48p The Hobbit - British and American critics verdict

[hmcindie]

So you guys haven't seen it for yourself have you? Remember what critics said about "Fellowship of the Ring" during release? Stuff like this:

 

"It's full of scenic splendors with a fine sense of scale, but its narrative thrust seems relatively pro forma, and I was bored by the battle scenes."

 

"Everyone on screen is all exercised about the mission, but after three hours it's hard to see why anyone in the audience should be."

 

"Tolkien completists won't find any of this overkill, but for those uninitiates among us, less is more is still a dictum worth heeding."

 

"The only thing worse than a bad movie that thinks it is good is a three hour long bad movie that thinks it is good."

 

"It's a collection of spectacular set pieces without any sense of momentum driving them into one another. The damn thing just goes on and on."

 

"It is remarkably well made . . . too bad it wasn't equally entertaining."

 

"The sights are ga-ga, but the storytelling gets fairly turgid."

 

"Maybe it's too early to criticize the trilogy when we're just getting started. However, if this signals the direction the series is going to go, I'm not sure if I care to find out what happens"

 

...

 

And in the end, "Fellowship" is still the best LotR film.

 

So before throwing stones around maybe consider seeing the film for yourselves?

[hmcindie]

Actually, no, it's not that different.  In fact the threshold where it stops making much of a difference is in the 48fps-60fps range, at that point the human brain is processing the incoming visual information as if it were watching something that's actually happening, live.  This isn't the case with 24fps cinema at a 1/48th-1/50th shutter speed.

 

Yeah well no. That's complete horseshit. Human eye sees things quite different, there is no fixed FPS. For example, if you switch from a 60hz LCD panel into a 120hz you will immediately notice a much smoother mouse. When you move a white high contrast object around (like a mouse pointer) it's quite easy to spot differences especially if you track the object with your eye. When you watch a 3d film and an object moves closer to the eye, it can be quite straining to follow it in 24 fps as it flickers around. In 2d it is easier.

 

So there are a lot of variables. Contrast, motion blur, 2d/3d, all contribute to "smoothness." Gamers know this. Apparently filmmakers are still finding out. Yes, it's more "artistic" when everything judders and the screen of full of anamorphic lensflares. But it's not "better" or "worse". It's different.

 

48fps DOES FIX a lot of the problems with 3d. Ghosting, judders, hard to focus areas. Those are all gone. Side-effect is that everything will look too real. That is something that filmmakers will have to address. Maybe add some grain?

[Sean Cunningham]

LOL, no, gamers who think like this don't even know what they don't know.   What you just said was a bunch of nonsense.

[Xiong]

Here's an experiment I want everyone to go try:

 

Take your DSLR, turn it to 60fps heck even 30ps, shoot an average exterior scene with people walking on the street. Then try that with 24fps in the same scenario. You start seeing the jarring effects something so simple can have on an overall quality of the look. The reason why I mention to try it yourself is because then you'd noticed how much an improvement a "drawback" like 24fps can have on your image. Your eyes see faster then 24fps, not to mention its the standard for cinema, unless its used to portray a sense of realism or to have an "effect."

 

Here's a good example, you can sense it feels "realistic" and not filmic, but having that really impacts the effect of the scene. Cant tell, but seems to be shot at 30fps and post convert to 24fps, but the point is still valid on the feel of "realism/videoy" 

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgDd6dLn6ZU"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgDd6dLn6ZU[/url]

 

With that sense of "realism" it has more of an impact on the overall story.

 

Much of the drawback that film has introduced is what made film so damn magical, perfect isn't always the best solution and sometime you just need the bare bone essentials. Remember im referring to the image quality, NOT THE STORY TELLING! (Alot of people are too daft to know the difference or the importance on both). Then again maybe that was Peter Jackson's intent on having it look like that. For me its an issue when props look like props, and when I'm looking at Ian McKellens contacts lenses rather then actually listening to what his characters is saying or his performance. Thats not to say I wont enjoy the movie but having things stick out like that can take me out of the movie, I think even having a good prop artist or makeup artist wont help in some of these cases.

 

Im all for pushing technology, but you need to use that technology correctly, I do give Peter Jackson alot of respect for daring this style of film making, but then to have Warner Bro. take note at the feedback and cutting the list of theaters actually showing it in 48fps, in my town its only showing it in one theater! Bad or good the 48fps is, Im still going to see it because I respect Peter Jackson as a film maker myself still starting out.

