6 ms·

This article is detailed and scientific. However, anecdotally speaking, the concern I have with evaluating high-frame rate in film is that we have very little

by bhauer 12y ago

This article is detailed and scientific. However, anecdotally speaking, the concern I have with evaluating high-frame rate in film is that we have very little context—most of us have only ever seen Peter Jackson's Hobbit films in HFR. In other words, I have never seen how other directors' work would be affected by HFR. Speaking exclusively about the Hobbit series in HFR, I too observed an uncanny valley that traditional films intrinsically avoid with their low frame rate. The Hobbit films felt more like a play than a film. A play with elaborate stage effects, but a play nonetheless. In fact, my chief criticism of Jackson's directing with HFR is that the feeling of watching a play is amplified by how he mixes the sound and directs his extras. The extras routinely just mumble nonsense in the background, leaving only the character you're intended to be focused on speaking clearly. It's the same thing you see in a play when there is background dialog, and it's completely unnatural. You find yourself sometimes distracted by the characters in the background and realizing they're not actually doing anything meaningful or having real conversations. For example, in the most recent film, I found myself more distracted by the unnatural audio in early scenes (such as the beach scene) than the HFR video. Combine that with the poor acting by the minor characters in the first 45 minutes of the recent film and I think HFR gets a bad rap in large part because the Hobbit films alone are our point of reference.

