Very Hypothetical theory on widescreen and 24p

[jpp]

I've said before I'd love a move towards frame rate being a creative choice, that can be altered throughout a movie just like we alter aperture and shutter. I think that would open up creative possibilities, not diminish them. Technically, would be tricky though, but just think of the visual possibilities!

Graeme

But aren't you going in a circle here, by assuming as a matter of course that frame rates for real-time action (as opposed to slow or fast motion, or special effects) have narrative significance? The choice is pretty stark: between looking like a movie, or looking like TV, which isn't exactly a wealth of possibilities.

 

[Alberto Caprioglio]

the success or failure (although this is largely subjective) lies in how one can overcome the limitations of the medium.

how can you state this? Please demonstrate that this sentence is true.
A friend of mine has just told me that the success or failure does lie in completely other things.
for example, yesterday afternoon, in the lauch of my neighbour's experimental rocket party movie, they depended on how much money was put in the fuel, music and costume department, while last wednesday, in my cousin's erotic movie, success or failure was determined by the size of a lady's breast.
And not at all by the limitation of the hard disk that the cameramen filmed all the band on to, not even by the fact that it was shoot at a specific frame rate.
So, what you said cannot be said true; in these very respectable cases, at least.

I find this very objectionable, in your conclusion:

Stanley Kubrick used to shoot all of his films "full aperature". I consider Mr. Kubrick to be an artist and I believe he made this choice because that was the "purest" way to use that medium.

to use a lens at f/8 is not a pure way?
To someone, shooting at minimum aperture is the poorest way, because everything is in focus, and reality itself is never out of focus.
could you just say that perhaps he used full aperture because he simply and certainly wanted to make make the backgrounds very soft, possibily because he wanted to isolate every character and every every single thing to the maximum, to have them very clean in the frame?

Still, someone may claim that his own works are really the purest ones, at minmum aperture, with everything in focus and nothing hidden.
the purest rapresentetion of reality in a film.
but he would be wrong for the same reason, because while 'pure' is not too difficult to define with other words (it means essential, clean, true...), it's actually the difinition of 'essential', 'clean', 'true', that is very difficult to match to a movie in such a way that could not bring objections.
I am not able to describe a film as pure.
even if it was a film about God, I am so impure compared to him that any attempt to represent Him in a pure way, would be... a failure.
and not because of the medium (which doesn't help anyway), believe me.

another thing that I am not very sure about is:

I think human perception plays in to it as well. The "golden rule" is a good example. Related to that is human vision. We see more "peripherally" than we do "vertically", so one one could argue that maybe one of the more rectangular formats is more "natural".

Here I don't understand. Are you saying that the Golden ratio exists because we appreciate it? I think it's the opposite: the rule was there, it's maths. That perfetc ratio would be there even if human race would have been destroyed by a metheorite before it could discovered it. Yes, because man discovered it, did not create it. like numbers, the Golden rule was not a product of the distance of human eyes by his tendency to observe. Man arrived after 1.618033...
"Natural" only means that is in nature. Also 1/2 is in nature, very probably.
we know that a golden ratio rectangle has a perfect proportion in an innate way, even if we see it with 1 eye. it's proportion doesn't change with 1 eye.
It still looks perfect to man. Because... it IS perfect.

One must consider presentation as well. IMAX aspect ratio is 1.43:1. Pretty square. But that has to do with how big the screen is.

well, here you make it sound as if the almost square form of Imax depends on the fact that it is big, which in a sense it is absolutely tue, but...
it gets muddy, and Imax should not be.
Of course you refer to... what?

it's big because bigger is better, and it's almost square because otherwise it would be too big unless it were not.
So, in the end, that size and that form together could fit a building big enough but not impossibly large, and without loosing compatibility with 4/3 (correct me if I'm wrong) film.

Regarding "speed". I have tested 60fps film transferred at 60fps years ago and it just looks too "ultra sharp" and "hyper real". I feel the same about 30fps. Motion doesn't look "real"...but maybe I have been brainwashed by convention all of these years!

I don't know... I think with my bare eyes I can see things more really than through a medium.
You got opposite results?
you are confusing me.
or is the high fidelity of your camera the real problem?
Funny, people want their stereo highest fidelity, while the videocamera must make flic floc and blur the ball between their feet, just like in the old Laurel & Hardy.
you guys are really confusing.
lol

 

[Graeme Nattress]

But aren't you going in a circle here, by assuming as a matter of course that frame rates for real-time action (as opposed to slow or fast motion, or special effects) have narrative significance? The choice is pretty stark: between looking like a movie, or looking like TV, which isn't exactly a wealth of possibilities.

