No, that's not German, I'm just tired of the fascination the industry has with 1920s technology. What is it about blurry, shuddering cinema that's so consistently attractive?
Edison, who first started using 35mm film in 1892, originally favoured 46fps - "anything less will strain the eye" - and his main rival's camera typically shot at 40fps. However, due to the slow and expensive film stocks of the day, directors frequently shot at slower speeds - often varying the speed within the same shoot! In 1915, a projectionists' handbook declared, "One of the highest functions of projection is to watch the screen and regulate the speed of projection [by hand-cranking] to synchronise with the speed of taking", though exhibitors regularly sped up the film to fit more reels in. Silent films often went as low as 16fps, but with the advent of "talkies" formats using optical sound strips on the film, cinematographers were forced to standardise on a consistent speed: 24fps.
In these enlightened days of digital soundtracks and digital video, we are of course not bound to any such limitation. We've hugely improved the sensitivity, resolution and grain of our film stocks and image sensors, and we relentlessly pursue the ideal of image quality. So why are we so quick to throw out our temporal quality (and degrade our spatial quality with motion blur) by deliberately shooting at less than half the framerate that video has been managing for years? It's like buying a 5D mkII camera and then leaving the photo size at only 1024 x 768.
Now in some cases we have no choice - we have to match 24fps film from other sources, or the projector can only show it at 24fps, and so be it, we're stuck with those. Yet even when we have the equipment to shoot squeaky-clean footage at 30fps or even 60fps with a fancy new digital camera, all too often we sabotage this with the ever-popular "film look", deliberately degrading our results and going to great lengths to increase their jerkiness, just to look more "cinematic".
Some may argue this is an artistic decision, like a soft filter or a bleach bypass, and of course it is. Low frame rate can likewise change the feel of a scene, increasing emotional impact. That impact is however somewhat lessened when it's used indiscriminately, with nothing to contrast it to and no thought of appropriateness - like blurring ALL your film, even the credits.
Others may say that audiences prefer their sweeping pans across a majestic landscape to be shuddering and/or blurred by motion, because it nostalgically reminds them of those other wonderful, shuddering, blurry moments they experienced in cinemas, years ago, when there was no other choice. I say, welcome to the 21st century, where sepia-toned photographs appear only in historical pieces and museums. We can do better now - we have been doing better in so many other ways; why are we still holding ourselves back? We spend millions on realistic special effects, then skimp on the framerate that could actually deliver that realism.
Still others may insist that our clients demand it, so we have to deliver - but they probably want to sell us their popular film-look plugin. Besides, how often have our clients ever known what they really wanted?
Enough already. Digital cameras and digital projectors mean that framerate is just another tool of the trade - lower it for that dramatic scene, by all means, but don't forget to crank it right up again for the majestic landscape pan. And for the credits.
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Higher FPS for cinema is a suggestion we hear often but the truth is that the audience associates high fps with reality or non narrative TV. Although it shouldn't, It gives a 'cheap' taste to the footage and we've heard those comments time and time again in various screen tests.
ReplyDelete24 fps is a nice number. It might not be the smoothest fps for fast camera movements but it's a limitation that I as a filmmaker like to play along with.
As an audience member I have dispaired at 24fps for years, the visual stutter can be enormous on fast moving shots.
ReplyDeleteForget blurry, often edges can be seen like a slide show jumping across the screen, and it is horribly noticeable.
I find it so unpleasnt I prefer not to go to the cinema much these days as the image seems poor compared to every other media device you might own, and surely that's the wrong way around.
@Milatos, I've heard those comments too, I just think it's past time we ignored them and moved on. Younger audiences tend not to have such prejudices yet, but they'll quickly develop them if we do nothing, and we'll be stuck with 24fps for another generation.
ReplyDeleteMy other point is that, if 24fps is felt to be more "cinematic", we should be applying it carefully to heighten the impact of certain scenes, where the contrast will make it even more effective, rather than plastering it willy-nilly over the entire movie. We couldn't do that so easily before, but we can now.
Well yeah, maybe it should be an artistic decision but i am 100% certain that the majority of filmmakers would continue to prefer 24 over other frame-rates.
ReplyDeleteIt's also a financial problem as a frame rate of 60 fps for example, would almost triple the cost of storage and visual FX budgets. (What a nightmare for rotoscopers too!)
Personally i feel that 24fps is a frame-rate that divides human movement and action in nice temporal pieces, making it easier for the editor's mind to find the inner rhythm of a shot and be creative in editing. If i had to edit footage of 100fps i wouldn't know which frame i should cut to. Frame 150 or 147? It would be too difficult to 'feel' the shot's dynamic.
So, i guess there are many things to consider. Just because we have the technology to do it doesn't mean we should do it.
I totally agree with Daniel (and being german...),
ReplyDeletethere is time to make use of already defined standarts (DCI 48 fps for instance). And think about even better standarts for high frame FPS.
