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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

The Hobbit at 48fps...

I have not yet seen the film, but coverage I've seen of BTS footage leads me to think the Hobbit is a video game that they've tried to make into a movie.
 
M Most said:
Its not the people, companies, or project that prompt these responses. Nor is it some belief shaped by years of visual force feeding.
....
The "magic," whatever that is, is lost, at least in adult viewers. That's probably one reason why Jackson's comment about "anyone under the age of 20 likes the HFR version" probably has some validity.

Unfortunately, most of the world, and a very large percentage of the worldwide moviegoing audience, is not under 20.
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I think, Mike, a large part of what people are saying is that there's no way for you and I to know that. People HAVE had years of visual force feeding... you had no choice but to accept that a movie in a theater was a 24fps experience. Period. In the same way that for years you had no choice but to watch a film in B&W.

Now we have HFR, just as all of the sudden people had color. People today may find HFR strange, just as people then may have found color disconcerting. But, unless you have control group that HASN'T been conditioned for years, you can't say that it's not a belief shaped by years of experience.

Of course, for those people, that's a perfectly valid viewpoint. There's nothing that says you have, or should, have to change your preconceived notions of what a movie should be.

But that doesn't mean that people without those preconceptions may find it more enjoyable, as the "under 20" quote points out. And that also means that to not explore new ground in art and capability simply because it might take a while for the population to begin to appreciate it would be silly.

-Steve
 
Björn Benckert said:
People say 24p was the lowest possible frame rate set to save film stock back in the days. I think there was a lot more to it, as in 24p you have best of both words good enough motion but you also get to see each frame. The streamy look of high fps video is terrible I think even when done proper I think it looks like when my tvset is set to smoothing or worse. Hope I'm wrong and have to go back and edit this post after I seen the move though... a bit sad if it does not look good.
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12fps is the fastest speed at which you see each frame, 24fps is te limit of smooth motion being perceived. Tests at the time (Edison I believe) suggested that anything less than 48fps causes eye strain. Because film was expensive, it made more sense to fake a framerate higher than this using the projector to show each frame more than once.

The 24 fps look is a double edged sword it can lessen the immersion in your story just as easily as it can add to it. To much movie magic and you lose the suspension of disbelief you enforce that its fake. Embellish something to much and you cross the line, like a juggler attempting to many flaming torches you can drop everything and end up getting burnt.

If you consciously notice 24ps motion blur then its to much, drama I can't remember it really happening but in action scenes it can really dump me out.

The linked article in this thread about variable frame rate sounds interesting, possibly allowing film makers to have the best of both worlds.

There are many ways to control the ways your audience are drawn into your story, but even in fantasy sometimes a flash of realism can draw you in, or to much unreality can dump you out.
 
Lee Saxon said:
What a huge mistake.
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Mistake? Hardly. It's a product of current practical, logistical, financial, and technical reality. You may not want to believe that, but you didn't make a 3 hour movie with thousands of VFX shots, all stereoscopic, and at twice the "normal" frame rate. If you did, you would have been faced with the same realities.
 
Saw the 3D 48 fps version today. Had no issues with the 48 fps at all. Forgot about it within minutes. Only during pans I thought how much better this was then the horrible look of 24 fps during pans.
 
I just saw the 3D HFR version today as well. I was quite sceptic before I went I have to admit.
I had some of my fears confirmed, some scenes looked like I thought they would, TV like (but so much better).
Its the first time I ever enjoyed a 3D movie ( and I've seen a few) and "forgot" that I was watching a 3D movie at times. That has never happend before.
Some scenes worked clearly better in HFR than others, but I couldn't find a formula for what worked and what didn't. Pit wasn't as simple as wide landscape shots work, medium shoots not.
Some times I felt I was right there with them, some times I felt I was watching TV Show.
Personally the scene that l liked the least visually was the dwarf dinner at Frodos house. It really looked like TV to me.
for certain kind of films HFR works great.
And the more knowledge of how to apply it, what works better than other things etc, it (hopefully) will only get better.
Remember this technology is in its infancy (at least in mainstream movies).

So HFR is a bit like the Internet I suppose, it's here to stay ;-)

PS I had to run t my car to not get a ticket as time was running out on my 3h parking, and I was half way through the shopping center before I realized I was still wearing my 3D glasses, so I really did forget I was watching a 3D movie. I most have looked pretty stupid passing all these people:blush:
 
As I previously said, I needed to wait and see how it looks in 3D before judging it and I have to say that it was quite good. I would not see it in 2D 48 fps, that just looks like cheap television, but in 3D, especially in fast camera moves it looks really good. It takes a while to get used to it and there were some shots that just felt cheap, but in some areas, especially fight scenes that were shot in slow motion, it really freakin shines how, in a good way, different this way of shooting a film is.

