The Hobbit at 48fps...

[Scott Crawley]

I don't mean to speak for Paul but he appears to be unsure, so he is throwing his questions and doubts into the ring as assertions to be kicked about as a means of testing them so that he can better understand the bigger picture. I only make that assumption because he has kept an open mind and is accepting of various points of view. He continues to challenge us, yet he is gracious. Some of us are not treating him in kind.

 

[Sergio Perez]

EDIT-. I come from an Arts University background and am familiar with everything Paul said, or used as examples, in his previous posts. I Just don't try to sound all poignant with quotes and art pieces from different mediums to create a post to add to the perception I know something I clearly did not have the time to form a clear opinion yet. We could all be talking about post modernism, etc. over here, but I sincerely don't think this has anything to do with the subject matter. An article like Laforet, for example, relates the elements- art, photography, the technical aspects of image capture, frame rates eloquently to form an opinion. Its Laforet's own opinion, and as an opinion I do not agree, for example, his remark that the 3D doesn't work for this film- in my opinion it does because it was shot with deep DOF, Mise en Scene and everything with 3D in mind. Its, on par with Hugo, in my opinion, the best use of 3D since the recent resurgence of the technique. I think Paul, if he has an opinion, should try to elaborate something similar to Laforet's reasoning. Because what I've read from Paul so far is a positive opinion about HFR- fair enough- but he fails to address the fact that many, including young people- do not like it. What he did in his posts is to somehow differentiate old vs new audience members, and, from what I took from his posts, his perception of visually educated to non educated people.

Back on topic, One interesting point I would like to raise for discussion is that every single High end commercial, TV series in the TV world - and i use again a pal 50fps country as reference- shoots either 25 or 24p. Why is that? Because of the perception of the audience. A 25fps/24fps shot TV series (provided it is shot with cinematic conventions and language like proper shutter angle, lighting, lens usage and mise and scene) automatically looks more "grand" to the audience than their regular, News, Sports or usual Brazilian Soap opera (no disrespect for Brazilian Soaps- great acting on those) look.

And again, this is my own, subjective opinion.

 

[Ben Scott]

One of the problems with stereoscopic 3D in general is that it is only going to have good 3D on a designated screen size. If the depth budget and negative parallax were calculated for say 10m screen size, the film is going to look flat on a television screen and it is going to cause eyestrain on a 20m IMAX screen. It can't look good on all screen sizes.

Does anyone know what is the maximum negative and positive parallax in The Hobbit and how it varies?

To be honest if that is true then that's another pretty terrible black mark against 3D in cinemas. The main issue was that unlike Prometheus where you'd have one or two parallax planes giving the subtle hint of depth, here you often had 8 or 9 'layers' all distinct and crying out for attention. Add to that the hyper frenetic Tony Scott-style editing in the action scenes and it was like going from a composited still in a Ken Burns documentary to a cgi Escher drawing.

 

[Scott Crawley]

To be honest if that is true then that's another pretty terrible black mark against 3D in cinemas. The main issue was that unlike Prometheus where you'd have one or two parralax planes giving the subtle hint of depth, here you often had 8 or 9 'layers' all distinct and crying out for attention. Add to that the hyper frenetic Tony Scott-style editing in the action scenes and it was like going from a compositied still in a Ken Burns documenary to a cgi Escher drawing.

I don't know if it is a reflection on 3D in cinemas in general, but I did note the same difference between The Hobbit and Prometheus. There were times when I felt like I was looking at an old After Effects faux 3D comp because I could see that Bilbo was a flat projection on a layered stage. It wasn't good, but the movie as a whole sure was. (to me.)

 

[António Fagundes]

People can throw all the brain waves studies, postmodernism approach and dream associations into the mix, but I'm pretty sure that's not how Peter Jackson made his decision... he's an artist, not a doctor, a critic or a scientist. Artists go by gut feeling, by their taste and by their own opinions, by default they don't let rationalization outplay their instincts. Peter Jackson tested the 48f, liked it and decided to make the movie that way. But that alone doesn't mean he actually made the best decision. Film making is a very unpredictable business, like Bill Goldman so rightly said years ago, 'nobody knows anything'! But that's the beauty of it all.

Rhetoric for rhetoric's sake is null. I'm sure that if Peter had shot The Hobbit on an iPhone, a whole list of arguments would suffice to back that choice. And when logical arguments fail, people hide behind scientific and symbolic rhetoric, as if to make their arguments more plausible.

