The Hobbit movies

[RobbyBevard]

Actually.

The waveforms of analogs (vinyl) are of a higher accuracy when compared to a digital recording (like CD).

It's legitimate. Of consequence? Probably not! Subjective listener claims are that the vinyl sound is "warmer" and digital is "colder" if you're curious.

Decades I've been hearing that argument and you're the first person to put more reason than pure nostalgia to it.

Well, fair enough.


Like I keep saying, I don't follow these things close enough to really know personally, but I'm hearing and reading things that make sense one way, and sound purely nostalgic another. Professionals seem to think higher rate is better, but lifelong cinema fans swear by the lower for the look it gives.

I figure its like the jump from regular to hd all over again, where it just looks "too real" when you first see it and its jarring, but now we're getting used to it.

[CosmicDebris]

I've always preferred the sound of analog over digital. Many people do. But it doesn't matter, the industry moved on. MP3s are generally much lower quality than CDs, but people have begun to prefer them. I was listening to interview where it was brought up how a lot of kids today actually are growing to prefer badly compressed mp3 sound because they're getting so used to it.

The fact that most TVs are switching over to that kind of FPS, I'm a lot more inclined to believe people are going to start getting used to it....since it's not limited to film.

[The Beast]

Decades I've been hearing that argument and you're the first person to put more reason than pure nostalgia to it.

Well, fair enough.

With an awesome/proper vinyl setup, you can listen to completely uncompressed/lossless music like 1 Kool Dood. But with most audiophilia related things, there are degrees in which it won't mean anything depending on different ends like how the tracks were mastered, what equipment you're listening to it on, etc to fully get the MOST OUT of it. But it'll always sound better than MP3s outside free Dell speakers if anything. And then it eventually hits a peak point where expensive equipment is just ego-satisfaction.

I usually just rock FLAC digital files on nice speakers and it does me good B) Takin' up all my HDD

But I'm getting into something else haha.

I stand by what I said earlier that no matter what, I am cool with the Hobbit doin' this high FPS shit.

--- Update From New Post Merge ---

I'm used to music, where you have a lot of freedom in what level of fidelity you want to do something in, so to me THE HOBBIT just seems like a heavy level of mastering and if you really want to, you can record in 18 FPS for all you care, like you're john darnielle or something.

Unless cinema has some industryy standard where they depants anybody who isn't living up to the satndards PETER JACKSON ushered into the world

[Sakonosolo]

24 fps is supposedly on the bottom end of what appears to be smooth motion. Anything lower than that looks disjointed. The argument about the industry having to adapt with new lighting techniques and stuff doesn't really fly with me because I don't see why they should stay at a lower framerate just because they don't feel like having to learn how to shoot film at 48 fps.

I usually rip CDs I buy to FLAC as well.

[Nobodyman]

On the subject of 48 fps, it's the level of fps that soap operas use and a lot of HDTVs have the option for now, right?

Well, despite Robby's claims about quickly getting used to it, I watched The Sorceror's Apprentice enitrely in 48 fps and I couldn't help but notice the higher framerate throughout the entire run. It was really distracting to me. Characters and movements in 48 fps just appear to move too fast for me and, as Beast pointed with the vinyl/digital comparison, 24 fps feels more "warm" and 48 fps seems "cold."

That being said, It probably is just my own personal prejudice and, given time, I'm sure I could probably get used to 48 fps. I personally would prefer if things stay the same, but whatever the movie industry decides, I'll go with it. As the transition to HD comparison, I never really had a problem with HD. HD gives us a clearer sharper image (and no, I don't notice the "pores"), whereas 48 fps changes the entire visual flow of the movie. Maybe it's just because I don't have an eye for nuances, but for me I don't think it's really worth it to make the adjustment just for a few instances in which a character's arm looks blurred for a microsecond of the movie. But like I said, whatever the movie industry decides, I'll go with.

[Sakonosolo]

It's not going to be completely different, but you watched Sorceror's Apprentice with frames added in on the fly, and I'm sure that being natively filmed at 48 fps rather than having frames inserted into a normal movie will make it look better. You might not have a problem with the blur of movies now but pretty much every time the camera pans anymore it annoys me in movies, and I think it looks bad. Once people get used to filming at this rate, they'll get the lighting and stuff down and it'll be great.

[Hinscher]

At 24 fps, a natural motion blur is created between frames that hides things a little. So subtle you can't even tell. But at 48 fps, that blur is gone and suddenly everything is crystal clear... creating the same problem that hi-def blu-ray creates sometimes... when you can suddenly see the actor's pores, *not* being able to see the pores on makeup, or a wig not being made of human hair, suddenly look awkward and it stands out more.

Video games swear by 60 fps, but thats a different beast entirely.

Very false. Barely any game are 60 fps. Only time you hear a game is that is when someone is talkinga bout either a game on PC or something like some psn or xbox live game that you would find on the app store.

The whole 1080p and 60 fps is a total bs for consoles, I hate seeing people bring up those numbers when no games ever have them. It's either upscalled to reach that or the fps take huge hits to reach higher resolution.

