The Big Picture: Frame Rate

[TitanAura]

As an animator, having twice as many frames per second to work with scares the ever loving shit outta me for reasons that should be entirely obvious. Why should I draw twice as many inbetweens for minimal added effect?

 

[Sn1P3r M98]

Thanks for the clarification. I was confused as to why it looked the same as any other movie when I saw it, but considering I live in Montana it's more than likely that it was in plain old 24 FPS.

 

[Sexy Devil]

*deleted*

 

[uneek]

Boy, I'm sure glad I'm so obtuse when it comes to the making of a film. I was wondering why the movie got mixed reviews, and really, I didn't, and still kind of don't, see why that is. I probably didn't see it in the 48 rate format, but I don't think it matters either way. Maybe it does to some people, but if a movie is more "clear" and more visually impressive, I honestly don't see how that can be viewed as a negative thing.

I haven't seen The Hobbit, but I've been told what it looks like by reminding me of something that it's supposed to be like. I remember looking at HD TV's at a Sony Store and some of them have some type of technology that makes it look like what I've been told 48fps looks like. It's kind of hard to describe but it's sort of like this: You know the little screen on camcorders that let you see what you're recording? Imagine a movie that looks like you were seeing it through that. It may sound like it doesn't make a difference but trust me it does. The way I imagine the movie it's that it looks like behind-the-scenes footage and you can tell the props are fake and everything. Like I said, it's hard to explain.

The HDTV thing is motion interpolation or some shit. It works by taking two frames and creating an image that would fit in between those two to create the illusion of a higher frame rate. So basically you still get the motion blur and all that jazz with none of the additional clarity of HFR and it just looks smoother.

Basically what I'm getting at is it's not really comparable to actual HFR.

But is still in any way similiar to how I described it?

 

[uneek]

It's all Greek to me...
I don't understand how the speed of the movie projection has anything to do with the content.

It's not the speed, necessarily. It's the amount of frames per second. More frames in the movie means more real-looking motion. Doubling the framerate makes the movie look noticeably different. It's like a flip book. It looks better when it has more papers.

 

[jetriot]

I had a lot of trouble adjusting to HD at first but now I am on board. I just don't understand how this FPS has any bearing when I thought almost everything was recorded and shown digitally. Why use film at all? I can't comprehend a scenario where film would have an advantage over digital. Of course, I know next to nothing about film and am probably the last generation that even used film in home cameras.

 

[Nurb]

People don't put up with games less than 30 FPS in games, why the fuss over higher framerate in film? You'd think removing the effect of the eye's inability to see clearly with fast movement would be a good thing

 

[wsmieszek]

I got really distracted by how fast the swooping panoramic shots seemed to move. Saw it an an iMAX and some scenes intended to be impressive were very reminiscent of old Benny Hill sketches. Everything moved just a tad too quick - I guess an adjustment in camera movement could solve this.

 

[Grabehn]

Just last year 3D became a thing over here, and then every movie theater got at least one room with 3D, from previously having just one movie theater with one 3D room in the whole country. So I'll probably get to see this "48fps" sorcery during 2020, or a bit later.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

I've already provided one very good source for you.

No, you didn't. You linked to a book that just flatly stated the eye's effective "frame rate" without citing any actual sources or research for the statement. Not even a footnote. That's a terrible source. Especially as it was a book that had very little to do with the topic. There are lots of these kind of "rule of thumb" or "received wisdom" statements that just get flung around without any fact-checking.

As for the rest of your arguments, again, they are unsupported folk wisdom, not facts.

 

[TheDAus]

Eyes don't have a frame rate, because they don't use frames. Where are you getting the 15fps figure from? It sounds like quackery to me.

That doesn't make any sense. If the film is moving faster than your eyes/brain can perceive, then you will perceive that as "blur," just as you would with real-life objects moving faster than you can perceive in detail.

If your comment was true, it would mean that film-makers have found a way to bypass human perception, and give the brain more information than it can process outside of a cinema. That would be a pretty amazing discovery, something worthy of a Nobel Prize or other distinguished science award. I'm pretty sure that's not what's happening, especially as 48fps is a pretty low speed, and well within human perception if you're not intoxicated or have vision difficulties.

We do see in frames. Here is a book for reference.
http://books.google.com/books?id=jzbUUL0xJAEC&pg=PA24#v=onepage&q&f=false
We see at about 15fps when you're talking about color. The Retina resets about ever 1/15th of a Second which is 15 frames per second. For some it's as low as 12 and others it could be a bit faster than 15.
There are a couple of notable exceptions though. Your night vision which is in Gray Scale is more sensitive. It has a faster refresh than color. It's also why good compression tech splits RGB into YUV which is Gray Scale, Red Croma, and Blue Croma. Because we're more sensitive to changes in the Gray scale we put the best compression on Gray and the loosy compression on the Croma values.

They haven't found a way to bypass human perception. They just found a way to display a fake image to the eye in a way the brain can tell that it's fake. You're also not getting more information. You're losing information on the motion of the image, and gaining clarity of an image. You've actually lost information to gain the clarity so you're not giving the brain more than it can take it. But because it's not how the brain sees it knows the image is fake. In part, this is because we evolved to pay attention to motion and motion blur more than clarity.

