24p is outdated

[kye]

4 minutes ago, zlfan said:

no i am not him. but i follow him. he seems having a lot of radical ideas.

He does.

I applaud Markus for the work he does and the passion that he brings, trying to beat back the horde of Youtube-Bros who promote camera worship and the followers who segue this into the idea of camera specs above all else.

But there's a progression that occurs:

• At first, people see great work and the cool tools and assume that the tools make the great work - TOOLS ARE EVERYTHING
• Then, people get some good tools and the work doesn't magically get better.  They are disillusioned - TOOLS DON'T MATTER
• Then they develop their skills, hone their craft, and gradually understand that both matter, and that the picture is a nuanced one.  TOOLS DON'T MATTER (BUT STILL DO)

This is the same for specs - they are everything, they are nothing, then they matter a bit but aren't everything.

By the time you get to the third phase, you start to see a few things:

• Some things matter a LOT, but only in some situations, and don't matter at all in others
• Some things matter a bit, in most situations
• Some things matter a lot to some people, but less to others, depending on their taste

Film-making is an enormously subtle art.  Try replicating a particular look from a specific film/show/scene and you'll find that getting the major things right will get you part of the way, but to close the gap you will need to work on dozens of things, hundreds maybe.  

3 minutes ago, zlfan said:

you see, now a lot of practical reasons show up, not only about aesthetics any more. 

The purpose of any finished work is to communicate something to the audience.  For this, the aesthetic always matters.  Even if the content is purely to communicate information, if you shoot a college-looking-bro delivering the lines sitting on a couch drinking a brew filmed with a phone from someone lying on the floor, well, it's not going to seem like reliable or trustworthy information, unless it's about how many beers were had at the party last night (and even then...).  The same exact words delivered by someone in a suit sitting at a desk with a longer lens on a tripod and nice lighting will usually elicit a very different response (sometimes one of trust, and sometimes a reaction of mis-trust, but different all the same).  A person wearing glasses and a lab coat standing in front of science-ish stuff in a lab is also different.

Humans are emotional animals, and we feel first and think second.  There isn't any form of video content that isn't impacted by the aesthetic choices made in the production of the video.

Some might be so small that they don't seem relevant, but they'll still be there in the mix.

[Andrew Reid]

30p is TV and YouTube

60p and 120hz are for gaming

24p is for cinema and film.

This is not an opinion.

The subjective part of it is what one's definition of 'cinematic' is.

Is the big dome at Vegas cinematic, probably is. Sitting in there, with panoramic vision, amazing,

But it is simulating reality.

Cinema is not restricted to just simulating reality, it can also simulate emotions and dreams. And for that you need 24p.

[Andrew Reid]

The display format and venue also matter. Oppenheimer doesn't look dated in the IMAX theatre in 24p. Looks incredible, to old and new generations alike. So to say 24p is outdated is just a blanket statement really. And equally, to say 60p isn't cinematic is also a blanket statement. It can be.... All depends on a lot else, other than just frame rate.

[zlfan]

i have a youtube channel, kind of news oriented. i use all kinds of cameras i have at 24p 30 60p and aspec tatios of 16:9 and 2.4. no viewer complains. with thew new platform like youtube, the old hierarchy of distribution of theater, network, etc does not rule. and youtube etc is very tolerant. 

[zlfan]

22 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

The display format and venue also matter. Oppenheimer doesn't look dated in the IMAX theatre in 24p. Looks incredible, to old and new generations alike. So to say 24p is outdated is just a blanket statement really. And equally, to say 60p isn't cinematic is also a blanket statement. It can be.... All depends on a lot else, other than just frame rate.

totally agree

[IronFilm]

44 minutes ago, zlfan said:

if i shoot a news using red one mx at 24p, isn't this a news?

Nobody sane is shooting news with RED ONE MX 

[zlfan]

Just now, IronFilm said:

Nobody sane is shooting news with RED ONE MX 

actually i did one. 4.5k ws 24p, r3d is fast, almost the same as or faster than xavc 480.