Well, frames per second is a continuum. Do you not think, just as subtle adjustments in tempo can effect the emotional response of music, that subtle changes in fps could not elicit emotional response from a viewer?

Graeme

 

[NateWeaver]

camera is merely the timbre of voice, not style, not language.

This, I think, is the core of your argument. I disagree completely.

Just as there there can be incredible subtlety in writing and word choices, there can be subtlety in photographic technique. I've seen shutter speeds manipulated in a sequence of shots that could almost be perfectly parallel to the use of italics in a paragraph. Same goes for framerate.

Color, shape, light, shadow, motion blur or lack thereof all have psychological effects on the viewer. If you're not considering the net effect of all these and a thousand more components on what you're trying to communicate to your viewer, then you're not trying to be articulate with your "speech".

 

[Alberto Caprioglio]

You use 6fps xfered at 6fps for a dream sequence

You can do it. At the moment still many would recognize this code.
It is up to you to use this sort of metadata for the viewer to adapt comfortably to the scene.
Perhaps David Lynch would refuse this coding and shoot a dream 1 hour long, at 60i very realistic motion.
I would certainly only use Red Ones set at all maximum parameters, and not only because I cannot re-gain information that was not there, but because when I have a dream, I never thought it had anything to do with 6fps. Dreams are very realistic indeed, when I have them. So, if you want to give the idea of a scene being a dream sequence, you should use a similar frame rate. I know why you don't: you said it already, you don't because unfortunately we got use to this code that somehow was established and is still parked in many brains among the public.

There are many decades of conditioning involved in the language of film.

that's absolutely right. Perhaps too many?? What's your personal opinion regarding this specific matter of conditioning? would'n you like to be able to re-gain the freedom from those clichè?

 

[Leo Ticheli]

Surely this horse is close to death, if not in advanced rigor, but I'll take one more swing at it.

I'm quite certain that subject viewer preference of frame-rate has been experimentally studied, but I can no longer find the documentation except for this rather tangential study: http://foulard.ee.cornell.edu/publications/masry_icip03.pdf

Perhaps someone else on the forum can point to further research studies; I have a vague memory of reading one sponsored by NBC, but this recollection could be totally wrong.

I think there are some studies out there comparing brain activity while viewing the same film at various frame rates.

Luckily for me, I happen to love the look of 24 fps.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo Ticheli
Director/Cinematographer

 

[NateWeaver]

You can do it. At the moment still many would recognize this code.

And that's why I would use it, assuming it fits my aesthetic sensibilities. if it does not, I find another "word" to use.

Perhaps David Lynch would refuse this coding and shoot a dream 1 hour long, at 60i very realistic motion.

One could argue that David Lynch does not communicate effectively. A lot of people, to this day, discuss the meaning of films he made 15 years ago.

but because when I have a dream, I never thought it had anything to do with 6fps.

Mine do not either. If anything, 6fps means to me "Music video from 1988". But I do not invent the language, I simply absorb it and re-use it. Maybe someday I will be smart/influential enough to invent new "words".

What's your personal opinion regarding this specific matter of conditioning? would'n you like to be able to re-gain the freedom from those clichè?

I don't lament the established film language anymore than I lament poor grammar amongst high school kids while they text on their phones. If I don't agree with a word convention (read as, say, dutch angles), then I choose another technique (word) to create the intended effect.

Surely this horse is close to death, if not in advanced rigor

Agreed. I think we've both said our peace and had a conversation with interesting points both.

 

[Alberto Caprioglio]

mmm, this is getting quite interesting

Just as there there can be incredible subtlety in writing and word choices, there can be subtlety in photographic technique.

Sure. But...

Just as there there can be incredible subtlety in writing and word choices, there can be subtlety in photographic technique. I've seen shutter speeds manipulated in a sequence of shots that could almost be perfectly parallel to the use of italics in a paragraph. Same goes for framerate.

I totally agree, but still I am not satisfied with this explanation, because I think we are still missing the point.

If we agree that there is this sort of corrispondences:

tone and/or timbre of voice <<---------->> frame rate, resolution, color and other strict image quality factor, fidelity, in relation to the cleaness of representation (note that here I do not include such things as focal lengh, because that equals to a choice like framing, that is to decide what to tell and not to tell)

when you tell a story to someone (unless you want to impress small children), would you ever make strange, funny, stupid, terrible voices? Come on, I don't believe it. I'm sure your speech is pretty normal and clean. there is no need to act otherwise. So why, when you have a camera, you have this urgency to act like that and make start this strange coded behaviour with your camera, slow frame rate, and maybe similar sorts of maniacal solutions concerning aperture etc.

perhaps some would also start strange ballets and flights with the camera.

