It's not that it's "interlaced," it's because it has 60 movements per second. 60p looks the same.
NewsRadio was shot on 30 fps film. 30 motions per second.
Hobbit: Overly detailed 5K and HFR failing to please
- Thread starter Shoots56
- Start date
It's not that it's "interlaced," it's because it has 60 movements per second. 60p looks the same.
NewsRadio was shot on 30 fps film. 30 motions per second.
This is a myth, IMO. The fact is, there is something magical about 24fps. We all THOUGHT the only reason film stopped at 24 fps was sync sound. Turns out that's not true.
Think about this. Film could have been sped up at any time. They could have started shooting 30 fps, 40 fps, 60 fps. But they never did. Why? Because it looks like crap. Not because you're "used to" 24fps, but because it actually does look like crap when you shoot faster than 24fps. 24fps turns out to be a sweet spot that ads just enough judder and motion blur to the picture to make it seem close enough to reality to be engaging, but far away enough from reality to be art.
Yes, I'm familiar with those, and they are typical of what I referred to earlier of UK TV dramas of the 70s and 80s. And my memories from the time are of the film looking better than the studio video - recently viewing some episodes, I find I'm thinking the opposite. The grain, scratches etc on the film distract me far more than any "video-look" of the studio.
Doctor Who is quite interesting as the location shooting changed from film to video quite early, mid 70s at a guess - at least for a period. I believe it used a lightweight OB unit with early handheld cameras, but it did mean the cameras could be properly racked and recorded (presumably) to 2" videotape. There is quite a lot of location drama from the time that was shot by such units in the UK - I suspect mainly to try to save money. But it seems to have been done with the same lighting budgets, and care taken over things like not winding detail level up high. Point is that maybe UK audiences have had more exposure to drama at TV framerates - and shot to decent standards - so the whole framerate topic is much less of an issue here. If much more got shot at 50/60p, and if it looked "expensive" as far as other factors were concerned I think attitudes would slowly change.
That wasn't what I said. (And I certainly don't think it looked cheapo either, just the opposite.) What I was referring to was the lighting, and the high key effect - "brightly lit" if you like. Same may be true of many of the feature films of the period. I suspect that was partly because film stocks were slow by todays standards, so a lot of light was needed anyway, partly it was the style at the time - maybe a bright look appealed to advertisers?
And whilst 1970s 16mm film drama may not look too good, then 35mm is a different story. I also remember when a big long running US show went from 35mm film to video (Maybe "Dallas?") It may not have been so stark in the US, but after an analogue standards conversion to PAL, the difference from 35mm film was very stark.
Agree 100%.
Sage
Well-known member
48 fps looks HORRIBLE. I saw The Hobbit in 48 fps 3d just to check it out, and omg is it bad to watch.
I gave up on 3d long ago. I LOVE 3d when it's used as a gimmick, like to have things poke out of the screen at me. I hate 3d when it's the "picture window" style of Avatar. It's pointless.
3d isn't after all closer to reality. Reality means you can look around a corner. You cannot do that in a 3d movie screen. It's an artificial reality that more than anything else makes my eyes hurt.
I went and saw Desolation of Smaug in 2d and was perfectly happy that I didn't see the 3d version. I was totally convinced that I missed absolutely nothing but a headache by seeing the 2d version.
As far as 48 fps, I won't watch anything that way ever again. I might as well just watch old re runs of soap operas from the 1970's.
I've posted before that there are tons of threads on Reduser about how to soften 4k images, either with filters or in post. If you're trying to make narrative movie magic, you don't want your images to be to sharp, and you don't want to lose all the lovely motion blur and judder.
Ian-T
Veteran
It's strange but we are now at the point of trying to figure out how to dumb down these advancements in image quality. Wasn't it just a few years ago most of us were screaming for higher resolution?
I was once on that bandwagon myself. But I realize a soft and detailed image is a lot better for a "film-like" look than detailed and harsh.
I saw this movie in 2d as well and liked the look "mostly." There was this one scene (going down the rapids) where the digital image kept breaking up in a very nasty way. It look like old iPhone video...it was THAT bad. I have no clu what happened.
I also think if I were to watch it in 3D I would have been distracted all the way through.
I was once on that bandwagon myself. But I realize a soft and detailed image is a lot better for a "film-like" look than detailed and harsh.
I saw this movie in 2d as well and liked the look "mostly." There was this one scene (going down the rapids) where the digital image kept breaking up in a very nasty way. It look like old iPhone video...it was THAT bad. I have no clu what happened.
I also think if I were to watch it in 3D I would have been distracted all the way through.
I'd say the answer to "why?" is quite simple - cost.