nitrogen 12y ago
I saw the first two Hobbit movies in HFR 3D, but the third in 24fps 3D. The third still looked like a play. I attribute it to the frequent use of infinite focus to reduce 3D-induced headaches, or if not that, a stereo separation that was too wide. The sets and locations felt very finite and contained, rather than expansive and overwhelming as in LoTR.
- techrat 12y ago
  Desolation of Smaug has this issue as well. The only time the film felt truly deep and expansive to me was when Bilbo first stepped into Erebor and you got to see how massive the pile of gold was as it panned through the main chamber. Then it got closed up and tight again shortly thereafter. The few wider shots that followed reeked of bad CGI compositing (especially when Bilbo falls off the platform with the lever when Smaug knocks it down) I chalked it up to the cinematography just not meshing well with the way the film was shot.
kozak 12y ago
On TV you see high frame rate content every day (well, if you still watch traditional television, that is). It's just that big Hollywood movies (and fictional films in general) were not shot in HFR before. But all sports content, many documentaries and most news are 50 to 59.94 Hz (depending on where you leave) on traditional TV (not when viewed over the web, of course).
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
tigeba 12y ago
Just my opinion here, but for context you can include virtually any television program that originated as NTSC and was not shot on film and telecined. Just about any soap-opera for example. A more recent example would be NBC's Peter Pan Live, which looked like it was done in native 60p to my eye. Paradoxically it was a play but really would have benefitted greatly from 24p.
twoodfin 12y ago
Agree. Assuming the lukewarm reception of HFR for "The Hobbit" hasn't consigned us to another decade or so of 24fps, I am hopeful that the right director and cinematographer will eventually come along and exploit its aesthetic possibilities. Imagine if "The Matrix" had been shot with the simulations in HFR and the real world in 24fps. Or if Kubrick had a chance to essentially invert the gauzy, candle-lit settings of "Barry Lyndon" and present a world in 8K hyper-reality.
- tigeba 12y ago
  Just riffing on your Matrix example, the now 'classic' example of using a temporal shift to aid story telling is the use of 45 or 90 degree shutter in "Saving Private Ryan" during combat scenes. Changing the shutter angle on a motion film camera is analogous to changing the shutter speed, in this case opting for a faster shutter during the action sequences. This reduces motion blur the same way shooting at a higher frame rate would, albeit keeping the 24p.
- modfodder 12y ago
  While not a fan of The Hobbit's use of HFR (I thought it worked well in mostly CGI action scenes and not at all everywhere else), I too am waiting for someone to use it in the right context. I don't think Barry Lyndon would work, period pieces for the most part I believe work better at 24. But The Matrix very well might. With The Matrix it might work best if it was a mix of HFR and 24. HFR when they are in the matrix and 24 when they are out (of course that brings another set of problems in projecting mixed frame rates in the same movie). HFR I believe would work really well in sci-fi that is meant to look and feel a bit sterile (think THX1138, The Island, etc.). Or in heavily CGI scenes. The big problem with The Hobbit, since it is the first, there is still a bit of working out the kinks and bugs (lighting to me was a big issue in the first HFR film). Give it time and it might prove an indispensable creative tool.
rootbear 12y ago
I keep hoping that someone will release an HFR film that is not also in 3D. I saw an extensive demo of HFR at Siggraph a few years back and it was amazing. HFR can be so crisp and clear that you don't even NEED 3d. I have several friends who don't have stereo vision due to various vision issues. They won't go to see the Hobbit films in HFR, since it's tied to 3D, which is worse than useless to them. The industry needs to give HFR a chance to stand on its own.
corysama 12y ago
I think that you are spot-on regarding how The Hobbit comes off more as a play than a movie. Another important issue is the unwitting association we have built up that inversely correlates frame rate and production quality. The movie tradition started as soon as video technology became just barely capable of supporting the medium. The enormous cost of moving beyond that ancient standard has kept movies at 24Hz for more than a human lifetime. Later, cheaper, consumer-orientated ed tech targeted getting the best quality out of 59.97Hz television displays, so of course they used all 59.97Hz available to them. Because of this quirk of history, we've had a frame rate & quality dichotomy with movies on one side (very high quality & 24hz) and soap operas/TV sport/live action reporting/home movies (low to abysmal production quality and 60Hz) on the other for the entire life of everyone. When MotionFlow frame rate upscaling TVs first came to market, I randomly polled people I found looking at them at BestBuy about what they thought. Even when watching super-expensive Hollywood productions, the most common response was that it "looked like a high school play." It was ludicrous to look at the enormous scenes, world-shaking special effects and top-bill actors on the screens and say "Yep. High school production." But, people did. And, they couldn't explain why. I think the lifetime spent unconsciously building up a mental model that high frame rate leads to low quality is probably a major factor in people's reaction to 48&60Hz movies.
- emp_zealoth 12y ago
  All you need as a proof HFR looks weird is to watch first Capitan America (from the new series of Marvel films) I personally think most of the issues come from clear motions - you can see they are using props just because they are too light and don't move like a real object would. There isn't enough blur to fool your brain.
frozenchars 12y ago
Watch the non-main characters in any recent animated Disney film for the same effect. They're almost stationary, occasionally blink, have blank looks on their faces, and, if they're the focus of your attention, look _completely unnatural_. (Source: Parent of small children who started to look at anything else in a scene of Frozen after the 10th time.)
bmurphy1976 12y ago
I believe the play-like feeling can be attributed to the fact that 90% of it was filmed in front of a blue screen. Considering all the goofy camera tricks used to make the characters look proportionally correct, is must be very difficult to act in that kind of situation and have it come off feeling natural. Props to Andy Serkis for rising above the rabble.
- andrewflnr 12y ago
  Serkis has had a lot more practice.
eridius 12y ago
Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I thought HFR dramatically improved the Hobbit films. The first 5 minutes of each movie felt very odd, as if everyone was moving in fast motion without actually moving any faster (sorry, that's the best way I can describe it), but after those first 5 minutes, the movie looked completely natural and amazing. Especially the 3D, it looked so good that I want every single 3D movie to be produced in HFR now, and I lament the fact that there's no way to get HFR at home. As for feeling like a play, I guess I didn't pay attention to the background characters much because I never noticed any of this nonsense mumbling that you're talking about.
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  Well if you have a PC setup to play videos, there's a system that'll interpolate any video to a higher frame rate : http://www.svp-team.com/ http://www.svp-team.com/ I watched ST TNG using that and it certainly made it feel a bit more realistic.
  - eridius 12y ago
    Most modern TVs tend to have motion smoothing available as an option as well (that page says higher-end TVs but I've seen it on plenty of cheaper TVs as well, though I don't know when that was written). But it's nowhere near as good as HFR, especially in scenes with a lot of motion it tends to make things blurrier.
- gambiting 12y ago
  It depends on a person. For me, the weird effect you had for the first 5 minutes never subsided, and I disliked it all the way till the very end. I felt like it should be out of sync with sound, because everyone moved in such an unnatural way,but it never was, no matter how hard I looked.
- MAGZine 12y ago
  BUilding on this, I saw the Hobbit the first time in 48, and the second time in 24fps. The panning around at the beginning of the movie was HORRIBLE in 24fps. Visually displeasing. The HFR effect disappeared for me after a few minutes and I could enjoy the film for what it was.
baddox 12y ago
The trouble I have with everyone's evaluation of The Hobbit's HFR footage is that I am apparently the only one in the world that think it looks absolutely phenomenal. I think it's a positively game changing technology, and I hope this is just a short transitional generation of nay-sayers. The fact that I can watch a camera pan in a theater that doesn't look completely terrible and strobing is eye-opening.
pakled_engineer 12y ago
Avatar 2 will likely be 60FPS http://www.es.com/Products/60Frames.html http://www.es.com/Products/60Frames.html Opposite is Tarantino, who hates digital and is shooting is next film in 70mm. They should be released around the same time so we will have the best of digital and film to compare.
emehrkay 12y ago
I didn't think of it at the time, but when my son and I went to see the film in imax over the weekend, I felt the need to excuse myself in the first few minutes to get a drink of water. I felt uneasy and my eyes kinda watered, but I eventually got used to it and was okay. I thought that I was feeling some type of way because the 3d never really "works" for me. I guess the frame rate had something to do with it.
scott_s 12y ago
An article on framerate popped up on HN last year, about the same time, about last year's Hobbit movie. Something that article brought up was lighting: at a higher frame rate, more light hits our eyes. Directors (both full and of Photography) will need to adjust how they light movies - which probably means using less light. Same for things like makeup - they'll need to adjust to viewers being able to see more.

