we didn't really notice that anymore, so I could imagine we will adjust to HFR, too. Also I suppose film making will have to adjust (lighting, makeup and so on).
A problem could be that we get to watch a lot of TV, but not that much HFR movies in the cinema. The Hobbit will be the second movie I'll watch in the cinema in two years...
Anyways, I will watch it in HFR 3d in the cinema because I don't have the opportunity to watch it like that at home.
I watched it both in the 3D HFR and 2D version. I prefer the HFR version since the action was more fluid. But that could just be the crude conversion. I really didn't noticed the 48 fps after 30 mins or so, I just enjoyed the movie instead.
Actually, any TV/software with motion interpolation feature makes any 24fps video feel like 'cheap TV show', its not new.
From my experience the effect disappears over time, and you regain the ability to pay attention to the story.
I saw it in HFR this weekend. At first it felt "wrong" or "cheap" somehow but by the end I didn't notice the HFR except that the movie looked great. So it's something I think we'll get used to.
The reason it appears "cheap" to some is that many associate the smooth motion of high(er) framerates with crappy shot-on-video productions, such as Soap Operas.
For me movies are about escaping reality for a few hours and enjoying good story. I didn't like the HFR, maybe because it looked too real or maybe because I found the story lacking a bit, but the net result was I found it hard to simply get whisked away to fantasy land.
Or maybe I just didn't like the movie that much and picking on HFR in 3D is the easiest way to express my dislike.
Quite interesting, but he didn't convince me that there are inherent, insurmountable problems with 48FPS or 3D 48FPS, even though that seemed to be implied.
It's early days, and there may be ways to work around the problems.
For example, with it showing too much sharp detail (too much for the viewer to take in at once), there may be ways to keep certain sharp detail while reducing the rest of it.
Not to go TLDR on Hacker news, but if 48fps was too much for the author, he did in noway attempt to limit his own output to get down to the core of the matters, or "magic of telling a story" if you like.
I'm seeing this in 3D HFR tomorrow (and incidentally my first 3D movie as well). Will be interesting to see if I share his sentiment.
1.) What was the order you watched the different [quality of] films in?
2.) Is it possible that the 48fps version (with its inclusion of elements that do not directly add to the story) was shot in such a manner specifically for the substantial number of psychedelic-using filmgoers?
When I saw The Hobbit 3d 48fps, I wasnt looking for any specific differences from the status quo. And i didnt notice any. If someone has to really look for the differences to notice them, then they are relatively unnecessary. I like that they are trying to push the envelope tho.
I haven't seen the movie, but I had a very similar experience going from 25fps PAL CRT to full hd LED 100hz - all TV shows just looked amateurish and home made! That's how I would describe it. Eventually after a few months my eyes adjusted and now everything is back to normal.
> "I’ve always preached that a director or photographer should INCLUDE elements in a frame or shots that add to the story, and EXCLUDE elements or shots that detract from it."
The genius of Tolkien is in the detail of his world, a detail no author I have read is yet to emulate.
An interesting comparison with videogames, where higher FPS is striven for. 60FPS would be considered optimal (on consoles at least, PCs can go much higher).
That's exactly the approach that Douglas Trumbull wanted to use in Brainstorm where the replayed experiences of others would have been displayed using his 60fps Showscan techbology:
In my country, only one of the 6 IMAX cinemas is showing the movie in IMAX 3D HFR, the others only show IMAX 3D. All of them offer non-IMAX 3D HFR versions, though.
This guys full of it. There's no way you can see the same movie and tell me you "connected" more when it was just 2D. If he wants to be a film purist he should say so, I'm fine with people preferring one format but I bet he'll be watching the film when it comes out on Blu-Ray and NOT his VHS...
Also, I saw it in 3D HFR and thought it looked amazing! Everything was so clear and I could see the pores on peoples faces and the battle scenes flowed much more smoothly. The only thing that bugged me was the glasses which wrapped the head too tightly.
I would say that you must be offended that people have a differing opinions, because I see little offense among others. Yes, other people disagree, as they should.
Another poster hit on a point of contention that has always bothered me, which is the "I can correlate it with something different (soap operas, football, etc), therefore it is worse". That is not a credible position, yet it is returned to again and again in the piece.
Better technology always has the capacity to present worse (48fps can be 24fps if you want, and you can vaseline up high definition to the point of achieving low definition), while the opposite is not true.
3D on the other hand... I wish it would die. You have to converge at a distance and focus at another, and that's really hard for some people. There are a huge number of cues[1] that are important in depth perception, but 3D movies make use only of parallax confusing the brain. The depth of field is usually shallow, and that's great for 2D, but catastrophic for 3D. In real life, objects that I make an explicit effort to focus to are not blurry, but in 3D they are.
Another annoying aspect of 3D movies is that they artificially augment the parallax to make the 3D effect more extreme. That's equivalent to objects being really close. Apart from strain on the eyes, that's really annoying for wide outdoor shots, where things should effectively be at infinity. It's like you are looking at a miniature, not at a vast valley.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_perception