If realism and psychological cognitive harmony was the empirical reason for shooting hfr, then why did they stop there? Why didn't they shoot the all film on a 21/24mm as that is the most approximate lens that match our eyes? Why did they shoot over shoulder shots? Why did they use light at all? In real life we don't talk to other people looking at them from behind ourselves just as people don't walk around with lights hanging over their heads to make them look better... Why did they use a script at all? In real life people don't learn their lines, people don't block their positions! This is not a avant garde experiment made on a big budget movie, its an aesthetic choice. That's it! Some people like it, some don't even know the difference others hate it. That's what happens with visual aesthetics!

Also, postmodernism wouldn't start with hfr, it would start with story, content, character and whatever technical choices were made after that, were solely to back that up. Not just choose a single technical change and say that its challenging the perception of our objective view of what reality is in a cinema screen. If that was their intent, they were lazy! But because Peter Jackson is not lazy, that was not their intent!

This is not a game that some hyper intelligent film maker is playing on us, its not his job to make him self superior to his audience, where only the smart and avant garde ones 'get it'! I'm sure the studio would be more than happy to let him play that game, if only he paid for that movie himself!

Peter Jackson graciously pushed the envelope to give us a better experience, period. So far, it seems that he has failed to make that a 'better' experience, judging by comments and reviews everywhere. And Peter Jackson knows that there's no such thing as 'the audience didn't get it!' He's smart, he's talented, he wouldn't be who he is, if he wasn't able to get over his 'mistakes'.

 

[Jeremy Torrie]

The aesthetic for me simply doesn't work. My brain resists it, and perhaps it goes back to my extensive apprenticeship that was video.

As of 2013 I will be entering my 17th year of business -i.e. making a living and putting food on the table exclusively based on working in film & television, often wearing many hats as many here have done. It began with S-VHS cameras and evolved to every manner of camera one can imagine.

I did everything in power to emulate the 'film look' in video because 24 frame emulation was somehow more legitimate -indeed it seemed to immortalize the people and subject matter. But video looked real -and sure we did a whack of docs which are based in reality- but what I found myself doing was making sure we had those slow dollies or jib moves that looked great without a lot of movement in them. Opening up the lens as wide open as possible on those 2/3" CCD's and using the long end of it. Using all manner of pro mists to soften the edges. The standard interview doesn't have much movement -the head is generally static- so those set ups were lit as good as possible and subjects were framed with as much separation between them, the background set as far back in the distance behind them, and of course the camera placement in all of this...intuitively I was doing everything I could to legitimize the interview visually (regardless of content of course). We used plugins and off speed to help compose pieces to present as good as we could from a technical and aesthetic perspective. But it never looked as good as projects originating in 24 frames.

We had a 700A which came out just before the F900's -we literally bought ours less than two months before the F900 became widely available. I remember freaking out on the Sony reps saying they HAD to know it was coming (Lucas was already shooting with them) and rather than take the camera back, they shrugged their shoulders and said too bad. Time and time again I applied all sorts of processes to get a film look out of that camera (I still have the RMB-20 Paint Box), inserting pulldown etc. I then shot my first feature on Super 16 Aatons and it was like hallelujah! Then 35. Long story short, I never went with another Sony and embraced Panasonic for what it was at the time...then Red came along.

I recall going over to my buddies' place a couple years ago when he bought his brand new 60" LED. It was set to factory settings and he had Transformers on BluRay. The refresh was set to 240 hz I believe and it all suddenly looked like video. I immediately felt as though the characters were acting and I fell out of the story. But when we adjusted the TV to its 'proper' settings the video-ness disappeared.

Perhaps I've simply not experienced enough 48 frame live action material. But I do know what my eye likes -at least for the moment.

24 frames does something for us. It's magical, and unquantifiable.

 

[Joel Arvidsson]

I think I did see Peter in it. It was a guy running on a stone bridge looking susceptibly like Peter as he did in his pirate make up in Return of the King. It was alot of guys running so I could of course be wrong.

 

[paulherrin]

24 frames does something for us. It's magical, and unquantifiable.

I respectfully disagree and intend to prove it. I believe 24 frames is a preference based on 'the good old days when things were slower'. 24 frames is less visual information than we're used to seeing. It slows us down, almost like meditation, but still keeps us awake. I believe there is qualitative and quantitative research that will back this up. Or it won't. But I don't believe there's any particular magic in the framerate that our brain doesn't create itself. That doesn't mean it isn't magic. In fact, it may be more 'magical'. And if you're experiencing magic and you love it keep doing it. All I'm saying is I experienced 'magic' at a different framerate. Why is that so threatening?

 

[M Most]

I don't think anyone finds it "threatening." They just don't like it. Me included.

 

[paulherrin]

very good, carry on.

anyways... some of us have a very peculiar view of what an artist is or does (or does not do). people that we have called 'artists', or artisans, for many years have used science and technology, even medicine and especially alchemy in their craft. this idea that an artist flails about blindly waving a brush around is ludicrous.