I don't get any justification for this freaky "style", clichè and anti-clichè (when one acts like some one who wants to look original, but falls again in other masquerades)
'hold that damned camera, we are all adults, it looks like you have been biten by a tarantula', I would say.

And of course there are a lot of type fonts and calligraphy models and personal inclinations, but what I'm trying to say is: who cares about that, when we are telling a story?
all that not only brings again and again that damn and indefinible (and dead, to me) and heavy, subtlety that is really not necessary at all. The narration become less and less clean, therefore the message has to travel among a mountain of obstacles and if it arrives, it is weakened and the viewer is just more exausted by this usual and old game, almost a videogame.

if I tell a story, I try to be serious. If the story is really funny, I may not resist, and start to laugh. But it would not be intentional.
I would feel stupid if I started to talk like michey mouse every time . at the same way, I would not bother writing in Italics with medieval miniatures when I have to let a story be perceived and undertood by an audience.
A good hand has nothing to do with narration. It is more useful to painters than to writers.

So, camera tricks, like unreal frame rates (yeah, they are just a camera trick, people and animals do not really perceive the world as frames: it's a continuum of light in our eyes, we do not work in the same way as cameras) are for cameraman like the decorated fonts of someone who was actually meant to write a story: completely unnecessary and missing the point.

Color, shape, light, shadow, motion blur or lack thereof all have psychological effects on the viewer. If you're not considering the net effect of all these and a thousand more components on what you're trying to communicate to your viewer, then you're not trying to be articulate with your "speech".

a big mix here...:

color: I am perfectly comfortable with the color of the things I shoot.
If a shirt has color that is wrong, I'll change it and use a right one. All right, I may make some change in post, but only if there was an error in the narration, if something was not appropriate to the story but difficult to change.

shape: if you refer to geometrical format, I would use 1.62 always, if I can. Why? because it's the Golden ratio, it's the most perfect rectangle.
if you refer to the jubject, it depends on the story.

light and shadow: they are in the scene. I look for - or recreate - the look not for the look's sake (nothing is justifiable by itself), but it has to be credible, even if a story is incredible.
I speak with my voice and not with the suggestions of a crazy, paranoid pseudo voice.

motion blur: no, this a completely different category from the construction of a story. I don't want the medium to really stay in the middle of the story. sorry, but if I can avoid blur, I do.
I can articulate the narrative language perfectly, and even better, with costumes, gadgets, make up and special effects, but without motion blur, because the tools to veiculate it are the things that stay in front of the camera, and not the electronics of the camera.

IT would be silly to make a manual writing trembling and impossible to read just because it's time for a monster to enter the scene. Once the medium is of high quality enough, it must disappear, become transparent.

 

[jpp]

Well, frames per second is a continuum. Do you not think, just as subtle adjustments in tempo can effect the emotional response of music, that subtle changes in fps could not elicit emotional response from a viewer?

Graeme

In actual practice, I think I'd have to say no -- that modulations of tone and texture within a single frame rate will be far more likely to elicit the desired emotional response. All of us in have had extensive exposure to live TV, videotape and 24fps, and the difference is stark, but pretty much free of emotional significance. I'd say it's more of an aesthetic question, which has been answered: just about everyone prefers 24fps for works of imagination. That may be a generational thing, which will vanish in the next 50 years, but I doubt it. As has already been pointed out, too much data and too much reality puts the brain to sleep, literalism kills art.

 

[Alberto Caprioglio]

I think many people got use to think that they have a sort of natural right (but that's very wrong) or 'human right' to believe whatever they like to believe, or whatever they got used to believe.
and this is applied every day in almost every discussion.

I think we accept too much freedom in thinking.
the society is completely disintegrated. It has realy become like a Babel.
While things are still what they actually are, regardless what someone or a million, with their million of variations in their minds, think they are.
Because of that, such an illusory freedom equals to a million of wrong, inopportune, out of focus point of view.
"From a certain point of view", for its very definition, is already the most limited way to see things. Please let's not make it worse with an infinite dedalus of personal moods and "sensibilities".
If we let this flow freely, we'll have everyone wathing his own movie alone, when every sensibility will be explored fully and reach it's (un)natural extremes.

