Pain of the New: The Hobbit at 48 fps • Hacker News Board

Re: Pain of the New: The Hobbit at 48 fps

#11

Post by IvyMike » Wed, Jan 09, 2013, 11:27 PM UTC

sukuriant wrote: post #4

anigbrowl wrote: post #2

A cogent argument, well explained and articulated. However, I don't agree with the conclusion - that what audiences want is ever more realism. Realism diminishes things; the 'film look' adds a dream like quality which is highly desirable for narrative work.

it can add a quality that is desired for the narrative work. Everything has its place. Honestly, my main real complaint with the 48fps version of the film was that it seemed like the cinematographers took the liberty to pan faster, or at least it felt like they were panning faster. That was an unpleasant experience to me, but little else was.

I agree about the pans seeming faster, but in 24fps the pans keep the same angular rate but you don't notice any weirdness at all.

Re: Pain of the New: The Hobbit at 48 fps

#12

Post by mwilcox » Wed, Jan 09, 2013, 11:30 PM UTC

JungleGymSam wrote: post #6

A slight bit off topic from the article here but was the 3D version the only one shown in 48fps? I saw the 3D version a fews days ago and was actually disappointed that I wasn't able to experience the 48fps experience. To me the 3D effect seemed to cause a lot of jitter and poor fps so I was a bit ticked the whole time. But now having read this article I'm even more ticked off that I didn't even realize I was watchin…

There's three versions: 24FPS 2D, 24FPS 3D, and 48FPS 3D.

You most likely saw the 24FPS 3D version, unless it was specifically advertised as "HFR". The main aim of HFR is to make the 3D work better and not give the usual headaches, etc. people get when watching 3D.

I haven't actually seen the 24FPS version yet, but I imagine there's a possibility the 24FPS version has a much faster shutter speed than would typically be seen in a 24FPS movie, which could give it a 'poor fps'/jittery feel like that you experience in a PC game with low FPS.

Re: Pain of the New: The Hobbit at 48 fps

#13

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Jan 09, 2013, 11:31 PM UTC

mbrubeck wrote: post #7

anigbrowl wrote: post #2

A cogent argument, well explained and articulated. However, I don't agree with the conclusion - that what audiences want is ever more realism. Realism diminishes things; the 'film look' adds a dream like quality which is highly desirable for narrative work.

Certainly audiences might come to reject some new techniques and accept others. But what current generations think of as "film look" will eventually be a historical curiousity, just as past generations' "film look" is a curiousity today. Future generations will have their own "film look" that will probably be more realistic and high-fidelity in at least some ways. Though there are a few exceptions, generally people t…

To be honest, we have already been doing this with video for a long time. The two biggest things you do to video for a 'film look' are to shoot at 24 fps (or fake it in post) and set your shutter speed to 1/48 second to mimic the behavior of a film shutter. this gives a particular kind of motion blur that can be dispensed with on video (and film, incidentally, since many film cameras have adjustable shutters), but which people in the audience strongly prefer in most cases. The alternative is the HD look of sports and entertainment programming. It's boring, because it's too similar to real life.

Re: Pain of the New: The Hobbit at 48 fps

#14

Post by Swizec » Wed, Jan 09, 2013, 11:34 PM UTC

mbrubeck wrote: post #7

anigbrowl wrote: post #2

A cogent argument, well explained and articulated. However, I don't agree with the conclusion - that what audiences want is ever more realism. Realism diminishes things; the 'film look' adds a dream like quality which is highly desirable for narrative work.

Certainly audiences might come to reject some new techniques and accept others. But what current generations think of as "film look" will eventually be a historical curiousity, just as past generations' "film look" is a curiousity today. Future generations will have their own "film look" that will probably be more realistic and high-fidelity in at least some ways. Though there are a few exceptions, generally people t…

And yet, the movie that took the most oscars in 2012 was a silent black&white film.