As the previous speaker, I felt the same about all the Shire scenes, don't know why but those felt cheap, it didn't have the same feeling as the old films. It might have been that these weren't structured in the same dramatic way as the old trilogy, so it could be that those scenes were quite weak story-wise.

Then there were some problems with the technology, some issues with ghosting that I think happened because of a not so good technician in the projection booth. I think it was fixed a few minutes into the movie.

So, the technology is good, but it really really depends on how you use it and it demands A LOT more of work in all areas of filmmaking to really improve immersion, so it's not for every type of movie.
 
Hei Cristopher.
I didn't see any ghosting , so I think you are right about the projectionist.
I totally agree about the slowmo battle/fight scenes. The technology really shines here
 
I think that the technical superiority of the higher frame rate makes the images look almost completely real. Maybe 8K images at 120 fps will be just like looking through a big window.... Completly real. I am certain that will happen, faster than we think. And I like it! :-)

BUT

No feature film is real. Everybody knows that. So why even atempt to present it as such?
 
Not really, since the eye can't really distinguish individual pixels at 4K at this range from the screen, 8K is overkill and 120fps is around double the amount of frames that the eye can register. The "perfect eye rate" would be 4K 60p. Then you need the same dynamic range as the eye can see and wrap the image in a IMAX shape... then it would feel real, or as real as it can get. It might be that for IMAX, 8K is needed, if the image is wrapped using the entire screen area.

Still, the more "real" you go with the image, the more strange an "edit" becomes. I realised this in the introduction story when Smaug attacks, the fast edits in and out of close ups and wide shots felt a bit strange. So, the more real you get the more different your shooting style must be. The BEST way would be to use long takes, camera moves and such, to stay in "realtime" for as long as you can in the edit, that way you "keep it real".

The craft of directing and editing is different when shooting 48 fps and 3D, the good ones creates great cinematic experiences, tha bad ones creates a gimmick effect.
 
I think you are right about that Onar. It was a few times during the Hobbit I felt I was right there, looking through the screen, not at the screen
 
Christoffer Glans said:
Not really, since the eye can't really distinguish individual pixels at 4K at this range from the screen, 8K is overkill and 120fps is around double the amount of frames that the eye can register. The "perfect eye rate" would be 4K 60p. Then you need the same dynamic range as the eye can see and wrap the image in a IMAX shape... then it would feel real, or as real as it can get. It might be that for IMAX, 8K is needed, if the image is wrapped using the entire screen area.

Still, the more "real" you go with the image, the more strange an "edit" becomes. I realised this in the introduction story when Smaug attacks, the fast edits in and out of close ups and wide shots felt a bit strange. So, the more real you get the more different your shooting style must be. The BEST way would be to use long takes, camera moves and such, to stay in "realtime" for as long as you can in the edit, that way you "keep it real".

The craft of directing and editing is different when shooting 48 fps and 3D, the good ones creates great cinematic experiences, tha bad ones creates a gimmick effect.
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My point was that we now have the technology to nearly recreate reality in the theaters. The question is: Why do it? Some times it is apropriate and some times not. :-)
 
Christoffer Glans said:
As I previously said, I needed to wait and see how it looks in 3D before judging it and I have to say that it was quite good. I would not see it in 2D 48 fps, that just looks like cheap television, but in 3D, especially in fast camera moves it looks really good. It takes a while to get used to it and there were some shots that just felt cheap, but in some areas, especially fight scenes that were shot in slow motion, it really freakin shines how, in a good way, different this way of shooting a film is.

As the previous speaker, I felt the same about all the Shire scenes, don't know why but those felt cheap, it didn't have the same feeling as the old films. It might have been that these weren't structured in the same dramatic way as the old trilogy, so it could be that those scenes were quite weak story-wise.

Then there were some problems with the technology, some issues with ghosting that I think happened because of a not so good technician in the projection booth. I think it was fixed a few minutes into the movie.

So, the technology is good, but it really really depends on how you use it and it demands A LOT more of work in all areas of filmmaking to really improve immersion, so it's not for every type of movie.
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Where did you see the Hobbit? Trying to track down your problem as I'm a projectionist over at Warner Bros. If you saw it on the lot then there's no way you were seeing ghosting from the projection side of things. The days of ghosting has long since past and was a problem back in the early days of Digital 3D. If there was a problem with the projector like it was in a wrong setting or something. You would have seen the picture go out for a second or two as it was corrected. If you didn't see this then it was never fixed and it was just the effect of 48fps.

