The Hobbit, the Uncanny Valley, and what it means for 3D

There are so many ludicrous arguments in The Verge article.

> For some [filmmakers], HFR will be a potential new tool in their arsenal for telling certain types of stories in a new and exciting way, while others will be reminded of why the 2D format at 24 fps has stood the test of time for so long.

Just like dial-up for Internet and horses for transportation stood the test of time for so long. This is such an unabashed argument that "it should stay this way because it has been this at for so long" that I feel sympathetic embarrassment upon reading it.

The author's failure to be immersed is clearly due to his a priori insistence that 24 FPS is the way movie should be shot and projected. He says that himself. But there is more:

> In the opening hour of The Hobbit shown in 3D HFR – I don’t recall hearing a single sigh, or laugh. Not one. When I went to see the exact same seen with an audience of the same size on a 2D projection – I heard regular chuckles and laughter… why?

Here's why: because there are really high odds that of all the people across the world that watched the movie in both formats, at least one person would experience this. Why did Bob win the lottery? Is it because he's good at guessing lottery numbers, or is it because the odds were high that someone would win the lottery, and we chose Bob for analysis after learning that he won? In case anyone wants a counter-anecdote, I watched The Hobbit in both formats and there was a lot of laughter in both theaters. I don't have any real evidence, but I suspect most showings in all formats had considerable laughter.

> It’s like being on a film set in person: all of the magic is lost. You get to see behind the curtain and you’re no longer under the spell…

I think most critics and movie buffs are well aware that "the magic" comes from the viewer's deliberate choice to suspend disbelief. If this weren't the case, then filmmakers themselves would be unable to enjoy a film, since they would fully understand most aspects of how the film was produced. Again, this just reaffirms the author's own admission that he will only choose to be immersed if a film is projected in 24 FPS.

> The makeup wasn’t as terrible as some people say, and most of the VFX were stunning but not all. When I saw them in 2D however – it was almost like seeing another film. My attention wasn’t drawn to them … As I was focusing on central action. That challenges the "Suspension of Disbelief" theory that we all need to believe what we are seeing on screen and to get lost in it…

Oh boy. The author seems unaware that all or nearly all modern theory about suspension of disbelief places most of the responsibility on the viewer, not the artist. No artist can forcefully make you forget or ignore the fact that you're sitting down in a dark room with a bunch of other people.

I suppose I cannot dispute the author's claims about experiencing physical pain from the 3D. Perhaps there truly is some sort variation in people's visual systems that causes this. Other than the slight physical discomfort from wearing 3D glasses over my corrective glasses, all I can say is I haven't experienced that. If this were his central criticism, then it would be valid, although depending on the rate of occurrence of this medical condition it may or may not be reasonable to expect a blockbuster filmmaker to accommodate those who suffer from it.

I'm not a purist trying to make the argument that 24fps is the best thing since cheese for movies. Thats like the folks that say vinyl offers better sound than digital. I'm not an audiofile so I never noticed.

About a week ago I was at the Microsoft campus in Redmond and had a chance to watch an action scene from the last Batman movie in one of their living room studios. The TV was pretty new and was showing the movie in interpolation mode or something. Subjectively, it looked like the Hobbit did. It didn't seem natural and kept pulling me out of enjoying the film. This comes with the comparison that I saw the same Batman movie in the theater this year and it looked much better at the slower frame rate.

I believe the optimal goal for fps is to mimic exactly what the human brain perceives with vision. Movies and/or video games should eventually seem like you're a spectator or looking through a window.

I just read through this page and it provides some good background, http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frames_can_humans_see.htm.

Basically, I think what was lacking in the Hobbit was a significant amount of motion blur. That's what we get naturally at a lower frame rate like 24fps. Simply pumping up the fps to 48 without adjusting for motion blur is what makes it feel weird. It definitely provides more visual detail, but that isn't optimal for the viewing experience.

I think an interesting experiment to do in the next few months will be to take the 48fps non-3D version of the Hobbit and add motion blur in certain test scenes while maintaining the higher frame rate. I hypothesize this will let us see more detail and make the images richer while appearing more natural to the brain.

I don't universally hate soap operas or the soap opera look, and I do think the association made by most people is simply that soap operas tend to be low budget while also being shown at 60 Hz. I believe the fundamental reason for bad-looking soap operas is the low budgets. They are 60 Hz because that's just how television has worked for a very long time.

>The other opinion, which is that 24 FPS has some inherent artistic merit that makes it the ideal format for cinema, is bizarre and incomprehensible to me

Well, it depends. For one, it coincides better with the ~1/25 rate of which a retina persists an afterimage, which might give it a better perceptual look over a higher frame rate.

And perhaps it's not the "as much fidelity" part that is asked of the film medium, but the illusion of a different world, which better fidelity would destroy.

>and that type of argument could be (and probably was) used to argue against audio ("talkies"), color, surround sound, digital color correction, etc.

Well, from a purely artistic perspective, the argument is not incomprehensible at all, even against audio, color, surround sound and such, depending on the prevailing theory of art.

And, purely empirically, I'd go on to say that the more technologically advanced a movie, the worse film it is. But I come from a European/French perspective on the art of cinema, and I wouldn't consider Avatar or LoTR as a "good" film at all.

I think watching an HFR feels like watching a play. But I'm not. I'm watching a movie.

I cannot imagine watching a non-live play on a screen and feel at all connected to the characters or the narrative.