 

Now this is just speculation that depends on variable viewers tastes, Im going to find out at the midnight showing in my town, but I'm sure the complaints are real complaints though. Actually Andrew, It would be awesome to have a "People who've seen it" forum post their feedback, because I'd like to know what everyone else thinks.

[KarimNassar]

I would assume the production value of the sets, make up and costumes is very high on this film if not among the best of the industry.

And we all now how good weta is at cgi.

So I guess if there is anything to blame on the "tv look" it has everything to do with the frame rate and nothing else.

 

Also I'm not sure it is something "we will get used to".

Because I don't think tv will lower frame rates or lose oversharp hd pictures anytime soon so anything that looks like that will look like tv to us.

 

I need to see it for myself to make judgment but just because it's new doesn't mean it is better.

Have to give credit to Peter Jackson for trying new things and trying to make the craft evolve though.

[jgharding]

Grain, anamorphic bokeh, 24/25p, handheld camerawork. All these things actually help me to become involved in the film as a STORY. It's storytelling for God's sake!

 

I don't read an adventure story to a child like I'd read a news article to my colleague. The latter requires formality and stark realism to present it with proper purpose, the former needs to be told a sense of wonder and otherworldliness in order to achieve the goal: magic!

 

All these "unrealistic" artifacts that are part of film tradition serve the same purpose as dry ice lighting and music on a magician's stage: they take us out of the ordinary and into a place where we can almost believe the impossible may well be possible...

 

People appear to be forgetting thousands of years of storytelling culture because of a slightly upgraded silicon chip.

[Bioskop.Inc]

Before you go & see the film (which none of you have yet), go find someone with a brand new TV and watch a few films on it.

They all have this "smooth motion" effect on them, which works to some degree of success & it does take a bit of getting used to - hence the TV effect people are talking about.

So it might be to do with this & once we all have these TVs, we'll go to the cinema & complain about it not looking real enough - who knows? But you need to give it a go & maybe understand that you might have to get used to it.

What it does do is make the CGI so much better, so perhaps Avatar will be better suited to 48fps.

 

I remember going to see Jaws 3 in 3D & it was laughable!

Actually 3D still is, apart from a hand full of films that have realised how to use it properly - watch PINA. 

 

As far as critics are concerned, they're just people, with opinions & pens. If you listen to their opinions & take all they say for gospel, then you've fallen into their mindset/trap. How many times have you read a bad review, gone to see the film & absolutely loved it?

Criticism, in general, is just personal opinion spread to the masses - experts they are not (no matter how much you think they are), just journalists trying to make a living off their own taste preferences spewed out into the world.

 

48fps won't be available in every cinema.

[jgharding]

The TV in my shared flat has this. I hate it so, so much! I'm always switching it off, and I come back and it's on again!

 

The frame interpolation prediction isn't fast enough (or the buffer isn't long enough) so it's really inconsistent. Some scenes are half smooth, then go back to shuddering when things get complex. 

 

It really worked with Avatar, but that was it. Probably because it looked like a computer game anyway. Everything else starts to look cheap and weird. Much more realistic yes, but thus more like watching a 'making of' a film than an actual film!

[tony wilson]

I'm sorry but film is dead, 24fps is dead, digital is now and the future, 60-120 fps is now and the future. And that opens up so many more opportunities for competent and imaginative film makers. :)
And whilst 1080p is now, 4k2k is the future, arriving some time around 2014.
And all these changes are going to require certain adjustments and re-learning of some things that have been taken for granted in the past.
No doubt The Hobbit has thrown up some of those issues. Since it was shot using Red Epics the 4k shoot, even when being shown at a conventional cinema, has enabled the artificial nature of some of the props to be much more obvious than is usually the case.
So that has to be adjusted for.
Such is the case for all new technologies.

catonic nice name your gonna love the hobbit.
made for zombies just like you.
you will love counting gandalfs nasal hairs probably turn you on.

