48fps The Hobbit - First Review

[Lucas Wilson]

Andrew - I would respectfully submit that unless you have done high-framerate tests yourself and evaluated it on its own merits... then you are basically saying, "well, a buddy of mine saw that movie and he said it sucked, and I believe him." It's just not a really strong argument. ; )

At CPG, we have been doing a ton of high-framerate testing and shooting and reviewing using a lot of different cameras with different lensing and lighting options. And then reviewing it with a lot of different projection and viewing methodologies. In addition, we've been doing a lot of cutting together of high framerates with "standard" framerates to see how things look. Projecting at 24fps and skip printing the 48... projecting at 48fps and double-printing the 24, etc, etc. We're doing what creative and technical professionals do with new technology: test, observe, adjust, test, observe, report, adjust, etc., etc., etc.

What we've found so far - and there is a still an awful lot of testing and observing to do - is that it is a new tool. And like any new tool, it has its place. And it is incredibly subjective. I've had one very well-respected Director look at high framerate material and viscerally recoil while another well-respected Director look at the exact same material in the same room with the same projection and think it is beautiful and intimate in a way he has never seen before.

My *personal* opinion is that when done correctly, it is gorgeous. It brings an intimacy and beauty to shots that is difficult to quantify. Can it look like crap? Of course... so can anything. But it's a new tool and needs to be judged on its own merits as opposed to strictly a comparison to others. Because it is *not* a "film" look and it is *not* a "video" look. It is its own thing.

Best,

Lucas

[Bruce Allen]

I have to say I am surprised at the vitriol on the net about all of this.

This is about creative options for filmmakers.

The nice thing about cinemas getting upgraded to project 48fps is... it's a fun new look and definitely helps 3D. And you can still play 24fps fine too.

You can easily mix stuff too - have the film at 24fps... but maybe you have ONE MOMENT of the film that you think looks better or achieves a certain creative effect at 48fps: you now have the creative option to show that the way you want to.

The internet seems to be filled with a bunch of whiny jerks who think that Mr Jackson or Mr Cameron should make movies the way they want them to.

What a nerve! Jackson and Cameron can do whatever the hell they want. And guys who like 24fps 2D film can keep doing it. Nobody's stopping them. In fact, now 24fps becomes an artistic choice.

The whiny jerks are free to get off their asses and make movies the way they want. But they'll never do that, of course. Too much work.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Petri Teittinen]

The first time I noticed the "360 degree shutter on HD video" effect was on Emmerich's "2012", near the end of the movie in a scene where a bunch of characters are about to drown. I didn't know back then what caused the effect but it looked absolutely terrible. A bit later I read an interview of the DoP who talked about how they were running out of light in that scene, and how happy he was to discover that he could get more light on the sensor by using a 360 degree shutter. I think he also mentioned he hadn't shot a lot of HD video before "2012".

As far as flat screen interpolation goes, it's all about the algorithms. I've yet to see a flat screen capable of retaining the film look while interpolating a shot-at-24fps Blu-ray. The best result I've seen so far was produced by Mitsubishi's HC7800 DLP projector which has separate interpolation modes for video and film sources. One of the film modes struck a nice balance.

Nevertheless, I don't think we should compare what Jackson is doing with the Hobbit to what flat screens are doing when interpolating film sources. Firstly, flat screens are interpolating from 24fps to much higher frame rates, up to 120 fps. What's more, interpolation algorithms are basically guessing what happens between the original frames. It's not the same thing as a higher acquisition frame rate.

I shot some 48fps tests last summer. When played back on a 120fps PC monitor at 48fps, the result did not look like a soap opera. It felt more like heightened realism.

As far as Devin Faraci goes, that guy's been on a crusade against advances in cinema technology for a while now. He probably isn't happy until we're back to watching mute black and white movies at 18fps.

[Björn Benckert]

Well, they can always fix it in post if they decide so (or the studio makes them to).

Honestly, I'm not surprised to see this kind of reaction, even watching something in 30p makes me fell that it looks like video, not to mention 48fps.

It'll take time for people to adjust to this new format and ultimately the audience will decide if it's good enough or not, in other words if they want to see it on screen.

Totally agree...

it's easy to make a simple test. Shoot at 48fps 360 shutter with your epic/scarlet export a quicktime in 48fps and watch it... does not look good at all.

There is a reason why commercials for tv are shot in 24fps in the states even though they are broadcasted in 29.969 (or what ever the decimals are) simply because 30fps looks terrible.

High playback frame rates with CG looks super ugly. So I wonder how Peter will pull it off, it will definitely not look like a beautiful canvas moving... more like one of those cheap action tv series shot on video that New Zeeland was so famus for before the lord of the rings era :)

[Andrew Rieger]

With all due respect Mr Rieger, but I honestly can't take you seriously after that sentence.

Well, all you have to do is compare the films he used to make to Avatar. They almost seem like they were directed by a different person. Cameron is not a filmmaker anymore, he is a deep sea explorer and a tech salesman. Hell, someone needs to rent all those Pace Cameron rigs he built so he hast to hit the road to push this 3D crap on theater owners to get them to drop boatloads of cash on new projectors so they can project films at higher frame rates. When recently asked if he was going to still make Battle Angel (a crazy movie about fighting robots), he said he was going to stick with Avatar because he thought it would have more of an impact on saving the planet. Yawn, he is starting to sound like a broken record and I really hope theater owner don't buckle under the pressure just so he can get what he want when it comes time to bring out Avatar 2.

