The Hobbit shooting in 48p on RED cameras

[Walter Brokx]

Hey! Dr. Watson is Bilbo!

[Heath McKnight]

Like with 3D showing in 2D, The Hobbit will screen in 24p. Many theaters are digital now, at least in North America.

heath

[Charles House]

Originally Posted by Bill Thesken

Funny they should mention Dr. Who. One of my teenage kids discovered the show last month and is totally into it, watching every episode via Netflix through the computer to the TV.

The old series or new?

[Jason Garrett]

Boy they were bashing it on Attack of the Show last night – whoever had seen some it said it looked like video and not film or something. The host even seemed to be aware that it was being shot with RED cameras – it’s a tech show on G4 that covers some media/movies.

[Murray Christian]

You folks are probably the cine-science types for this subject.
I've been chatting about this elsewhere. Is the difference really just the reduced motion blur? Does that give us the 'movie' look, really? Or is it other factors as well?
If it is (and that's amazing) do you think it's possible to selectively put some back in post or at the shoot? What if you shot with a wider shutter angle than 180 or something, would that help?
Theorise with me here.

Brian: where did you hear people say Showscan looked like video so they didn't like it? That's interesting. A lot of people are merely waving around the Showscan sales pitch that says it produced more 'emotional engagement' via some unspecified testing they did. I can't help thinking there's more to it than that.

[Brian Drysdale]

Re Showscan, I recall the looking like video being mentioned at the time it was being introduced.

Trumbull ran tests at various frame rates and found there was no improvement in perception after 72 fps. I suspect it's the interlaced look because of the high frame rate compared to the usual 24 fps caused the video comment... sort of running counter to the whole 24p thing to get the film look. Obliviously, in other aspects, like highlights and colour, it wouldn't look like video

Some more on Showscan:
Remembering Doug Trumbull's "Showscan" - IanFarquhar - My Nero

Showscan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Jon Fairhurst]

The more I think about it, the more I want variable presentation rates.

Haven't we all seen films where we are into the story, then somebody throws a ball across the room, and the judder changes from the hypnotic film effect into a series of blurred balls moving across the screen. Boom. That's the moment when 24 fps fails and pulls the viewer out of the story. Roughly a minute later, we're back into the world of the character.

Think about the advantage of having fine control over the rate. You film a fight scene and it looks too slow. Should have undercranked it. Or you undercranked and it looked fake. If you could really control the frame rate moment by moment, we could optimize motion speed without introducing the peg-leg cadence that dropping or doubling frames can give.

Shooting a whole film in 48 fps might be a mistake. But allowing continuous frame rate flexibility could be a killer feature.

[Graeme Sutherland]

Originally Posted by Walter Brokx

Hey! Dr. Watson is Bilbo!

And Sherlock is Smaug...

There's an attitude amongst some people that 24 frames per second is what gives the film look, and therefore doubling it will ruin the whole effect. I don't know whether this is playing out with the Hobbit footage, in that critics have prejudged it, or whether it's a case that we're used to cinema being defined by the artefacts of an obsolete technology.

Personally, I'm wanting to see the film at 48 frames per second. Most theatres round here have moved to digital projectors, and they should be able to cope. Sure, it might look odd to begin with, but in a short while we'll be wondering why we put up with strobing images due to fast movement.

[Evan Donn]

The problem is we've all been watching higher frame rate work now for decades on television, so this is nothing new - and yet we've willingly continued to 'put up with strobing images' in theatrical work for that entire time. More than put up with it, in fact - it's generally been considered superior for dramatic work. So I just don't see this being something where we just have to get used to the new look as it's not really new at all.

Originally Posted by Jon Fairhurst

Haven't we all seen films where we are into the story, then somebody throws a ball across the room, and the judder changes from the hypnotic film effect into a series of blurred balls moving across the screen. Boom. That's the moment when 24 fps fails and pulls the viewer out of the story.

I've personally never had this experience. However I can remember several times where a shot or two in a film shot digitally used a 360 degree shutter and the sudden shift to 'video' look pulled me completely out of the world of the film - Apacalypto is a specific example with a few shots like this, the latest Bourne film had some too. I have a feeling any shift of motion rendering mid-film could have the similar effect.

[Brian Drysdale]

I believe the argument goes that at 24 fps (with the way brain works), it seems to create a dream like effect, possibly created by the need to fill in the temporal gaps. While with interlace TV and higher frame rates it's more realistic looking.

Of course, 3D 48 fps its trying to solve an issue found in the 3D format and is different to using 48 fps on 2D

[Simon Wood]

Originally Posted by Brian Drysdale

Of course, 3D 48 fps its trying to solve an issue found in the 3D format and is different to using 48 fps on 2D

Its a great business model; sell them (the cinemas) something that they say they need keep in business, and then sell them more stuff to compensate for the original products shortcomings!

Yes; sell them stuff that the customers didn't actually ask for; I mean when did anyone ever really ever complain about 2D and 24fps? Its not like the cinema going public at large were asking for it. They might have been asking for better quality movies, better scripts perhaps, but not better 'technical' gimmicks.

What happened to if it aint' broke don't fix it? Its just a bad business model I guess.

Here is an interesting article by David Bordwell:

Observations on film art : It’s good to be the King of the World

[Ron Evans]

It was a business model that gave us 24p in the first place. Just about the slowest ( least celluloid used) frame rate that gave usable sound for the new sound movies. It did not meet either need well but just sufficient to make the business work. People have got used to the deficiencies and sound has been solved in other ways. Seems like history is repeating itself to find a frame rate that presents a usable 3D experience !!!

For people who like live theatre they will prefer 60P but then again there are not too many closeups in live theatre !!! 4K video at 60P gives the option for a theatre or any show performance of just using one full stage camera and let the viewer decide to move around the image with the pan control on their TV just like in the live theatre !!! All sorts of options with technology.

Ron Evans

[Jon Fairhurst]

48fps would be perfect for Laurence Olivier's style of direction of Shakespeare films - it's all wide master shots. Even though 1955's Richard III was shot on VistaVision film, it looks like a live stage play. It flopped at the box office on initial release. Rather than being drawn into the story, I always felt like I was watching it from a distance. I didn't make it through the nearly 3 hour run time.

[Heath McKnight]

Let's discount the filmmakers and look at the audience; if they hate The Hobbit and complain, WB is in trouble. Best example I have is many of my friends with HDTVs that have the Hz rate at 120 by default complain the movies look "weird." Without saying a word about what's happening, I adjust it down to 60 Hz, and they say it looks normal. Then I explain what's happening.

heath

[Shem Kerr]

Originally Posted by Jon Fairhurst

I like change!

I want the frame rates to be variable so one can show 24fps, 48fps, 60fps or whatever within one feature.

The problem is that we don't have frame rate flexibility today. So, rather than an artistic choice, it's seen as a right-or-wrong technical choice.

Please, someone help Jon ( and me) with this problem.

Or would just projecting (edit to half ) of 48fps ( every second frame shown twice if projected at 48fps) = 24fps; and however many multiples of 1 frame = 1fps be right?