go see analogue shot inception at an imax cinema then go see this 300 million dollar tellytubbies shite.
if this plastic turd is the cinemas future then the bean counters need to die.
this is showboating a high end techno advert meant to impress the new generation hipster yes men director shitters
the trickle down effect it is about about turning a movie around in a 3 MONTH cycle that is why hollywood wants film dead.
film costs more and it is slower.
this new zealand vomit fest is meant to be the van helsing nail in films heart the stuff i have seen looked like rotten bbc actuality.
your belief is the scientists just need to tweek a few nobs and everything will be ok.
fuck you and fuck corrupt hollywood.
paul thomas anderson managed to shoot the master on 65mm by cutting his shooting ratio way down and dumping his cgi and post budgets.
clearly film makers decent ones great ones need choice the small willing talented ones should be allowed to shoot film if they want to.
when you watch a well shot movie like inception you do not think this looks old fashioned and sub standard you go wow immersive but analogue film gives you a step away from reality.
it is just fucking sexy and if it was good enough for welles or kubrick i will take them over the little fat kiwi turd,who seems to have 37 more cameras than kubrick or tarkovsky and none of the fucking talent.
when you look at the hobbit clips you ask where did the 300 million go and what the fuck are they gonna do with the 38 reds they got for free as they will soon be obsolete when the next upgrade comes.
filmakers need many choices,the majority will not be able to afford analogue film some will.
film is dead not because it is a substandard medium it is indeed superior in many ways that arri understand but will not admit and jannard will not compute.
film is nearly dead cos of the corrupt morons and the bean counters.
when tarrantino,nolan and paul thomas anderson are having to put up a fight to shoot on film you then understand something is rotten and satanic in hollywood rape land.
at least david lynch was honest he went to video cos it was cheaper yet a lot of his sexy perfume commercials where still shot on 35mm film.
fuck jackson and fuck lucas and that king of the world 3d twat that made titanic.
catatonic do not forget your sick bucket for the movies when you go see the gay plastic little folks of middle earth.

as your puking your guts into  bucket and wiping the tears away you can revel in how immersive jacksons digital movie is.

[Andrew Reid]

So what exactly makes the Mona Lisa more beautiful than a soap opera?

Seriously??

[Andrew Reid]

I don't want to judge why I tend to agree with the critics who are having a hard time with it, because I may see it and change my mind.  I'm sure it's something that everyone will have to get used to...  If for the last 100 years we'd all been watching 48fps and suddenly somebody slows it down to 24, we'd probably have the same reaction...  It's different.  You're messing with a key ingredient in a huge part of our culture.

 

I am really torn over this. Cannot figure out if the problem is as you say above - messing with culture - and the shock of it suddenly changing, or if the aesthetic of 24p is fundamental to our human vision in making an immersive cinematic experience.

 

Nobody in their right mind preferred the look of 60i over 24p in the DV days so why suddenly now is The Hobbit shot this way?

[johnnymossville]

1970's Dr Who.       It's entertaining, but yeah, it looks like an old tv rerun.   We'll probably get used to it.

[Andrew Reid]

Grain, anamorphic bokeh, 24/25p, handheld camerawork. All these things actually help me to become involved in the film as a STORY. It's storytelling for God's sake!

 

I don't read an adventure story to a child like I'd read a news article to my colleague. The latter requires formality and stark realism to present it with proper purpose, the former needs to be told a sense of wonder and otherworldliness in order to achieve the goal: magic!

 

All these "unrealistic" artifacts that are part of film tradition serve the same purpose as dry ice lighting and music on a magician's stage: they take us out of the ordinary and into a place where we can almost believe the impossible may well be possible...

 

People appear to be forgetting thousands of years of storytelling culture because of a slightly upgraded silicon chip.

 

This is a good point. The whole point of HFR and 3D is to make the story telling more immersive. If it doesn't and looks worse aesthetically, then serious questions should be asked of the industry's technological direction.

 

Like the magic trick, art isn't explicitly real, it is allegory and so the camera work should also have hidden meaning and not put everything on display in equal detail whether it is a prop or an actor. Peter Jackson is a great craftsman and story teller but I'm beginning to doubt that he's made a piece of art here.

[Bruno]

When you watch King Kong or The Lovely Bones, it's quite clear that what PJ needed to make them good films was not 3D, 4K or 48fps...

 

This is a gimmick, whether it sticks or not. We need to get used to these massive blockbuster films as roller coaster rides, entertainment events, call it what you want, but there's serious films and then there's these. It's not good or bad, it's what it is, and the truth is that the great majority of people go for these ones, and not for The Master or Moonrise Kingdom.