Re: Pain of the New: The Hobbit at 48 fps

#15

Post by chc » Wed, Jan 09, 2013, 11:37 PM UTC

I hear writers moan and wring their hands about the high-framerate version of The Hobbit, how it doesn't look "cinematic" or what have you — but anecdotally, nobody I know had the kind of complaints you hear from film insiders. Nobody I know complains about it looking like a PBS show; nobody feels like they can see the actors' makeup. Those who saw both versions unanimously liked the HFR version better (a common reason being that it's "prettier").

They did agree that the first 10 minutes were painful, but I think that's a combination of the fact that it's not what you were expecting and the fact that the first 10 minutes of the movie were awkwardly shot and acted ("DRAAAAAGOOOON!"), which the burring effect of the lower framerate helps to disguise.

Sure, I believe that some people probably didn't like it as much. Different strokes for different folks and all that. But I can't help but feel like there is something of an "old guard" effect at work here, where people fetishize the incidental details of something they're heavily involved in, and those people are responsible for a lot of the noise.

Re: Pain of the New: The Hobbit at 48 fps

#16

Post by pud » Wed, Jan 09, 2013, 11:38 PM UTC

Humans like flaws.

When CDs first came out, people argued that they sounded "cold," even though they're near-perfect recreations of the music that was recorded. People like the hiss and compression of records and tapes.

This is also the same reason why people like Instagram filters. Normal iPhone pics are too good. Let's fuzz em up a bit.

Also, look at v1 of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other popular sites - they were far from pretty.

There's a lesson here. Somewhere.

Re: Pain of the New: The Hobbit at 48 fps

#17

Post by tokenadult » Wed, Jan 09, 2013, 11:43 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #2

A cogent argument, well explained and articulated. However, I don't agree with the conclusion - that what audiences want is ever more realism. Realism diminishes things; the 'film look' adds a dream like quality which is highly desirable for narrative work.

That's a very interesting opinion about what people like about film. To me, the one take-away point I remember from a film-making class I took in high school days with my best friend was the teacher quoting some eminent film-maker's idea that the essence of film is montage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montage_(filmmaking)

(that is, editing), and since then I've been very aware of the director's and editor's joint choices of shots to build a scene in any film I watch. If I can get good montage, it matters not to me what technology is used to capture the images or display them.

Re: Pain of the New: The Hobbit at 48 fps

#18

Post by untog » Wed, Jan 09, 2013, 11:44 PM UTC

pud wrote: post #16

Humans like flaws. When CDs first came out, people argued that they sounded "cold," even though they're near-perfect recreations of the music that was recorded. People like the hiss and compression of records and tapes. This is also the same reason why people like Instagram filters. Normal iPhone pics are too good. Let's fuzz em up a bit. Also, look at v1 of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other popular sites - they…

The CD parallel doesn't work entirely- CDs prevailed because they were better quality than tapes and considerably more convenient than vinyl. I'm not sure that 48fps has the same argument to put forward.

Re: Pain of the New: The Hobbit at 48 fps

#19

Post by cwilson » Wed, Jan 09, 2013, 11:46 PM UTC

According to the article, the outdoor scenes were awesome in 48FPS. It was the indoor scenes that looked fake and weird, due to the fact that 48FPS made it very apparent there was lots of makeup being used, because they had unnatural light blasting on the actors (where as there was no extra light added to outdoor scenes, obviously).

Shouldn't he have just toned down the extra lighting indoors, knowing 48FPS was going to pick up more detail?

Re: Pain of the New: The Hobbit at 48 fps

#20

Post by jaredcwhite » Wed, Jan 09, 2013, 11:47 PM UTC

Word.

One reason however that some CDs really did sound cold and clinical in the early days was because the transfers to CD were using EQ curves that toned down bass and heightened treble frequencies for pressing vinyls. It made the vinyl records more even, but it made the CDs sound weak and harsh. My brother has been spending time in his home studio remastering some of his 80's CDs with normalization and EQ changes mainly, and they sound tons better.

Like the article says, HFR may require similar "mastering" to suit the newer format better, changing filmmaking techniques that no longer apply like they did in the 24fps era.