[IronFilm]

34 minutes ago, zlfan said:

actually i did one

well sure, I suppose if someone is in a small town and being rung up to do a news piece as there are no usual ENG cameramen to cover the story, then they'll just use whatever camera they have it! 

There are always exceptions that exist. 

But would someone use a RED ONE MX as their daily/weekly workhorse for regular news work?? Hell no, I'd rather grab say even an old Sony PMW-EX3

 

[zlfan]

6 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

well sure, I suppose if someone is in a small town and being rung up to do a news piece as there are no usual ENG cameramen to cover the story, then they'll just use whatever camera they have it! 

There are always exceptions that exist. 

But would someone use a RED ONE MX as their daily/weekly workhorse for regular news work?? Hell no, I'd rather grab say even an old Sony PMW-EX3

 

actually red one mx is not bad for news and events. shoulder mount is comfortable. i set up everything and don' change, only use the lens' aperture to adjust exposure. i put on a backpack with an additional gold mount battery and an additional red mag. red one mx olpf is special, the image is nicely soft. i like the results very much, more than other cams i have. 

[Jedi Master]

4 hours ago, Django said:

CD vs Vinyl DR is an old debate and it isn’t as simple as that when it comes down to it. Lossless wars aside, many other variables come into play. Here is a study that comes up with a more nuanced approach to what you are stating:

You have to carefully divorce any discussion of the technical merits of CD (as defined in the Red Book) and vinyl LPs from how individual recordings are mastered and produced. While technically CDs are unquestionably better than LPs in all of the important technical specs (dynamic range, signal to noise ratio, channel separation, etc.), it’s possible that poorly recorded and mastered CDs can sound inferior to better mastered LPs, despite vinyl being an inherently inferior medium.

I only listen to classical music, which isn’t subject to the regrettable loudness war that has been plaguing rock and pop recordings on CD for the past few decades, so I’ll only comment in the first recording discussed on the link you provided, since that score, although electronic music, is probably the closest to classical than the others. The CD recording of Chariots of Fire was released in 1984 (I have a copy), at a time when CD’s were in their infancy. Recording and mastering equipment weren’t as sophisticated as today and techniques such as dithering and noise shaping were not yet in use. It doesn’t say on the CD whether it was originally recorded on analog equipment or digital, but since it was recorded in 1981 I’ll assume it was an analog recording, and that may have been responsible for a higher noise floor on the CD recording than what might have been had it been recorded digitally (I have dozens of CDs released around the time CD audio emerged in the marketplace, and the ones recorded digitally have an exceptionally quiet noise floor).

I really don’t want to argue this to extremes, but my professional experience in signal processing gives me the tools to understand the nuances involved. There’s also a big industry devoted to selling snake-oil audio products (such as magic crystals you tape to speaker cables, $5000 power cords, and $150,000 turntables), and they have a vested financial interest in getting people to buy this stuff, so push all sorts of outlandish claims in audio publications to that end.

[Jedi Master]

2 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Cinema is not restricted to just simulating reality, it can also simulate emotions and dreams. And for that you need 24p.

The funny thing about all this is that if, back in the early 1900s, movie makers adopted another frame rate, say 46 FPS (which Edison advocated), people today would be saying that to simulate emotions and dreams you need 46p.

[Benjamin Hilton]

I really do think there is something non-subjective to our current state of frame rates. This is coming from someone who likes to push the norms and who would have no problem filming in higher frame rates if I thought they looked good. As someone said earlier, I really think the motion blur of 24p emulates the dream state, it puts us into a state of believing the world we are immersed in as fake as it actually is. 30p is smoother and more realistic, but realistic has its downsides. If I wanted my films to look realistic there are a heck of a lot of things I would do differently other than frame rate. 

To me, content shot in 60-120p look nauseating and fake, I can't stand the look personally. I know this is somewhat subjective, but there are quite a few film goers that experience this. 

30p looks realistic, but watchable. I run a fairly successful YouTube channel with news commentary studio style and we opt to shoot 30p for most of that content. 

24p just looks magical, dream like, immersive. I shoot all of my cinematic documentaries and more dramatized emotional content this way. 

