There has been a lot of talk about James Cameron and Peter Jackson shooting Avatar 2 and The Hobbit repectively at 48 fps, moving away from the conventional 24 fps. A lot film-makers and film enthusiasts have pointed out and cried out loud saying that shooting at 48 fps take away the 'filmic' look by killing motion blurs and the strobing you see on something that's been shot at 24 fps. It definitely would be interesting to see what 48 fps and stereo footage look like.
I personally feel that it would definitely make the experience, especially in the case of a stereo film, a lot more easy on the eyes. I have seen some really quick cuts with crazy camera moves in stereo and trust me it make you dizzy after awhile, probably shooting something with a higher frame rate might help. Would be interested in seeing the result of it before I take sides.
I came across two posts - one from Stu Maschwitz who talks about why it wouldn't be necessary and one from Peter Jackson on why he's decided on using it.
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Movies at High Frame Rates
People have been asking for me for my thoughts on
Jim Cameron’s recent
presentation at CinemaCon stating that “the future of cinema” is higher frame rates. I haven’t felt the need, really, since I’ve been mouthing off here about how much I love good, old-fashioned 24p for
years. I’ve even gone to pains to try to explain why I like it, and why I think others do. Maybe the best example of this is the
interview I did with MacVideo last year, but I’ll link to more at the end.
Now it’s been
announced that Peter Jackson’s 3D production of
The Hobbit will be shot at 48 fps. Maybe it’s time to say something.
I find the notion odd that “the future of cinema” is the recent past of video. Whether it’s 60 fps or 48 (which is close to PAL video’s 50 fields per second), we’ve seen these frame rates before. And audiences have rejected them to varying degrees for as long as I can remember, dating back to my childhood, when my mother would skip over perfectly good BBC dramas because they “looked like soap operas.” No one cared about
Showscan, and no one wanted to watch a movie shot on video until 24p came along (unless it had been converted to 24p using something like
Filmlook or
Magic Bullet). That anyone thinks a movie shot at 60 fps is going to look any different than a well-lit reality TV show is confounding to me.
Still, if James Cameron and Peter Jackson, whose films are hugely influential to me, want to experiment with higher frame rates, I’m happy for them to have the freedom to do so. In the same way that
I don’t want my TV set changing the frame rate of the movies I love, I would never dream of telling a filmmaker that they shouldn’t try something about which they are creatively excited.
There’s a big difference between Jim Cameron, who is a filmmaker, choosing a frame rate that he feels is appropriate for his movies, and anyone telling anyone else what frame rate they should shoot.
Roger Ebert, I love ya man, but your job is reacting to movies, not dictating their technical specifications.
Still, speaking only for myself, I’m disappointed. When I was growing up and learning filmmaking, Jim Cameron could always be relied on to use technology to push filmmaking forward. Now, I fear that he’s using filmmaking to push technology forward.
Lest the glibness of that remark drown out my meaning, let me explain. Cameron has left a trail of technology improvements in the wake of his films. People couldn’t talk to each other underwater until he made
The Abyss. On his budget-conscious
Terminator, he drafted the plans for the metal exoskeleton himself. He used his fluency with tech to make his movies better.
But now it’s the other way around, His highly-developed abilities as a writer/director are fooling people into thinking that his technology initiatives are important for all of cinema.
Avatar is a great movie. So enjoyable that it left some people thinking, “performance capture is the future!” Or “3D is the future!”
The truth is,
Avatar is good because the filmmaking is good. To draw any conclusions about production technologies in general from its success would be akin to suggesting that “Super 16 is the future!” after
The Hurt Locker won best picture, or that the tremendous box office of
Toy Story 3 means that all films should be animated.
I have no doubt that Avatar 2 will be a good movie. Jim Cameron doesn’t know how to make anything else. What I’m concerned about is that people will attribute their enjoyment of it to 3D and high frame rates, rather than Cameron’s unparalleled skills as a filmmaker.