Cost of film stock not only for shooting, but for release prints as well. And if 60fps we'd be talking about 2.5x as many film cans for any film, with the associated costs of transport and storage. And pity the projectionists - as it was they had to do a reel change every 10 mins approx. with 1,000 ft reels of 35mm. Go to 60fps and it would have been less than 4 1/2 minutes! (Still well under 9 minutes when 2,000 ft reels became more common.)
This is before we even start to think about the implications of higher frame rates on the required build quality of the machinery, and the wear and tear on the film stock - with the likely implications of prints not lasting as long.
Which is why to the cinema industry in the 1920s, there was a strong imperative to keep frame rates as low as possible - high frame rates = high costs = low profits. Simple as that. Somewhere round 24fps was only ever seen as a sweet spot in so far as in between unusable sound if lower and higher cost if higher. (Exactly 24fps just made the numbers easy - releationship to 60Hz mains, exactly 1.5 feet/second, and going from a three bladed to two bladed shutter kept the same flicker rate.)
If there are any myths around it's regarding the "magical" nature of 24fps. If you could have offered the industry of the 1920s a 48fps frame rate with no cost difference, you'd have been a very rich man.
That would be a matter of your own personal preference. Which is fine; you like what you like.
Yes, you said that it would have the "video-look" today, compared to other dramatic offerings with different lighting. But it doesn't. No one will mistake it for video.
It's not like this isn't something objectively testable -- there are plenty of fan efforts with the same lighting, pretty darn good reproductions of the sets, etc., shot on 60i video, and they do look like video. The original TV show, shot on 24 fps film, does not.
R Hudson
Well-known member
No. The cost of film doesn't have a thing to do with its psychological appeal based on the appearance of its movement. It may have been chosen as a frame rate due to cost (though no one really knows), but that's not why it looks the way it looks and why people continue to prefer it for their dramatic offerings. It's about how things move.
It was chosen as the slowest frame rate that would work with an optical sound track. Silent film frame rates were all over the map, but many were shot at 18 fps. However theatrical projection refresh rates even for film have always been 48fps as 24fps flicker is intolerable. The projector shutter flashes each frame twice. Digital projectors these days refresh 96Hz or 120Hz, so each frame is flashed four or five times to eliminate flicker.
We now have options for frame rates that become another aesthetic choice in the digital era, just as shutter angle changes from 180 standard were used for Private Ryan to create aesthetic effect. IMO 48fps works a lot better than 24 for 3D.
We now have options for frame rates that become another aesthetic choice in the digital era, just as shutter angle changes from 180 standard were used for Private Ryan to create aesthetic effect. IMO 48fps works a lot better than 24 for 3D.
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The wording I used was "I have a feeling that if compared with some modern drama, shot with modern high-def cameras and lit in a more low-key fashion, a non-expert observer would think the former had more of the "video-look" about it." - my apologies if it is not written very clearly, but the key words there are "more of the....".
What I was trying to get over (obviously not successfully) was that if you listed all the attributes that years ago made someone tick the "video" box or likewise the "film" box, then clean, high key lighting would often be associated with "video". Good dynamic range, good highlight handling would almost certainly put a tick in the film box, as - dare I say - would most often be simple good cinematography. Nowadays, dynamic range and similar attributes are typically as good on electronic cameras as they were on film, and you're likewise likely to find the best cinematographers happily working with such.
Which leaves little other than frame rate. The point I was trying to get over was what would someone now think looked more "video like" out of a high key scene at 24fps *OR* a low key scene at a higher frame rate. As to the answer, we'd better agree to disagree. Maybe it would have been better if I'd worded the original question "I have a feeling that if compared with some modern drama, shot with modern high-def cameras and lit in a more low-key fashion, a non-expert observer would think the former had less of the "film-look" about it"
When does video really come into it's own for cinematic productions, narrative story telling? Once we get 24p video instead of 60i. Why? Because suddenly it starts to look beautiful, artistic, dreamy, less "realistic" like video.
Film stock has always been the least part of any Hollywood production budget. Hollywood could have easily afforded to shoot a big movie production in 48 fps just like Jackson doing the Hobbit in 48 fps. No one needed a digital revolution to make that happen. The only advantage of 48fps is smoother motion in 3d. IMO, it's not worth the trade off; sharper ugly plastic images for smoother 3d motion.
I was simply answering a direct question as to why 24fps was chosen at the time sound films came in. It had everything to do with cost, little to do with anything else. End of story.
What was or was not said about psychological appeal of different frame rates in the early 1920s we can only guess at. But even if every creative person at the time had all come out and said "we want 60fps! Lower than that has a lot of flicker!" then guess what? The people with the money strings would have said "Tough! Costs too much - think yourselves lucky you're getting more than 16!"