 

These films employ many thousands of people and make billions, they help move the industry forward, and they help finance smaller and more important/serious films too, they do have their place in the industry, regardless of what they mean to me or any conservative film fan, many of the technologies developed for these films end up making smaller productions possible.

 

With regards to 48fps, I hope it doesn't stick, because I think it just doesn't look good at all, I'd hate to see filmmaking in general get pushed in that direction.

As I said before, 48fps could be easily achieved on film ages ago, and there's a reason why it didn't go there. Someone said it was for budget reasons, well I don't think that's the case in films like these, the film costs are nothing in a production of this size, shooting on super35 at 48fps would probably not be any more expensive than shooting vista vision, and so many big productions have been shot on vista vision, because it did look better! 48fps didn't.

 

Jackson and Cameron are becoming very technically driven, and in a way even technically obsessed, without necessarily doing it in favor of the story. Using this technology/gimmick/novelty/whatever on a franchise which look was established on traditional film at 24fps not that long ago, might not be the greatest idea...

 

Btw, I was reading a bunch of reviews the other day and thought it was quite alarming when two different reviewers compared the action sequences to Benny Hill! Don't think that's what they were going for at all, even though the singing in the trailer made me chuckle too.

[Axel]

I saw the trailer and a few test shots a month ago, when my cinema got the 48p firmware (and often since). I think 48p should not be dismissed in a bulk. The landscapes (camera flew over mountains) looked indescribably - well, fantastic! The movements of the actors, on the other hand, looked slightly sped up. It looked like bad acting. The converse suspicion would be, that 24p adds a very subtle slomo-feeling, making creatures move and mimic with more gravity. What we realize here is, that these aesthetic subtleties are hard to nail down. Could this really all be about (too much) fluidity vs a viewing habit where we read poorer rendering of movements as 'cinematic'?

 

Surely HFR doesn't fit the story. Let Michael Mann use it, and it will work.

 

48p swallows 24p. So within the same film, the look can be adjusted (By simply showing the 24th of a second twice, nothing else happened in analog cinema). I think we will have both, the best of both worlds.

[HurtinMinorKey]

 

I do wonder that if the costume and prop departments could raise their game even further, and with the right material, that 48p 4K in 3D could be a winner. I just don't think this epic fantasy production is well suited to it.

 

 

I agree. I think that production people need to catch up. I also heard that the CG really didn't fit in well with the 4K backgrounds.  But I don't think we should rush to judgement on the high fps format.

 

I've always thought Peter Jackson was an overrated director, his overuse of slow-mo during LOTR makes it almost unwatchable for me,  so i bet someone can do better with the new tech.

[Bruno]

48p swallows 24p. So within the same film, the look can be adjusted (By simply showing the 24th of a second twice, nothing else happened in analog cinema). I think we will have both, the best of both worlds.

 

But won't the 24fps version come with only half the motion blur it should have? It will still look quite sharp and slightly weird, in a different way.

[Bruno]

I agree. I think that production people need to catch up. I also heard that the CG really didn't fit in well with the 4K backgrounds.  But I don't think we should rush to judgement on the high fps format.

 

I've always thought Peter Jackson was an overrated director, his overuse of slow-mo during LOTR makes it almost unwatchable for me,  so i bet someone can do better with the new tech.

 

I think there's 2 different things here... one thing is the CG or sets not holding up to 4k resolution, and another thing is the 48fps video-ish motion look.

I wouldn't be quick to blame it on the sets or set builders. I've been on sets where I knew the stone walls were actually plastic, but even from only a couple inches distance they still looked like stone to me, until I touched them. They're pretty good at it, that's for sure. And as for 4k, we've seen it before on IMAX movies and it never looked weird. I'm pretty sure it's all down to the frame rate.

[Andrew Reid]

Super smooth slow mo looks cinematic yet it is often shown at 30p not 24p. I think Axel has a good point here that somehow 24p adds gravity and weight to actors, and with 48p they just kind of float there lifelessly. 

[Axel]

 

48p swallows 24p. So within the same film, the look can be adjusted (By simply showing the 24th of a second twice, nothing else happened in analog cinema). I think we will have both, the best of both worlds.

 

But won't the 24fps version come with only half the motion blur it should have? It will still look quite sharp and slightly weird, in a different way.

 

Of course I'm suggesting the shutter speed fit for the current projection framerate. 180° aka ¼₈ for 24p, and the look is unaffected despite the actual 48 fps.