@sergio, hold tight and i'll try to put it all together in that language style. as somebody else quoted... nobody knows nothin'

 

[Noel Sterrett]

I believe there is qualitative and quantitative research that will back this up.

Then present it, please.

 

[Mark Warren]

I'll just toss up something else I haven't seen mentioned.

When Jackson premiered 10 minutes of footage at CinemaCon 8 months ago and it was mercilessly slayed by just about everyone, using the same terms I'm hearing today... hang on, here's a CinemaCon quote...

... here's what The Hobbit looked like to me: a hi-def version of the 1970s I, Claudius. It is drenched in a TV-like - specifically 70s era BBC - video look. People on Twitter have asked if it has that soap opera look you get from badly calibrated TVs at Best Buy, and the answer is an emphatic YES.

The 48fps footage I saw looked terrible. It looked completely non-cinematic. The sets looked like sets. The other comparison I kept coming to, as I was watching the footage, was that it all looked like behind the scenes video. The magical illusion of cinema is stripped away completely.

When that was the general response, Jackson assured everyone that the film wasn't properly "finished', graded. etc, and when it would be, then everything would fall into place.

Jackson also explained the footage presented at Cinemacon would look different once it goes through the post-production process.
Because production is not scheduled to wrap until July, the customary postproduction that affects the overall look of a film has not yet been done, so the clips were unfinished. They were not yet color corrected, nor had the visual effects been completed.

And here's a quote AFTER the magic "finishing"...

It was like watching really, really, really atrociously bad state run TV show… a bad Canadian, British or Chinese TV series that just looks plastic... One of the first things that struck me: the lighting looked awful – almost amateurish...

 

[Vadim Bobkovsky]

Magic? There's no such thing. Well, there is, but it exists only in our mind, so it's a matter of personal preference, habits and one's perception of beauty. To me 12, 24 (in almost any shutter speed), 48 and 60 feels equally beautiful, if the content and story is there. I guess I haven't seen enough soap operas on TV back in 1990s to have that bad sort of taste in my mouth about interlaced old timey VHS tape camcorders.

 

[António Fagundes]

I believe 24 frames is a preference based on 'the good old days when things were slower'. 24 frames is less visual information than we're used to seeing. It slows us down, almost like meditation, but still keeps us awake.

Oh dear, you really had sparks flying to pull that one off...

let me enlighten you, 24 frames is actually faster, ever seen a Chaplin film shot at 16fps? Again, 24f is not about the gold old days, its about what works best for how movies are made now! This is not me saying, seems to be pretty much 90% of the people who saw the film at hfr. People didn't like it. Didn't get immersed in the story, didn't connect, etc... If you don't like the way movies are done now, then you have to have something to back up your argument. If there's no solution, there's no problem, right?

And if your solution is to make movies look like 'reality', shooting them at hfr (if that means reality anyway) then a little knowledge of cinema history will tell you that that has been done long ago, on various countries and various movements that tried to break free of standard conventions of the time and present movies in a completely 'realistic' way. Italian Neorealism, British Realism, Independent American Cinema, etc... have all the movies all became that? No. At the same time, there was German Expressionism, French New Wave, Neo noir, Poetic Realism, etc... that were equally embraced by audiences all over the world, if not more influential and popular than the aforementioned movements. But all are part of the different textures of cinema, where one movement contradicts the next. Its no use in trying to monopolize the future of cinema in one single gimmick. Its ridiculous. Peter Jackson has not reinvented the wheel by shooting a film at double speed and projecting it at 24f. TV has been doing that for years, that's how video worked since the late 70s.

From Wikipedia: '50p/60p is a progressive format and is used in high-end HDTV systems. While it is not technically part of the ATSC or DVB broadcast standards as of yet, reports suggest that higher frame rates will be a feature of the next generation high end television broadcast standard. In Europe, the EBU considers 1080p50 the next step future proof system for TV broadcasts and is encouraging broadcasters to upgrade their equipment for the future.'

So, in essence what you're arguing is that movies in the future should look like high end TV broadcasting... good luck with that.

 

[paulherrin]

Then present it, please.

of course. it will take at least a few months to conduct and present the research, so please be patient - or conduct your own, or get in contact with me.

antonio... 24 frames per second is less information, thus slower thinking/brainwaves than the higher/faster levels of 48. i don't think we need to be in this higher level the whole time, i just think we should have it as an option on the table. what we're talking about is not really 'film'. if you want to do film the way they've done films for a hundred years, do film. we're still figuring out what to call this. this is digital cinema or visual storytelling or video art or something - come up with a better name if you want. but whatever it is, it certainly offers higher spatial and temporal resolution. so if it's all about sticking to tradition and what works here, this medium will do so by learning from thousands of years of stage theatre as well as the more recent developments in cinematic language. it is not replacing traditional filmmaking, or theatre, it forges a new experience by way of integration and synthesis.