This is just my opinion but my distaste for James Cameron is based on legitimate criticisms. I hope Jackson avoids becoming another tech salesman like Lucas and Cameron who probably have the two biggest egos in Hollywood. At least Jackson seems like a nice guy. The other two just come off as smug.

[Björn Benckert]

Andrew - I would respectfully submit that unless you have done high-framerate tests yourself and evaluated it on its own merits... then you are basically saying, "well, a buddy of mine saw that movie and he said it sucked, and I believe him." It's just not a really strong argument. ; )

At CPG, we have been doing a ton of high-framerate testing and shooting and reviewing using a lot of different cameras with different lensing and lighting options. And then reviewing it with a lot of different projection and viewing methodologies. In addition, we've been doing a lot of cutting together of high framerates with "standard" framerates to see how things look. Projecting at 24fps and skip printing the 48... projecting at 48fps and double-printing the 24, etc, etc. We're doing what creative and technical professionals do with new technology: test, observe, adjust, test, observe, report, adjust, etc., etc., etc.

What we've found so far - and there is a still an awful lot of testing and observing to do - is that it is a new tool. And like any new tool, it has its place. And it is incredibly subjective. I've had one very well-respected Director look at high framerate material and viscerally recoil while another well-respected Director look at the exact same material in the same room with the same projection and think it is beautiful and intimate in a way he has never seen before.

My *personal* opinion is that when done correctly, it is gorgeous. It brings an intimacy and beauty to shots that is difficult to quantify. Can it look like crap? Of course... so can anything. But it's a new tool and needs to be judged on its own merits as opposed to strictly a comparison to others. Because it is *not* a "film" look and it is *not* a "video" look. It is its own thing.

Best,

Lucas

-1

I think 48p is a video look. slice it how ever you want.

But on the other hand I can not say that I like stereo as it is today either. The day when I get a laser beam or such in each eye and have full coverage can pull focus etc then maybe but for now it hurt my head and my eyes. I believe the stereo 3D stuff now is just a hype to sell some more lcd's, plasmas projector, etc. we bought them all but I do hardly ever use the glasses except for when we done stereo post work.

24P is a standard that has been set after about 100 years of testing. Film projectors and cameras can go in just about any speed, or at least between 0-100 with quite ease. For some reason 24p whas the choosen, and the reason is simple:

24p 180deg shutter gives:

The eyes time to see each frame.
leaves a pleasant amount of black in-between each frame. This is super important (TV sets does not do this, film projectors does). So half the time you spent at the movies they showed you nothing and I think you liked it, even without knowing.
The 24p is as low as you can go without having to much problems with strobe artifacts when panning etc.
And 180shutter at 24p gives a very pleasant motion blur for film, Half a frame of film smear looks close to 0.3 in animated linear motion blur.. = 0.5 in log blur.

So I think this new frame rate thing will settle. Peter is using the hype and he probably knows it will show in 24p in most theaters any way.

[Andrew Rieger]

Andrew - I would respectfully submit that unless you have done high-framerate tests yourself and evaluated it on its own merits... then you are basically saying, "well, a buddy of mine saw that movie and he said it sucked, and I believe him." It's just not a really strong argument. ; )

At CPG, we have been doing a ton of high-framerate testing and shooting and reviewing using a lot of different cameras with different lensing and lighting options. And then reviewing it with a lot of different projection and viewing methodologies. In addition, we've been doing a lot of cutting together of high framerates with "standard" framerates to see how things look. Projecting at 24fps and skip printing the 48... projecting at 48fps and double-printing the 24, etc, etc. We're doing what creative and technical professionals do with new technology: test, observe, adjust, test, observe, report, adjust, etc., etc., etc.

What we've found so far - and there is a still an awful lot of testing and observing to do - is that it is a new tool. And like any new tool, it has its place. And it is incredibly subjective. I've had one very well-respected Director look at high framerate material and viscerally recoil while another well-respected Director look at the exact same material in the same room with the same projection and think it is beautiful and intimate in a way he has never seen before.

My *personal* opinion is that when done correctly, it is gorgeous. It brings an intimacy and beauty to shots that is difficult to quantify. Can it look like crap? Of course... so can anything. But it's a new tool and needs to be judged on its own merits as opposed to strictly a comparison to others. Because it is *not* a "film" look and it is *not* a "video" look. It is its own thing.

Best,

Lucas

I agree 100%. Test, fine tune, test, fine tune ect. What went wrong with The Hobbit? Did they not test enough? It sounds to me like they did extensive testing, even adopting a strange shutter speed to make the 24p extract easier yet most people who saw the footage thought it looked really bad. Too much resolution? Would it have been better if they had shot it in 2K 48fps so it was not as crazy sharp as it is. I'm not criticizing but I just wonder how they can put so much time an effort into a film without bothering to see if people would actually be pleased with the footage. We are not talking about a few critics who were unsatisfied. The vast majority of those who saw it (my friend included) though it was really quite harsh and unflattering on the actors, in addition to making the motion look odd. I'm sure sure Jackson consulted Cameron on this so what happened?

[Daniel Stilling]

In reality we have been able to watch high frame rates for quite some time now. NTSC is 30 frames divided in 2 fields, so it's essentially 60fps in a really low resolution.
so, whenever you watch TV that's captured in 60i, that's what you see. And honestly, when I see 24fps, I really enjoy that magical motion picture world. It's made for story telling.
Imagine a bunch of guys in middle earth costumes, reenacting a scene for your favorite morning news broadcast. That's what it's going to look like. Just in really high resolution...

[Thor Melsted]

my distaste for James Cameron is based on legitimate criticisms

I disagree.

[Andrew Rieger]

I disagree.

Well then we can agree to disagree.