And then I’ll find myself sitting in some executive’s office trying to explain why I don’t want to shoot their movie at 60 frames per second 3D, instead of just explaining why I don’t want to shoot it in 3D
.
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Time for an update. Actually, we've been intending to kick off with a video, which is almost done, so look out for that in the next day or two. In the meantime, I thought I'd address the news that has been reported about us shooting THE HOBBIT at 48 frames per second, and explain to you what my thoughts are about this.
We are indeed shooting at the higher frame rate. The key thing to understand is that this process requires both shooting and projecting at 48 fps, rather than the usual 24 fps (films have been shot at 24 frames per second since the late 1920's). So the result looks like normal speed, but the image has hugely enhanced clarity and smoothness. Looking at 24 frames every second may seem ok--and we've all seen thousands of films like this over the last 90 years--but there is often quite a lot of blur in each frame, during fast movements, and if the camera is moving around quickly, the image can judder or "strobe."
Shooting and projecting at 48 fps does a lot to get rid of these issues. It looks much more lifelike, and it is much easier to watch, especially in 3-D. We've been watching HOBBIT tests and dailies at 48 fps now for several months, and we often sit through two hours worth of footage without getting any eye strain from the 3-D. It looks great, and we've actually become used to it now, to the point that other film experiences look a little primitive. I saw a new movie in the cinema on Sunday and I kept getting distracted by the juddery panning and blurring. We're getting spoilt!
Originally, 24 fps was chosen based on the technical requirements of the early sound era. I suspect it was the minimum speed required to get some audio fidelity out of the first optical sound tracks. They would have settled on the minimum speed because of the cost of the film stock. 35mm film is expensive, and the cost per foot (to buy the negative stock, develop it and print it), has been a fairly significant part of any film budget.
So we have lived with 24 fps for 9 decades--not because it's the best film speed (it's not by any stretch), but because it was the cheapest speed to achieve basic acceptable results back in 1927 or whenever it was adopted.
None of this thinking is new. Doug Trumbull developed and promoted a 60 frames per second process called ShowScan about 30 years ago and that looked great. Unfortunately it was never adopted past theme park use. I imagine the sheer expense of burning through expensive film stock at the higher speed (you are charged per foot of film, which is about 18 frames), and the projection difficulties in cinemas, made it tough to use for "normal" films, despite looking amazing. Actually, if anybody has been on the Star Tours ride at Disneyland, you've experienced the life like quality of 60 frames per second. Our new King Kong attraction at Universal Studios also uses 60 fps.
Now that the world's cinemas are moving towards digital projection, and many films are being shot with digital cameras, increasing the frame rate becomes much easier. Most of the new digital projectors are capable of projecting at 48 fps, with only the digital servers needing some firmware upgrades. We tested both 48 fps and 60 fps. The difference between those speeds is almost impossible to detect, but the increase in quality over 24 fps is significant.
Film purists will criticize the lack of blur and strobing artifacts, but all of our crew--many of whom are film purists--are now converts. You get used to this new look very quickly and it becomes a much more lifelike and comfortable viewing experience. It's similar to the moment when vinyl records were supplanted by digital CDs. There's no doubt in my mind that we're heading towards movies being shot and projected at higher frame rates.
Warner Bros. have been very supportive, and allowed us to start shooting THE HOBBIT at 48 fps, despite there never having been a wide release feature film filmed at this higher frame rate. We are hopeful that there will be enough theaters capable of projecting 48 fps by the time The Hobbit comes out where we can seriously explore that possibility with Warner Bros. However, while it's predicted that there may be over 10,000 screens capable of projecting THE HOBBIT at 48 fps by our release date in Dec, 2012, we don’t yet know what the reality will be. It is a situation we will all be monitoring carefully. I see it as a way of future-proofing THE HOBBIT. Take it from me--if we do release in 48 fps, those are the cinemas you should watch the movie in. It will look terrific!