by bhauer 12y ago

nitrogen 12y ago

I saw the first two Hobbit movies in HFR 3D, but the third in 24fps 3D. The third still looked like a play. I attribute it to the frequent use of infinite focus to reduce 3D-induced headaches, or if not that, a stereo separation that was too wide. The sets and locations felt very finite and contained, rather than expansive and overwhelming as in LoTR.

techrat 12y ago
Desolation of Smaug has this issue as well. The only time the film felt truly deep and expansive to me was when Bilbo first stepped into Erebor and you got to see how massive the pile of gold was as it panned through the main chamber. Then it got closed up and tight again shortly thereafter. The few wider shots that followed reeked of bad CGI compositing (especially when Bilbo falls off the platform with the lever when Smaug knocks it down) I chalked it up to the cinematography just not meshing well with the way the film was shot.

kozak 12y ago

On TV you see high frame rate content every day (well, if you still watch traditional television, that is). It's just that big Hollywood movies (and fictional films in general) were not shot in HFR before. But all sports content, many documentaries and most news are 50 to 59.94 Hz (depending on where you leave) on traditional TV (not when viewed over the web, of course).

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

tigeba 12y ago

Just my opinion here, but for context you can include virtually any television program that originated as NTSC and was not shot on film and telecined. Just about any soap-opera for example. A more recent example would be NBC's Peter Pan Live, which looked like it was done in native 60p to my eye. Paradoxically it was a play but really would have benefitted greatly from 24p.

twoodfin 12y ago

Agree. Assuming the lukewarm reception of HFR for "The Hobbit" hasn't consigned us to another decade or so of 24fps, I am hopeful that the right director and cinematographer will eventually come along and exploit its aesthetic possibilities. Imagine if "The Matrix" had been shot with the simulations in HFR and the real world in 24fps. Or if Kubrick had a chance to essentially invert the gauzy, candle-lit settings of "Barry Lyndon" and present a world in 8K hyper-reality.

tigeba 12y ago
Just riffing on your Matrix example, the now 'classic' example of using a temporal shift to aid story telling is the use of 45 or 90 degree shutter in "Saving Private Ryan" during combat scenes. Changing the shutter angle on a motion film camera is analogous to changing the shutter speed, in this case opting for a faster shutter during the action sequences. This reduces motion blur the same way shooting at a higher frame rate would, albeit keeping the 24p.
modfodder 12y ago
While not a fan of The Hobbit's use of HFR (I thought it worked well in mostly CGI action scenes and not at all everywhere else), I too am waiting for someone to use it in the right context. I don't think Barry Lyndon would work, period pieces for the most part I believe work better at 24. But The Matrix very well might. With The Matrix it might work best if it was a mix of HFR and 24. HFR when they are in the matrix and 24 when they are out (of course that brings another set of problems in projecting mixed frame rates in the same movie). HFR I believe would work really well in sci-fi that is meant to look and feel a bit sterile (think THX1138, The Island, etc.). Or in heavily CGI scenes. The big problem with The Hobbit, since it is the first, there is still a bit of working out the kinks and bugs (lighting to me was a big issue in the first HFR film). Give it time and it might prove an indispensable creative tool.

rootbear 12y ago

I keep hoping that someone will release an HFR film that is not also in 3D. I saw an extensive demo of HFR at Siggraph a few years back and it was amazing. HFR can be so crisp and clear that you don't even NEED 3d. I have several friends who don't have stereo vision due to various vision issues. They won't go to see the Hobbit films in HFR, since it's tied to 3D, which is worse than useless to them. The industry needs to give HFR a chance to stand on its own.

