The Hobbit: Filming at 48 fps / Cameron Moll / Designer, Speaker, Author

Tuesday 12 April 2011

The Hobbit: Filming at 48 fps →

I tweeted about this earlier, but it’s worth repeating here so I can excerpt a few highlights. On Facebook, director Peter Jackson describes why 24 fps (frames per second) — the standard frame rate used in nearly every major motion picture — is an antiquated practice:

Originally, 24 fps was chosen based on the technical requirements of the early sound era. I suspect it was the minimum speed required to get some audio fidelity out of the first optical sound tracks. They would have settled on the minimum speed because of the cost of the film stock. 35mm film is expensive, and the cost per foot (to buy the negative stock, develop it and print it), has been a fairly significant part of any film budget.

So we have lived with 24 fps for 9 decades — not because it’s the best film speed (it’s not by any stretch), but because it was the cheapest speed to achieve basic acceptable results back in 1927 or whenever it was adopted.

Currently Jackson is shooting The Hobbit at 48 fps. Live TV is 30 fps, so I would imagine 48 fps is comparable. It does, however, lack the “film look” many of us appreciate with motion pictures. Here’s Jackson’s take on that:

Film purists will criticize the lack of blur and strobing artifacts, but all of our crew — many of whom are film purists — are now converts. You get used to this new look very quickly and it becomes a much more lifelike and comfortable viewing experience. It’s similar to the moment when vinyl records were supplanted by digital CDs. There’s no doubt in my mind that we’re heading towards movies being shot and projected at higher frame rates.

I’m not sure I’ll be a convert, but I can’t say without seeing it. Just as I tweeted, we’ll either love it or hate. Kudos to Jackson for giving us the chance to judge with such a major motion picture.