This is not true freedom, this is chaos, where everyone lives in his own world of personal aesthethics and justifications tailored to his desires.
I can't find any real justification for this multiplication of answers, nor rational neither irrational.
After all, when people say "I do it because I like it", or even "I like it because I like it", what can you reply? even constructive dialogue is dead, because there aren't principles anymore as a common base, or they just get thrown through the window as soon as they get in the middle between someone and his caprices.

 

[Alberto Caprioglio]

Well, frames per second is a continuum. Do you not think, just as subtle adjustments in tempo can effect the emotional response of music, that subtle changes in fps could not elicit emotional response from a viewer?

mmm, I am not sure...
frames are frames, yes, a collage of slighly different frames.
you call it continuum, but it's an illusion, it's not a continuum, it's a serie of pieces of a small number of pieces.
Music, also, is a sequence of intervals and notes, and perfectly recognisable one from the ther, indeed. (Even more than the smallest frame rates in films) That's quite the opposite of a continuum.

and then, come on, those "subtle changes in frame rate" have nothing to do with emotions. Emotions are something different.
Let's not reduce them emotions to little camera limits/tricks.
And I am not either impress by the usual ongoing public celebration of a tool's limits, as if they where a direct gift from God. (They look more like punishment, to me, and this fashion of considering camera flaws and limits like our best friend, looks no more than like a small collective illness to me. It reveals itself soon when we note that at the same time, everyone is never satisfied and wants to go beyond the limits fixed the day before, everyday.)

 

[Alberto Caprioglio]

you know what, 24fps is good for movies were people fight with their hand, so you cannot perceive that actually there is not contact in the beats.
As I said before, 24fps is not unpleasant for slow pans and movements. Now I add that it is not completely useless even when compared to better frame rates (please don't correct my word "better", I know some could not resist to do it): yes, it even has its TRUE (that is, not objectionable, indifferent to fashion and 'personal aesthetics' which mean nothing to me) advantages.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

I didn't say frames are a continuum, but I did say choice of fps should be a continuum, in that you should be able to choose 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 etc fps, or maybe even finer, 20.0, 20.1, 20.2 etc. fps, ie be able to set fps to a floating point number of high precision. To me, that makes choice of fps a continuum. We're not there today, but would be nice to see what creative possibilities it opens up!

Graeme

 

[Barry Green]

This subject of migrating away from 24fps comes up frequently, and for good reason -- just watch 720/60p and the clarity is startlingly better.

So people argue that 24fps is an antiquated relic, that it was chosen only because that was the slowest speed that we could record sound at clearly, and that we wanted it slow to save on film stock, and blah blah blah...

... but the point is: people are used to it, and they like it. It isn't likely going to change. Even though 60P is better at rendering motion.

Why do I say this? Just look at history. The Dvorak keyboard layout is better, no doubt. People can type *much* faster on a Dvorak keyboard. Yet 99.9999999999999999% of the keyboards in the world are Qwerty, because that's what we've always had, that's what everyone knows how to use, and that's probably what we're stuck with. It's just the way it is.

Or the metric system. I'm in the US, so I'm used to pounds and feet and miles and gallons, but -- come on, the metric system is better. It's more precise. It's more rational. You don't have to break up a mile into arbitrary units like yards, feet, and rods (remember rods?) The metric system just makes a lot more sense, and standardizing on a single universal logical measuring standard would be a good and productive thing to do. But it ain't gonna happen. We've got decades of experience that shows us that it will not happen. People (in the US) know how to judge distance in feet, how to bake using cups and teaspoons, and how to buy their sodas in quarts. I couldn't begin to guess how many milliliters are in a tablespoon, but standing on the sidelines and looking at the two systems, it's obvious that one is just better than the other from an objective standpoint.

So that brings us back to why we're "stuck" with 24fps. When it comes to production value, people know that 24fps = film = quality. This is, of course, not true, but it's the perception that the audience has grown up with, it's the way it's been for a long, long time, and it's reinforced every day with high-budget commercials and other productions. When someone wants to show off high production value, they shoot 24fps (film, HD, or Red). We know, through decades of conditioning, that 60i = uncle Ned's home movies and the cheeseball local nightly newscast and the equally-cheeseball soap operas.

Furthermore, while digital projection is still in its extreme infancy, 35mm projectors are installed everywhere in the world -- and they all run at 24fps.

Overcoming that infrastructure is going to be akin to trying to overcome the English measurement system. It may happen someday, but so might Esperanto become the official language of the world.

What Graeme's talking about is ideal -- variable frame rate acquisition and playback, the decision being left up to the content creator. Whether we'll ever find a way to get that or not, remains to be seen. But that would indeed be the ultimate.