The other problem with 48fps 3D is that most places are, or should be, running with their lamps at max brightness. Of course the problem with having to do this is that the highlights seem to really suffer in the film. The Hobbit just looks way better in 24fps 2D and I've heard it looks pretty amazing on film as well. Only a couple people over here have gotten to see it on film.
 
Andrew Walker said:
Where did you see the Hobbit? Trying to track down your problem as I'm a projectionist over at Warner Bros. If you saw it on the lot then there's no way you were seeing ghosting from the projection side of things. The days of ghosting has long since past and was a problem back in the early days of Digital 3D. If there was a problem with the projector like it was in a wrong setting or something. You would have seen the picture go out for a second or two as it was corrected. If you didn't see this then it was never fixed and it was just the effect of 48fps.

The other problem with 48fps 3D is that most places are, or should be, running with their lamps at max brightness. Of course the problem with having to do this is that the highlights seem to really suffer in the film. The Hobbit just looks way better in 24fps 2D and I've heard it looks pretty amazing on film as well. Only a couple people over here have gotten to see it on film.
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It has already premiered in Sweden where I live. The problem as I saw it was mostly seen in the beginning. There were a lot of fast motion that felt like the left or right eye image was 1 frame behind (1 of the 48 frames), which meant that fast motion destroyed the depth in those areas. What gave away that it was a problem was that the subtitles had a blurry "dublicate behind it, as if one eye wasn't calibrated. As the movie started it jumped around the screen going in and out of 3D and out of focus, it was clearly not calibrated before screening and they tried to fix it during the start of the film.
So, I think the projectionist "thought" that they fixed it, but I would not exaggerate to say that my opinion is that they are amateurs in that theatre... the largest premiere theatre in Stockholm. Almost every movie I've been to the last 6 months have had problems, if not with 3D, then with surround. When watching The Dark Knight, they "forgot" to calibrate the surround sound so Bane's voice was the only one heard (as the sound designer had put it in every speaker, not just the front), so during the entire start of that film we couldn't hear the dialogue of any actor except Tom Hardy.

So, there was definetely a problem with this screening, maybe my eyes just adapted to the error later on, but it might have been that they corrected it during the screening, if it was something else then unsynced projectors.
 
Not as a comment on the hobbit or hfr, but the art of imagemaking.

To me it is a lot about vreating "unreal".

Cinema is an artform in itself, and possibly (besides computergames, if that is an artform) the youngest, still finding its expressions.

It is a lot about illusions and storytelling and I think there is put down too little work on finding ways to express stories. Hyper-real is one way. Total abstraction is another. Both are valid imho.

I often ask myself why (I think that) many older pieces hold up so well, and I think it is partly due to them defining their own rules.
The diversity in ways stories are told in older cinema is huge compared to mainstream cinema today.
Still it had commercial value.

Thinking "out of the box" or not even "accepting the box" is no guarantee of success, but neither is strictly commiting ro conventions.

The films that "made it" for me, are in their different ways, not "naturalistic" looking at all, and don't pretend to be.

They are over and underacted.
Have funny props and visual liberty that transgresses "right" or "wrong".

This os NOT an argument against technical evolution. i love my 5k's in a fist!
THAT is NOT the point. But the whole "looking through a window" idea really makes me cringe, when that becomes the deciding parameter.

Looking through windows is cool. As is discovering in muddy wayers, walking in a haze, being partly blind or maybe even psychidelic.

I am not claiming to be "right" at any syandard, and I am a sucker for huge commercial productions like the Bourne series at least as much as the next man.

But I am huge fan of diversity and different ways to look at life and art.

Art is in many ways (even in huge commercial productions) giving us alternate ways on considering life, esthethics and values. And that is not limited to a singqle technical expression.

Probably we'll have a new wave of "dogma" like movies after the technical exprwssion has reached a new level of perfection.

Humans are like that.
Overfeed us on one thing, and we crave for the oposite.

Eating 5 course meals at only Micheleng 5-star restaurant eventually become boring. Somdays you need Thai street-cooking, a hamburger or just a hotdo, to really appreachiate the diversity.

Ouch.

Some of the techie babble realli triggers me... Hahahahahaha

Maybe exactly because I have been so focused on it for so long time...

Dunno....

There is no conflict between technically perfect and expression and story. They can coexist in the same productions. But you'll have ro define them for each individual production.
The moment you define a "golden standard" you at the same time have defined laws to break and stuff to improve.

Cheers, and sorry for the rant!
 
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