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Pain of the New: The Hobbit at 48 fps

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

#51

Post by shardling »

chc wrote: post #15

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 reas…

Almost everyone I know (even those who loved the movie) thought it looked a bit odd in HFR. None of them are "film insiders".

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

#52

Post by mcphilip »

ginko wrote: post #36

>Knoll asked me, "You probably only noticed the odd lighting in the interior scenes, not in the outdoors scenes, right?" And once he asked it this way, I realize he was right. The scenes in the HFR version that seemed odd were all inside. The landscape scenes were stunning in a good way. "That's because they didn't have to light the outside; the real lighting is all that was needed, so nothing seemed amiss." I would…

>Starting with The New World, Malick has instituted “rules” in his filmmaking, including using only natural light, no cranes, no big rigs, and handheld cameras only [1].

You might want to checkout New World if natural lighting interests you. Malick is known as the "director's director" and has done a lot of very interesting work. He loves trying to capture "unrepeatable moments", like how he used a clip of an in-costume Christian Bale taking a break smoking a corn cob pipe in New World when Bale didn't even realize he was on camera.

[1]http://stillsearching.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/39-facts-abou...

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

#53

Post by grannyg00se »

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…

I think it's the opposite - people don't like flaws. The higher accuracy of the CD and hi-res photos makes the flaws in data capture more obvious because there is less distraction. Adding hiss, pops, blur, or other distractions reduces our focus on the flaws.

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

#54

Post by Firehed »

mwilcox wrote: post #12
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…

Ironically, I saw the 48FPS 3d and that made it far worse. Any scene with motion was literally unwatchable with both eyes open - and this was true for every one of my friends that went that night. We suspect it was something wrong with the projector itself, as the 3d previews at 24fps looked fine. I'd really like to see it again properly if the operators get things straightened out, as the low-motion scenes looked incredible.

Contrast that to Avatar, for example, which was an awful 3d experience for me as well, but mostly because I was stuck in the front row (I arrived "only" an hour early)

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

#55

Post by chadgeidel »

mwilcox wrote: post #12
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…

There's also an IMAX 3D version. IMAX used to be filmed on 4x larger film stock, but now that everything is digital, I'm not sure if the IMAX version is different than the standard 24FPS version.

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

#56

Post by enneff »

ginko wrote: post #36

>Knoll asked me, "You probably only noticed the odd lighting in the interior scenes, not in the outdoors scenes, right?" And once he asked it this way, I realize he was right. The scenes in the HFR version that seemed odd were all inside. The landscape scenes were stunning in a good way. "That's because they didn't have to light the outside; the real lighting is all that was needed, so nothing seemed amiss." I would…

> I would love to see cinematographers experiment with natural lighting for shots.

What are you talking about? Many films are made with natural light. Kubrick wasn't alone.

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

#57

Post by anigbrowl »

jpdoctor wrote: post #41
cwilson wrote: post #19

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…

> due to the fact that 48FPS made it very apparent there was lots of makeup being used How does better temporal resolution (higher frame rate) enable better spacial resolution (see makeup detail)? In no or low motion, there can be no difference.

There is never no motion, unless you're in hard vacuum or a clean room. If you doubt this, shoot some video of a static scene, then take on frame out of it and repeat it for the same length of time. People's pulse makes the color of their skin change subtly. Lights flicker in phase with alternating current. Outside, the air moves and the color temperature of the sun changes subtly with it, even if the sky is perfectly clear.

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

#58

Post by flxmglrb »

From now on, frame rate will be just like aspect ratio: another choice for the filmmaker. Some movies will still be in 24fps, some will be 48fps (or some other value), and eventually some will probably be variable from scene to scene.

As for the Hobbit, I think HFR could certainly have used a better "ambassador" film. Maybe James Cameron (who has also talked about 48fps from time to time) will do a better job of it in his next movie.

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

#59

Post by stan_rogers »

michaelgrafl wrote: post #39
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…

CDs sounded cold because converters were bad and engineers didn't have much experience mastering for it, not because they sounded too perfect. Early CDs still sound bad, and I would take the respective vinyl over the CD any day still. Modern CDs sound amazing, if we leave the loudness wars aside for a moment. I suppose there are two reasons why people use Instagram filters. Firstly, because most phone cameras aren't…

It wasn't so much that engineers didn't know how to master, but that the analog-to-digital sampling was done at the CD bit rate (44.1Khz). That meant that the analogue signal needed to be brick-wall filtered to remove any information above 20KHz, and analogue brick-wall (hi-Q) filtering does really, really bad things to time and phase. Since the late '80s, the sampling rate on conversion has been much higher and the removal of high-frequency information (possible aliasing) is done in the digital domain. (And it really didn't help that early players did no dithering on playback either. Early CDs still sound horrible, but you really need to play them on early players to get the full dentistry-without-anaesthetics effect.)

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

#60

Post by femto »

jpdoctor wrote: post #41
cwilson wrote: post #19

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…

> due to the fact that 48FPS made it very apparent there was lots of makeup being used How does better temporal resolution (higher frame rate) enable better spacial resolution (see makeup detail)? In no or low motion, there can be no difference.

More updates per second to each pixel means each pixel is more faithfully tracking the real-life image, which in turn allows the eye to more accurately interpolate spatial details in the displayed picture.

As you say, for a truly static scene there is no difference. In practise there is always noise in the picture, so even in static scenes a higher frame rate will tend to reduce noise by averaging.

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