 

[jpp]

This subject of migrating away from 24fps comes up frequently, and for good reason -- just watch 720/60p and the clarity is startlingly better.

Better for what? Fidelity to reality, or storytelling? If more data is always better, you might as well argue that photographs are innately superior to paintings.

What Graeme's talking about is ideal -- variable frame rate acquisition and playback, the decision being left up to the content creator. Whether we'll ever find a way to get that or not, remains to be seen. But that would indeed be the ultimate.

Again, "ultimate" of what? Of all the variables that go into a film, frame rate would seem to be one of the least fertile areas of exploration, at least until somebody can prove that 20.56fps is usefully different from 24fps or 22.987fps.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

Well, if you keep the fps constant, it is very hard to tell, say 25fps from 24fps (ie PAL rate and film rate), however, there could very well be subtle and useful effects is some shots / scenes / cuts were 24fps and some 25fps. Without removing technical constraints, how can people use fps as a creative tool, rather than a fixed "choice"?

Graeme

 

[Leo Ticheli]

"Clarity" is not the goal of film making. We're not doing engineering analysis, we're spurring the imagination and telling stories. Our goal is to get brains working, to create a magical world that draws the viewer in.

I haven't needed pictures in books since I was about six, and I'm much happier without them.

While we may appreciate a football game shot at 60 fps, it's not "magic." I dare say most 720/60 is actually shot at 24 fps (perhaps 30 fps as well); the playback of 60 fps is much like the playback of 24 fps material at 48 fps with the bow tie shutter on the projector; frames are simply repeated so we still have the 1/48 second exposure duration with a 50% blanking period. It's not really 60/60!

Many years ago I got the bright idea that 30 fps would be more pleasing than 24 fps with the ugly pull-down added for NTSC, so I shot a 35MM commercial at 30; same lighting I always used. What an unpleasant surprise! It had all the wonderful qualities of 35MM film, but was sterile, "video" looking.

Not to say that I don't use a wide range of shooting rates; a lot of 1 and 4 fps, and a lot of over cranking. But for drama, for story telling, I'm convinced 24 fps/180° shutter was a very lucky "accident" of utility and economy.

This is all just idle pub chatter anyway. Display frame rates aren't going to change any time soon.

At whatever frame rate you choose, good shooting and best regards,

Leo Ticheli
Director/Cinematographer

 

[Barry Green]

Better for what? Fidelity to reality, or storytelling?

I said -- clarity.

If more data is always better, you might as well argue that photographs are innately superior to paintings.

Yes, and that's not what I said.

Again, "ultimate" of what?

Creative choice and the ability to paint the canvas with the most options. I'm the biggest fan of 24p in the world, but there are some things it just doesn't do well. If you want a 90-degree landscape pan to take 3 seconds, 24p does that horribly. 60p does it perfectly. So if there was some way to allow the user to pick and choose that which he/she wanted for any particular segment, all purposes could be served, hence making it the "ultimate".

Nothing about that would require you to use it, you could choose to stick with all-24 all the time. But wouldn't it be nice to step outside that box when it makes sense to do so? Right now you don't have that option. All I think Graeme's saying (and what I'm agreeing with) is that would be nice to have the option, for those times when a faster frame rate may indeed serve the purpose of the visuals better.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

I'm actually going beyond that Barry, and saying that a user-controlled constantly variable framerate (ramping, oscilating, patterns of fps), the level of granularity being a fps for every frame being possibly unique may open up possibilities we've not dreamed of.

Graeme

 

[Leo Ticheli]

The idea of a constantly variable display frame rate is exciting.

Of course the knee-jerk thought is for "experimental" films, such as music videos, but going beyond that, I could see a brilliant film, such as, "A Very Long Engagement," really benefiting from it.

I can visualize sequences of stills displayed at 1 fps cutting against hyper-real action at 120 fps. The possibilities! And the complexities! Shooting 24 for 24; for traditional drama, but what about 120 for 60? Or 120 for...

Think about "Moulin Rouge," with it's amazing cutting in the dance sequences against the more somber moods. Something like rate ramping, but beyond.

I can see myself planning the shooting rates, not just for shooting rate to constant playback, but shooting at this rate for a part of one scene to be played back at yet another rate.

None of this, by the way is to serve the cause of "realism" but to take the viewer to other places in the mind.

As we transition to all digital players, it may not be so hard to instruct the machines to do exactly what you propose!

Mr. Nattress, you are a visionary fellow!

Best regards,

Leo Ticheli
Director/Cinematographer/Unafraid of new tricks