We do NOT see in frames!
Our eyes have no shutters!

They send a constant stream of data to our brain!

If you used some simple logic you would know that if our brain could only see at 15FPS then anything higher would not make any difference!!
Objectivity we can see more than 15FPS! Just about all people can show that in a blind test!
Photons hit our eyes many more times that 15 in a second, why does really life not look fake?!

Also, a higher frame rate can not make anything look faster, only of the film was shot at something like 24FPS then played at double speed to get 48FPS!
A film shot at 48 FPS and displayed in realtime at 48FPS will not be faster or slower.



P.S A higher framerate will not make anything look "fake", people and objects don't move at 24 discrete positions per a second!

 

[Yvressian]

People don't put up with games less than 30 FPS in games, why the fuss over higher framerate in film? You'd think removing the effect of the eye's inability to see clearly with fast movement would be a good thing

Everyone keeps comparing the 48 frame film to the frame rates in video games, but it's apples and oranges.
A high frame rate in games produces a more natural look and motion. In movies, however, a 24fps version already shows a perfectly natural motion, and adding frames just offsets it.
The movie looks slightly like Benny Hill in the 48FPS version. Believe me, it's distracting.

Image clarity should be achieved with higher resolution photography and cameras, not fiddling with the frame rate. That way, you could get a clearer picture, but you wouldn't unintentionally mess up motion.

 

[leviadragon99]

Well for some utterly arbitrary and assinine reason I won't be able to see the movie until Boxing day anyway, because Australian cinemas are dumb like that.

Really?

I'm in New Zealand and we already have it, how could you not, you're the closest country to us.

(shrugs) buggered if I know why...

 

[Milanezi]

Hmpf... I don't care, but I wish they'd stop with the CGI. When CGI gets old it gets VERY ugly, to the point of us saying "dude, that's not how I remember it", using props and stuff though, when they're well done, those stick forever or at least get a classic stamp to them.

Who was talking about CGI?

I admit MY bad lol I guess I just assumed CGI would be one of the things they'd try to make look better with FPS speed

 

[Olas]

I think it's time for the parable of the Shit and Turkey Sandwich.

Spoiler: The Shit and Turkey Sandwich

We've been eating shit for nearly a century for no reason.

 

[Bostur]

...
There are all shots where there is not a lit happening. In the Star Wars case, it's just some kid looking into a flat desert and a pretty colourless sunset. And yet, when you see these scenes in motion, the grainy quality of the picture, and the movement at which the frames move, is precisely what gives these scenes their arresting atmosphere.
...

Snipped to save room.

That's some interesting observations. I have a theory that our brains sometimes needs some noise to make an impression stick. If the brain needs to put a little work into it to 'digest' the impression it may last longer. I think film grain, low frame rates or even artificial noise in music may serve to make the impressions a little harder to chew, but also make a more lasting impact because of it. Glossy quality can feel artificial in a way.

Or we may just need to get used to it, it's hard to tell.

 

[Joriss]

Haven't seen the Hobbit yet and not sure wheter to watch it in 24 or 48 fps. I fear the 48 rate will hurt my eyes

 

[w00tage]

Same problem with high-quality LCD TVs. I set one up for my sister recently, tuned the picture to look fantastic, and it does. It looks so good you can clearly see the difference in lighting when the show switches to a set, and in many shots, the difference in reflectivity of the costume materials from the real thing. This has that same yank-you-out-of-immersion effect as bad CGI or the 48fps issue Bob described.

 

[Sande45]

The framerate they use in cinemas is too low in my opinion. In faster scenes it looks more like a fast slideshow than moving image and that really takes you out of the experience. I haven't seen 48 yet so I don't know what that looks like but what I can say is that 24 should not be the end of the line.

 

[shiajun]

I'm in the "it feels odd" camp. My boyfriend keeps telling me it's just because I'm not used to it, but I spent nearly 3 hours with the Hobbit and, although it wasn't as distracting as the first hour, I could still see the fast-forward effect with all the characters. I agree it makes everything look crisper and sharper than ever, but the motion is still off. I'm not fixed on the 24 FPS film look, although it does prep my brain for a specific experience. Documentaries do seem more real when there's more detail and with more fluid movement (like in behind the scenes footage), but that's just it. It makes the movie feel like a weird documentary. The detail and sometimes the motion want my brain to think it's more real, but lighting, composition, effects, etc, want be to think it's not. It's a strange congnitive dissonance that just doesn't feel right, and yes, ends up seeming fake. I've had to disable such upscaling of frames on my TV because it was really ruining my enjoymnet of movies. I'm not sure the push for "life-like" realism and clarity adds much more to film than "realism" in games, which so far hasn't made them overall better, just more resource-hugging.

Somewhere in the thread someone wrote a little bit that seems pretty relevant (sorry for not quoating you, I'm just too lazy to go back and find that specific post). Psychologically it seems the brain is more drawn into the experience when it does the motion interpolation, not when it's fed the pre-procesed image. I think the gaps it fills up by itself contribute to the movie watching experience much like imagination does in book-reading.