I'll leave only last question hanging - if you think 24fps is artistically better, do you think that's for any intrinsic reason - or just because it's what you're used to?
It's obviously and objectively intrinsic. We've had 60i video for many many years now. Many people have grown up never knowing a time when 60i video did not exist. They are definitely "used to" high frame rate video. They've seen it on TV, VHS, DVD, video games, all their lives. Those people have never clamored for movies at the theater to look like 60i, instead of 24fps. Why? Because one is intrinsically better than the other in terms of story telling. 48fps looks very similar to 60i. It looks video like, not cinematic.
No, it had to do with proper sound synch, too, according to some. No one alive today was around making those decisions then, so no one really knows for sure.
The 1920s don't matter. All of the decades between then and now, including the 2010s, do. There is an aesthetic to 24 (or 25, nearly identical) fps that people simply like, and prefer for narrative fiction, and have done so over that entire time period.
The point is, why 24 fps was chosen is pretty much irrelevant. Why it STUCK is the question.
They didn't.
I think it's artistically better for those projects which it suits, which is fictional narrative. It's because it doesn't look "live," it doesn't look like "reality." It looks fictional.
It's what audiences overwhelmingly prefer, too, as borne out by many (failed) attempts to increase the frame rates over the decades.
Higher frame rates are better for other uses, where a feel closer to reality is warranted. (This, too, is explained and illustrated in the 24p & Frame Rates tutorial, with split-screens comparing the rates side-by-side.)
Of course, no one can make you, personally, like 24/25 fps if you don't, but that's not the way most people see it.
Not really. There are 60 separate pictures per second, 60 movements per second, in 60i, not 30. The number of pictures taken per second, the number of motions per second, is what creates the motion cadence, not some engineer's arbitrary designation of "30." The movement of 60i is the same as 60p, because the same number of pictures is taken per second, and you see them all when they're displayed.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Cost was obviously a huge factor; 24fps may indeed have been chosen because it provided enough motion clarity and enough sound fidelity, at the lowest cost possible. Higher frame rates would provide higher motion fidelity, but at proportionate expense.
However -- I firmly reject the notion that cost is the only reason film stopped at 24fps. The simple fact is -- people, in general, like it better. They really do. Look, we've had basically "free" high-frame-rate options for decades. People have shot "movies" on video for decades. And it's never been well-received. People just don't like the look of it. Well, people outside of Japan, that is -- apparently the Japanese just love the high frame rate look, which is why we get innovations from them like 120Hz TVs with motion-smoothing technology. But film audiences don't like it, don't care for it, and can definitely see and tell the difference. They may not know WHAT is different, but they know that it's different, and they don't like it.
We don't have to delve too far into theory for this, we can just look at the reality in the marketplace. 24P, when first introduced on camcorders, was decried as a "gimmick" -- now it's not only standard, it's a demanded feature. People want it, and they reject products that don't have it. And critics and reviewers, by and large, reject higher frame rates -- the initial reaction to The Hobbit was savage and blistering. People HATED the look.
Now, here's what's funny -- the look of higher frame rates is, undoubtedly, better at resolving motion. It just is. It's 48 or 60 frames per second, instead of 24. As far as portraying motion goes, HFR absolutely delivers a more realistic portrayal, with less judder, less blur, and more accuracy. It's like the difference between 1080p and 720p -- there's just more information there.
So why, why, why would anyone prefer LESS information? Because it is -- say it with me -- "magical." It looks "better" to us. Whether that's simply as a result of conditioning, who knows. Whether it's the result of some magical brain stimulation like Roger Ebert asserts, where the brain is actively involved in creating info to fill in the gaps, I don't know. It doesn't really matter all that much as to why it is, all that's really important is that we acknowledge what the difference is so that we can then be best prepared to make the right choice as to what we're going to shoot our productions on.
I saw "The Hobbit" both ways -- in HFR 3D, and in plain 24fps 2D. I found the experience and enjoyment level was vastly, vastly, vastly improved by going to the 24fps 2D screening. I'm no luddite, I have no agenda to advance, I went to both with open eyes and an open mind. And I can say that in my opinion, I thought the HFR just absolutely ruined the "magic" of the film experience. "The Hobbit" didn't look like an LOTR movie in HFR, it looked like a cheap video. But when I saw it in 24fps, the magic was restored and it had a grandeur about it that was totally missing in the HFR version.
Interestingly -- while 48fps was all that anyone could talk about with the original "The Hobbit", you hardly see it mentioned this time around. Why is that? Well, for one thing, Warner Brothers wouldn't show it to critics at the higher frame rate! They learned their lesson, and all screenings for critics were at the 24fps speed.
What does that tell you?