 

[António Fagundes]

of course. it will take at least a few months to conduct and present the research, so please be patient - or conduct your own, or get in contact with me.

Copout!

 

[Brian Boyer]

That's because all of the cameras you've listed ARE video cameras.

I guess I've always made a mental distinction between traditional video cameras, that operate within the confines of their respective broadcast TV specs, and cinema cameras, that have capabilities far exceeding any current broadcast TV specs and whose purpose is to function in the capacity and at the level of quality that film historically has.

The cinema cameras speak and understand the language of video but calling them video cameras kind of does them a disservice and, in RED's case, still causes a fair amount of confusion and leads to poorly shot material (IMO), but that's a topic for another thread.

Now, if the definition of "video" you're using basically means any capture/recording system that's not film, then yes, RED, Arri, Sony, BMD, etc. all make video cameras.

However, I think that all of those companies are trying to make the distinction as well, beyond just the typical marketing hype. Maybe I'm a sucker, but I think these cameras deserve the loftier moniker.

I suppose you were being cheeky when you made that remark, but I also assume then that it contains some truth as far as you see it. I don't disagree with any of your articulate and well considered remarks, but in the spirit of understanding the phenomena; if you or anyone else is more accepting of the frame rate for Dr. Who than other material, why is that? If the primary argument is that 48 lacks the surreal feeling preferred for a dream-like fiction why would Dr. Who stand out as more acceptable than any other?

That's a good question. I started giving it some thought when I was contemplating the HFR of The Hobbit.

I don't know how familiar you are with Doctor Who from that era but the interior scenes were all shot on video and the exterior scenes (actual outdoor scenes) were all shot on film. As I recall, this was fairly common back in the day, at least with British shows.

From what I can remember, I preferred the look of the filmed shots to the videotaped ones and I recall wondering why they didn't just shoot the whole thing on film because it would look better.

For budgetary or logistical reasons, they probably had no choice. Maybe video cameras hadn't reached a realistically portable stage yet. Perhaps they knew the video image would fall apart outdoors and opted for the superior format in those shooting conditions. Maybe it was a bit of both.

The best answer I can give at the moment why I came to accept it and, dare I say, embrace it, is this: It looked like television...and here's the important part...on television. For the interior shots, it looked like the thing that it was. It's hard to argue with that.

What separates (maybe unfairly) Peter Jackson from the BBC in the case of Doctor Who is a) he obviously had a choice and b) he chose a method that comes dangerously close to looking like one of the cheesiest and most detested looks videos has ever produced - the drama shot on video - for one of the grandest and most cinematic movie franchises of our time; a sweeping vision that he established.

The way I, and many others, have used old BBC, PBS and State-run TV dramas shot on video as examples of how unappealing The Hobbit looked to us goes back to my original post and tells me that the video look (for dramas) was always something many people tolerated but never really liked, even at a very young age.

I think that aspect hasn't really been touched on. LaForet is 37. I'm 44. Stu is probably somewhere in those neighborhoods. I'm assuming we all grew up on television. By most accounts, we should have an affinity for the look of video.

How old could we have been when we saw our first video drama when they were popular? 6? 8? 10? Even as kids, we went about doing whatever it was kids did back then but looked at that picture, thought it looked horrible and filed it away under "what not to do when shooting drama."

I think it's a slightly more involved situation for some of us than merely saying we're too used to how film looks.

Give me the look of Shaft's Big Score any day over the look of the original Upstairs Downstairs. That's just the type of cat I am. Ya dig!

 

[Troy Smith]

Haven't seen it in 3d 48fps yet, but this trailer in 2d looks ridiculously bad. Have had mixed
reactions, mainly bad from friends that saw it in 3d 48.

http://www.48fpsmovies.com/The_Hobbit_An_Unexpected_Journey_Trailer.mp4

 

[Alexander Mejia]

Haven't seen it in 3d 48fps yet, but this trailer in 2d looks ridiculously bad. Have had mixed
reactions, mainly bad from friends that saw it in 3d 48.

http://www.48fpsmovies.com/The_Hobbit_An_Unexpected_Journey_Trailer.mp4

It looks like someone took the trailer that is online and ran it through twixtor to 48FPS. It will look poor because it's not the actual data recroded, just interpolated like TV sets do today.

Real 48FPS will look better.

 

[Paul Harb]

Hey look at that, it looks like a stageplay shot on video.

It looks like someone took the trailer that is online and ran it through twixtor to 48FPS. It will look poor because it's not the actual data recroded, just interpolated like TV sets do today.

Real 48FPS will look better.