I really wish they would have just stuck with the look of lord of the rings though. Main reason i was so pumped was because of same director and actors and everything for this movie. And now i hear the movie looks different cause of some stupid ass fps thing. You guys made a bagillion dollars on the trilogy, play it safe with the hobbit. If you want to try this 48 fps thing experiment on something else not on a this. Let james cameron and his gay ass movies do some 48 fps thing

[Sakonosolo]

PC gamers swear by 60 fps then. I'm sure he's talking about people saying that 60 fps is best regardless of whether the consoles do/can reach that. Consoles make a choice of graphics over framerate, but that doesn't discount that 60 fps @ 1080p is the ideal of pretty much everyone.

[Hinscher]

PC gamers swear by 60 fps then. I'm sure he's talking about people saying that 60 fps is best regardless of whether the consoles do/can reach that. Consoles make a choice of graphics over framerate, but that doesn't discount that 60 fps @ 1080p is the ideal of pretty much everyone.

Yea you see pc gamers talk about wanting to reach 100+ fps. Its just stupid.

I'm fine with the typical 30 fps that all console games tend to have. I get like 60+ fps on my pc, yet I don't notice anything special about it.

Only thing improtant in video games is the fps being constant. No dips. A game at a constant 30 fps is better than a game at 60 with dips to 30. Constant is always better.

[Sakonosolo]

A solid 60 fps looks objectively better than a solid 30 fps. Some console games can't even reach that. I agree that dips make it look bad but a solid 60 is ideal. The only reason you would want 100+ fps is if you have a 120 Hz monitor, otherwise the screen will tear and look terrible. This doesn't really have any merit to movies though because they are going to be constant.

[taboo]

hey you know what they should make next?


actual GOOD games and movies



its a little progressive, but the audience will come around i promise

[RobbyBevard]

People saw 10 minutes of the Hobbit... and all anyone (me included) can talk about is the framerate.

That says everything by itself, I think.

[The Beast]

Isn't that because we know what PJ's Middle Earth stuff is like so The Hobbit probably looks for par/just as good?

[CosmicDebris]

We're just talking about the framerate because that's all the article talked about. Show me where I can see those 10 minutes and I'll talk about something else.

[Ubiq]

My question about framerate is: is this really enough of an issue to require entirely remaking the way we go about film?

Since movie companies started out in Florida over a century ago, there have been two major changes in filmmaking whose importance has vastly outweighed all others. The first was sound, the second was color. Both of those required changing the ways films were made; the first required drastic alterations in the way companies went about casting and as people had to sound right for talkies and overly dramatic acting came across as hokey when voices were actually applied to it. Color films required changing the way that they thought about sets, costumes, and so forth since color film exposed flaws that would be less evident or not appear at all in black and white.

Both of those had differences that were readily apparent from their predecessors and had benefits that more than outweighed the problems of adopting a new style of filmmaking. Filming at a different framerate doesn't really seem to offer enough to a tangible benefit to enough people to offset problems like The Hobbit is experiencing with makeup and set effects. It doesn't help that the way people are going about it by announcing their intention to film this way makes it seem more like a stunt than an essential process.

[CosmicDebris]

Honestly I don't know...time will tell, I suppose. Part of me thinks that there's no reason to not increase the framerate....part of me wonders if we alter something special about film by doing so.

If anything I kind of wish it wasn't an experiment on a film I want to see so much.

[Nex]

I have access to some pretty high end equipment thanks to the film program I'm in. If it's wanted I can make a demo reel: the same scene done twice; once at 24fps, the second at 48fps.
I can throw them up on vimeo and post them here so everyone can take a look.

The only thing is since you'd be viewing it on a computer screen in a slightly compressed format (as Vimeo compresses as it uploads, but not nearly as much as Youtube does) the differences wouldn't be as sharp, but you should still be able to tell a difference. I really don't know, I've never exported at 48fps.

One last thing: I wouldn't be able to get it up for about a week.

[RobbyBevard]

If anything I kind of wish it wasn't an experiment on a film I want to see so much.

Thats the catch isn't it? If it was anything else, any random standalone movie... (or say, Avatar) we wouldn't care at all, it wouldn't even be discussed. It would just be a filmmaker trying something new.

We only care because its going to make this different from a set of movies we already enjoy.

[Sakonosolo]

I have access to some pretty high end equipment thanks to the film program I'm in. If it's wanted I can make a demo reel: the same scene done twice; once at 24fps, the second at 48fps.
I can throw them up on vimeo and post them here so everyone can take a look.

The only thing is since you'd be viewing it on a computer screen in a slightly compressed format (as Vimeo compresses as it uploads, but not nearly as much as Youtube does) the differences wouldn't be as sharp, but you should still be able to tell a difference. I really don't know, I've never exported at 48fps.

One last thing: I wouldn't be able to get it up for about a week.

Upload the raw film to like Rapidshare or something so nothing is lost.

I do think it's a significant benefit, it keeps panning shots and movement shots in general from being really blurry. If someone was to do a handheld type film like Cloverfield at 48fps it might aleviate some of the motion sickness people feel with it, since it won't just be blurry camera movement all over the place. It will help action scenes be clearer and camera movement in general. I personally feel like it's enough of a change.

[CosmicDebris]

Of course the natural question is, even if you say "yes 48 fps is great and film should start making more of them that way", should The Hobbit have been made that way, being a fantasy movie? Maybe it just needs that old dreamy, surreal look of 24 fps film.