corysama 12y ago

I think that you are spot-on regarding how The Hobbit comes off more as a play than a movie. Another important issue is the unwitting association we have built up that inversely correlates frame rate and production quality. The movie tradition started as soon as video technology became just barely capable of supporting the medium. The enormous cost of moving beyond that ancient standard has kept movies at 24Hz for more than a human lifetime. Later, cheaper, consumer-orientated ed tech targeted getting the best quality out of 59.97Hz television displays, so of course they used all 59.97Hz available to them. Because of this quirk of history, we've had a frame rate & quality dichotomy with movies on one side (very high quality & 24hz) and soap operas/TV sport/live action reporting/home movies (low to abysmal production quality and 60Hz) on the other for the entire life of everyone. When MotionFlow frame rate upscaling TVs first came to market, I randomly polled people I found looking at them at BestBuy about what they thought. Even when watching super-expensive Hollywood productions, the most common response was that it "looked like a high school play." It was ludicrous to look at the enormous scenes, world-shaking special effects and top-bill actors on the screens and say "Yep. High school production." But, people did. And, they couldn't explain why. I think the lifetime spent unconsciously building up a mental model that high frame rate leads to low quality is probably a major factor in people's reaction to 48&60Hz movies.

emp_zealoth 12y ago
All you need as a proof HFR looks weird is to watch first Capitan America (from the new series of Marvel films) I personally think most of the issues come from clear motions - you can see they are using props just because they are too light and don't move like a real object would. There isn't enough blur to fool your brain.

frozenchars 12y ago

Watch the non-main characters in any recent animated Disney film for the same effect. They're almost stationary, occasionally blink, have blank looks on their faces, and, if they're the focus of your attention, look _completely unnatural_. (Source: Parent of small children who started to look at anything else in a scene of Frozen after the 10th time.)

bmurphy1976 12y ago

I believe the play-like feeling can be attributed to the fact that 90% of it was filmed in front of a blue screen. Considering all the goofy camera tricks used to make the characters look proportionally correct, is must be very difficult to act in that kind of situation and have it come off feeling natural. Props to Andy Serkis for rising above the rabble.

andrewflnr 12y ago
Serkis has had a lot more practice.

eridius 12y ago

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I thought HFR dramatically improved the Hobbit films. The first 5 minutes of each movie felt very odd, as if everyone was moving in fast motion without actually moving any faster (sorry, that's the best way I can describe it), but after those first 5 minutes, the movie looked completely natural and amazing. Especially the 3D, it looked so good that I want every single 3D movie to be produced in HFR now, and I lament the fact that there's no way to get HFR at home. As for feeling like a play, I guess I didn't pay attention to the background characters much because I never noticed any of this nonsense mumbling that you're talking about.

MichaelGG 12y ago
Well if you have a PC setup to play videos, there's a system that'll interpolate any video to a higher frame rate : http://www.svp-team.com/ http://www.svp-team.com/ I watched ST TNG using that and it certainly made it feel a bit more realistic.
- eridius 12y ago
  Most modern TVs tend to have motion smoothing available as an option as well (that page says higher-end TVs but I've seen it on plenty of cheaper TVs as well, though I don't know when that was written). But it's nowhere near as good as HFR, especially in scenes with a lot of motion it tends to make things blurrier.
gambiting 12y ago
It depends on a person. For me, the weird effect you had for the first 5 minutes never subsided, and I disliked it all the way till the very end. I felt like it should be out of sync with sound, because everyone moved in such an unnatural way,but it never was, no matter how hard I looked.
MAGZine 12y ago
BUilding on this, I saw the Hobbit the first time in 48, and the second time in 24fps. The panning around at the beginning of the movie was HORRIBLE in 24fps. Visually displeasing. The HFR effect disappeared for me after a few minutes and I could enjoy the film for what it was.

baddox 12y ago

The trouble I have with everyone's evaluation of The Hobbit's HFR footage is that I am apparently the only one in the world that think it looks absolutely phenomenal. I think it's a positively game changing technology, and I hope this is just a short transitional generation of nay-sayers. The fact that I can watch a camera pan in a theater that doesn't look completely terrible and strobing is eye-opening.

pakled_engineer 12y ago

Avatar 2 will likely be 60FPS http://www.es.com/Products/60Frames.html http://www.es.com/Products/60Frames.html Opposite is Tarantino, who hates digital and is shooting is next film in 70mm. They should be released around the same time so we will have the best of digital and film to compare.

emehrkay 12y ago

I didn't think of it at the time, but when my son and I went to see the film in imax over the weekend, I felt the need to excuse myself in the first few minutes to get a drink of water. I felt uneasy and my eyes kinda watered, but I eventually got used to it and was okay. I thought that I was feeling some type of way because the 3d never really "works" for me. I guess the frame rate had something to do with it.

scott_s 12y ago

An article on framerate popped up on HN last year, about the same time, about last year's Hobbit movie. Something that article brought up was lighting: at a higher frame rate, more light hits our eyes. Directors (both full and of Photography) will need to adjust how they light movies - which probably means using less light. Same for things like makeup - they'll need to adjust to viewers being able to see more.