The technology is available. Its useable.
I do hear those arguments on the narrative vs. reality part many times. But by not making it available we disrupt the chance of using low FPS artisitically in the context of high FPS "reality" context.
In fact, the emotional effect of high/fast fps is often much higher, letting people feel like "being there" instead of "watching a story". With the advent of serious stereo 3D we put another level of realism to the cinematic experience, so its just logical to increase on that (with higher FPS) to replicate realism to the best possible quality = most fully immersive experience.
From thereon one creative can clearly start to choose to use it less, like to choose to shoot super 8 film for "look" reasons and embed into a todays release. There would be no "must" to use it, but a "possibility". Right now there is no possibility (except the view DCI screens).
One of the bigger points IMHO against higher FPS would be the extra efforts = cost required in post, like doubling frames means processing double data. Thats not double cost - clearly not! - but increased cost, yes. Probably the reason it hasn't been used much.
I expect new, high sensitive cameras, to be used on 48fps projects at least. Would love to start one right away.
Further it would be a good chance to join all worlds TV communities to use a common FPS standart throughout TVs all over the world. And for the big screens.
The original 25fps PAL and 29.97fps NTSC reflect on frequencies related to the network frequencies used by the electric power suppliers. Those days are long over where this relates that strongly. TVs and cameras can run totally independant from this since many many years. Only flickering lights might be an issue sometimes, but there are standart solutions for this. And many new energy saving light sources solve these issues anyway...
Who has ever seen high resolution, high frame rate "video" like the NHK UltraHiVision (7680x4320y@60Hz, 32 times full HD data) will understand what Daniel is talking about.
To add something german: Just recently tests were made over here by DVS showcasing dual stream stereo 4K @ 60 Hz. This is the horizon to look at (for now).
Cheers,
Axel
One note about rotoscoping:
ReplyDeleteWe made the experience that high resolution shooting significantly helps on greenscreen/bluescreen keying. We often do produce material for websites, like presenters in VR-sets etc. These are shot with RED 4K and we have much easier keying since. So spatial resolution improved removing jitter and blurry edges, making keying definetly easier and faster (and so cheaper) than trying the same with an HDV camera for instance.
Given that, increase temporal resolution will again bring a benefit in terms of sharper frames, less semi-transparent spill boundary areas of motion blur. So I not not necessarily agree that it will be worse, it may turn out to be easier in many cases.
Axel
If we could just standardize on 120Hz for presentation, which DLP, Plasma, and LCD can all do easily, then we'd be able to produce content at 24Hz, 30Hz, 40Hz, 60Hz, or 120Hz. So any one monitor, theater venue, or whatever could show in any of those formats natively. You could even produce a film where some shots are 24Hz, and some are 60Hz and cut between them.
ReplyDelete- Chad
Most consumer / prosumer HD cameras are still limited to 25 or 30 FPS at the highest resolution, so it's not exactly a huge leap from 24.
ReplyDeleteI would love to see more productions in 1280x720 at 50 frames per second, but it seems the numbers "1080" are the main marketing tool for HD, just like megapixels for still cameras or reaction times for LCD panels. This despite the fact that a lot of consumers can't tell the diffrence between HD and SD...
Add the fact that the image quality of video-capable SLRs is terrible at 1280x720 (due to the subsampling they use - instead of downsampling, which would require faster sensor reads) and you have another missed opportunity to get people interested in higher frame rates.
Maybe 3D TV will push manufacturers to establish 1920x1080 @ 50 FPS as a mandatory standard (effectively 25 FPS for each eye), and that will then be available for 2D at 50 real frames per second.
Ideally, though, refresh rate should simply be determined by the media. It's trivial to create a format that supports infinitely variable frame rates (by having frame durations encoded into each frame, rather than a global frame rate for the whole stream). That way you could mix shots done at different speeds and even vary the frame rate within each shot based on smart compression. Of course, it does mean the concept of "timecode" needs to be reworked, and it won't be backwards compatible.
Ted, I don't think you can do it frame by frame efficiently, but MPEG-4 allows you to change frame rates shot by shot easily, which is probably enough. I don't think it would affect timecode at all, since you'd be referring to time, not frames. You just can't assume one framerate, but will have to adjust that according to the footage metadata.
ReplyDelete"Cameron said the big change is that he wants to natively author the movie in a higher frame rate, not at the traditional 24 frames per second that current movies are filmed at. He will do it at 48, 60, or 72 frames per second. 'The projectors can do it,' he said. 'That’s another bump we will do.'"
ReplyDeletehttp://venturebeat.com/2010/10/27/why-two-more-avatar-movies-will-be-good-for-tech-innovation/
Add Peter Jackson to the list of converts:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.facebook.com/notes/peter-jackson/48-frames-per-second/10150222861171558
Makes me look forward to The Hobbit even more now :-)