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There are some noises about higher framerate movie production; The Hobbit was the first, and it was not well received. Motion at 30fps and higher looks very dif

by jfb 13y ago

There are some noises about higher framerate movie production; The Hobbit was the first, and it was not well received. Motion at 30fps and higher looks very different than motion at 24fps, and part of the resistance to HFR is simply unfamiliarity; however, a lot of shots in The Hobbit were not improved by the 48fps presentation; I think that we won't get good results until film projection is dead, and directors and DPs can present at arbitrary frame rates -- there's no reason that, given a digital projection, a movie couldn't use 48 (or 60!) for certain sequences, while retaining 24 (or 30) for others. It would add another technique for directors to use, just as video has.

dragonwriter 13y ago
> I think that we won't get good results until film projection is dead, and directors and DPs can present at arbitrary frame rates -- there's no reason that, given a digital projection, a movie couldn't use 48 (or 60!) for certain sequences, while retaining 24 (or 30) for others. Even with film projection, as long as the higher rate is an integer multiple of the lower, it should be trivial to have the same effect as long as you have camera equipment that lets you shoot at the desired rates.
- jfb 13y ago
  Yeah, I guess, although it makes for the possibility of broken cadences, which is everybody's least favorite thing ever. I imagine that this isn't going to happen until film is dead as a presentation medium for a variety of reasons (tooling, as you note).
brownbat 13y ago
> a lot of shots in The Hobbit were not improved by the 48fps presentation But a few were. Outdoor pans, landscapes, busy scenes. There's a market shot in the beginning with about 8 mini-scenes in the frame, and you can look at any part of the film and see it far more clearly / less blurring than if it were filmed with any lesser tech. The shots that didn't work: indoor shots where you could see caked on makeup... it's because no one, literally no one, seems to understand how much less lighting and makeup to use with an HFR camera. This is a craft problem. We probably won't get widespread HFR until it gets cheap and widespread enough that some people are growing up experimenting with it.
- jfb 13y ago
  Agreed on all counts.
- AndrewDucker 13y ago
  Yeah - the outdoor scenes were magnificent, the indoor ones you could suddenly tell that it was being lit with big electric lamps, rather than natural light.
etler 13y ago
It might just be the unfamiliarity, but I have a feeling that a benefit of 24fps is that while it loses data, your mind fills in the details to make it more believable. At higher framerates I have a subtle feeling that the acting seems more fake, maybe because the higher detail of the framerate highlights the mistakes of the actors more, or with CGI it highlights the unnatural movements of the computer animation.

by jfb 13y ago

dragonwriter 13y ago

> I think that we won't get good results until film projection is dead, and directors and DPs can present at arbitrary frame rates -- there's no reason that, given a digital projection, a movie couldn't use 48 (or 60!) for certain sequences, while retaining 24 (or 30) for others. Even with film projection, as long as the higher rate is an integer multiple of the lower, it should be trivial to have the same effect as long as you have camera equipment that lets you shoot at the desired rates.

jfb 13y ago
Yeah, I guess, although it makes for the possibility of broken cadences, which is everybody's least favorite thing ever. I imagine that this isn't going to happen until film is dead as a presentation medium for a variety of reasons (tooling, as you note).

brownbat 13y ago

> a lot of shots in The Hobbit were not improved by the 48fps presentation But a few were. Outdoor pans, landscapes, busy scenes. There's a market shot in the beginning with about 8 mini-scenes in the frame, and you can look at any part of the film and see it far more clearly / less blurring than if it were filmed with any lesser tech. The shots that didn't work: indoor shots where you could see caked on makeup... it's because no one, literally no one, seems to understand how much less lighting and makeup to use with an HFR camera. This is a craft problem. We probably won't get widespread HFR until it gets cheap and widespread enough that some people are growing up experimenting with it.

jfb 13y ago
Agreed on all counts.
AndrewDucker 13y ago
Yeah - the outdoor scenes were magnificent, the indoor ones you could suddenly tell that it was being lit with big electric lamps, rather than natural light.

etler 13y ago

It might just be the unfamiliarity, but I have a feeling that a benefit of 24fps is that while it loses data, your mind fills in the details to make it more believable. At higher framerates I have a subtle feeling that the acting seems more fake, maybe because the higher detail of the framerate highlights the mistakes of the actors more, or with CGI it highlights the unnatural movements of the computer animation.