A game changer for movies?

[Big Mike]

Peter Jackson (director of the Lord of the Rings Movies) is now shooting two prequel movies, based around J.R.R. Tolkien's earlier book, The Hobbit.
Besides being shot in 3D, he's also shooting at 48 framers per second.
Of course, the standard movie frame rate since the 20s, has been 24 frames per second. James Cameron is also on board and will likely do the same with his next movie.

I think that anyone can see that this should improve the quality of the movie, as we see it...although some purists argue that it will take away from the 'feel' of watching a movie. (likely the same people who complained when records we replaced by tapes and CDs).

The big thing, is that this will require theaters to upgrade their projectors to project the movie at 48 fps. This is a minor upgrade for digital projectors but a massive upgrade for traditional reel projectors...if those are even still in use for playing modern digital movies.

I really don't know much about videography, but I find this interesting...and it's not just because I'm a total LOTR geek.

 

[Forkie]

Anything that makes movie experiences even better than they already are is all good in my opinion! Especially with movies like LOTR!

 

[KmH]

Time marches on, and technologies mature and evolve.

 

[Derrel]

Well...currently, 35mm motion pictures shot at 24 f.p.s. are shown at two shutter cycles per frame, so, in effect, we're already at "48 images per second". The shutter in a classic type of motion picture projector functions more like a rotating fan than a typical shutter than one might imagine. I used to be an indoor theater and drive-in theater projectionist back when I was in high school and partway through college, but these days, those old motion pictures [and their projectors!], typically on six or seven reels of around 1700 to 2000 feet of film per reel are giving way to digital projection pretty rapidly, so I don't think there will be much of a technological hurdle to overcome in moving the newer movies to a different method of projection on the digital side.

As for the assertion that a higher capture frame rate will "improve" motion picture quality, I am not sure how that really will square with the persistence of vision, which is what allows us to see "motion" from sequentially projected still images. We are ALREADY AT 24 f.p.s. capture and 48 image projections per second in sound movies, and have been for decades, so I'm not sure how this new 48 fps capture could even be implemented!!! 48 f.p.s. film capture projected at 24 fps transport speed would be semi-slow-motion...unless the projectors are sped up to 48 frames per second projection and transport...

One or two directors probably cannot have any effect on the movie business...I think those guys are feeling a bit too big for their britches...possibly due to Avatar's success world wide, and the HUGE, absolutely HUGE number of different presentation formats Avatar was distributed in around the world; Avatar had to be tailored to many dozen differing projection aspect ratios, projection formats,and sound standards, and was the world's most-diverse motion picture in terms of individualized formats in which it was distributed, according to an article I read on a film industry site last winter. Perhaps the success and bend over backwards reception he got from Avatar has give the big C a swelled head.

 

[Big Mike]

I think his head was well swelled before Avatar...and I'm sure all the success hasn't shrunk it any.

Will Peter Jackson's The Hobbit change cinema for ever? | Film | The Guardian
48 Frames Per Second | Facebook
http://www.slashfilm.com/the-hobbit...=Feed:+slashfilm+(/Film)&utm_content=FaceBook

 

[Overread]

Eh I see it a bit like the whole 3D thing in that there will be all this noise about it - some cinemas might charge us more to actually watch it - and in the end - it will either make no difference at all or be a right pain in the neck (far as I can tell 3D only looks good on the rolling credits - the rest of the time its a pain and the glasses are annoying.....)

I guess the bonus of recording in 48FPS for live action is the ability to slow and speed up the frames with less detrimental effect for the viewer so it might mean we've a lot of slow motion action and such to look forward to.

 

[Josh66]

Can the human eye even tell the difference between 24 & 48 fps?

The only real difference I can think of is that fast moving objects would be less blurry.

 

[Joshonator]

Yeah I can't see this making a big difference. It might make fast-moving objects less blurry, but then our eyes would probably make it blurry (since they can't see 48fps). recording in 48fps would allow you to slow down the scene to 24fps without loss of quality, but i would assume that they we're already using faster frame-rates to shoot slow motion scenes anyway.

 

[Einstein]

here is an interesting comparison

Pinkbike High Frames Per Second (fps) video: 50p vs 25p - Pinkbike.com

 

[Garbz]

Can the human eye even tell the difference between 24 & 48 fps?

The only real difference I can think of is that fast moving objects would be less blurry.

Most definitely, ... depending on the motion blur. Take your typical computer game for instance. You'll notice it appears visibly choppy at 30 or even 48 frames per second. In the movies this is not too much of an issue due to motion bluring, but there is still quite a visible difference on many scenes. Fast paced action is a classic example as is panning across wide panoramas. This website here 15 FPS vs. 30 FPS vs. 60 FPS - A Visual Comparison shows that your eye is actually capable of more, see the difference between 30 and 60fps?

However one critical thing that is missed is that this will make a MASSIVE difference to 3D movies. In 3D movies the projector needs to show alternating frames to each eye, they do this by shutting one eye displaying the image, and then shutting the other eye and displaying the image. The problem then is that the motion blur itself loses some of its smoothness. This was even worse in earlier 3D movies like Chicken little where a lack of sufficient motion blurring combined with showing the same frame to each eye at half the speed lead the picture to bounce around like a computer with an antique video card.