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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

#101
The frame rate was the least of The Hobbit's problem. If the movie had been good, I don't think anyone would be discussing this. When a movie's opening half hour is as utterly dull as the scene at Bilbo's house, what else can the audience do but take the time to closely examine every little detail of makeup and lighting.

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

#102
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…

This. I still have an old Sade CD from the early 80's and the sound on that CD is very flat.

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

#103
post #48

after my eyes were actually adapting to the 48 frames/s i really liked the experience. what i found strange though was, that when displaying landscapes there was actually a depth-of-field in the movie - which did not make it a fully "real" visual experience. i guess this is rather a technical limit of the cameras the movie was shot with than intended. anyone got some details on this?

What makes you think filmmakers are interested chiefly in visual "realness"? There's very little in the medium of cinematography that your mind accepts readily as "real" besides sound, depending.

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

#104
post #32

> Those high frame rates are great for reality television, and we accept them because we know these things are real. We’re always going to associate high frame rates with something that’s not acted, and our brains are always going to associate low frame rates with something that is not. If they’re seeing something artificial and it starts to approach something looking real, they begin to inherently psychologically re…

I'm genuinely curious: in cases like this, how do we differentiate between what is truly not pretty and what we don't like just because we're habituated to something else? Does the former even mean anything, since we humans are the only ones experiencing the technology?

In this case, run some experiments with people from various cultures who have never seen film or television before.

Humanity is fairly diverse, and many behaviors or preferences have little to do with genetics.

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

#107
Presumably both the 24 and 48 fps versions were shot with the same cameras, with the 48 fps raw being mixed down to 24. Why would that affect sensitivity? Shouldn't both versions be equally sensitive? If not, couldn't this effect be compensated for in post?

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

#108
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…

Disclosure: I'm a cinematographer. Prior to seeing the film, I was excited because I had read interviews with PJ about how HFR makes 3D so much better and cleaner. Looking back now, I don't know why I was fooled into thinking that there is something wrong with 3D. The supposed benefit of HFR is that it reduces headaches for people who get them from 3D. I don't get these headaches so there was nothing wrong with 3D fo…

I dunno, if it's a small group or not that gets headaches from the 3D but I definitely do. The HFR completely eliminated that though. I hope they keep it up (as long as they keep trying to do 3D that is) for purely selfish reasons :)

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

#109
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…

Just to counter all the "I didn't like HFR" people. I saw both HFR 3D and non HFR 3D. I liked the HFR version better. I read the some blogs that hated the HFR before I went and so was going to skip it but other friends said they had no problems with HFR so I figured it would be good to experience it.

There were a couple of places it was distracting which I assume was because it's "different". On the other hand there were places in the non-HFR that were distracting because they were shot for HFR and stuttered horribly.

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