At the end of the day this isn't about conserving or progressing. The looks are different, they do different things to the viewers. People keep saying that we need to leave the old ways behind and "progress" to higher frame rates. Progression is fine, but when you want to change something that has been working for generations, the burden of proof falls on you to prove the progression is actually better. Many successful directors have tried this with the examples others have mentioned, and overall it seems like people have not appreciated the experiment. 

[Jedi Master]

It never occurred to me that some people purposely don’t want their films to look realistic. That’s a completely foreign concept to me.

I also find this whole dreamlike concept puzzling. When I watch a movie, I imagine myself looking through a perfectly clear window, not some kind of dreamy view. 

[newfoundmass]

5 hours ago, zlfan said:

also, about news. nowdays news are shot by fx9, fx6, c300 3, c70, etc. why should news be shot on 29.97p 30p? news can be shot mimicking a cinema style. with some basic lighting, interview in news can be shot s35 or vv at 24p, the same as classic drama with a lot of dialogues. what is the difference? why should a dialogue in a drama should be shot at 24p, whereas a dialogue in news interview should be shot at 30p? i think that habit or tradition determines here. 

I know over a dozen people who are news shooters and none of them use those cameras you've listed. The ones that aren't using camcorders or older ENG cameras use their phones. 

The local CBS affiliate uses Panasonic DVX200s, for example. 

[kye]

57 minutes ago, Jedi Master said:

It never occurred to me that some people purposely don’t want their films to look realistic. That’s a completely foreign concept to me.

I also find this whole dreamlike concept puzzling. When I watch a movie, I imagine myself looking through a perfectly clear window, not some kind of dreamy view. 

The whole idea of movie stars when I was growing up was that they were "larger than life".

I think, once you start looking, you'll find that practically nothing about cinema is even remotely realistic / real-looking.

Look at the visual design / colour grading for a start....

I mean, these projects all had the budget, had highly skilled people, and had every opportunity to make things look lifelike, but none of these things look remotely like reality.

Even the camera angles and compositions and focal lengths - none of these make me feel like I'm looking at reality or "I am there".

Bottom line: studios want to make money, creative people want to make "art", neither of these are better if things look like reality.  I'm in reality every moment of every day, why would I want movies to look the same way?  It's called "escapism" not "teleport me to somewhere else that also looks like real-life...  ism".

[JulioD]

On 12/2/2023 at 3:50 AM, zlfan said:

24p is hailed as cinematic. it was just a frugal approach at the time of film days. 

5k 60p of gp 12 is so smooth. seeing is believing. 

Nah it looks like crap. 
 

What’s dated is that this keeps coming up as being an issue that needs to change, that only dinosaurs shoot 24 and we’re all out of touch blah blah.  
 

This argument is decades old now and guess what?

The audience knows. 
 

So far it hasn’t worked in a cinema. Many have tried. Many have spent a lot of money. 
 

AUDIENCES don’t want it for DRAMA. 
 

You may delude yourself that your YouTube channel is empirical evidence of HFR take up but let me know when I can go watch a MOVIE of your YouTube channel in a CINEMA and I’ll let you know if it’s filmic. 
 

If HFR really really truely was better the audience would know. We have had HFR for DECADES with gaming, a whole generation that SHOULD prefer it but they freakin don’t. 
 

Theres nothing at all stopping you making a killing with your HFR on YouTube right now.  Make a movie for YouTube and let us know how it goes.  

[KnightsFan]

1 hour ago, Jedi Master said:

It never occurred to me that some people purposely don’t want their films to look realistic. That’s a completely foreign concept to me.

Every movie that I really enjoy and watch over and over has elements that are purposely unrealistic, whether in the image, the staging, or characterization. I'm not talking about technical story unrealism, like elves or warp speeds.

^ Here, it's not the image quality, considering the time it was shot. However, the staging of the actors is unrealistic. The way they pose, the dialog--no one actually does that or speaks that way. One of my top 5 films, and perhaps my favorite opening scene ever.

 

^ Have you ever seen a toy shop organized like that, with those colors and lights? I picked Hugo because, seeing it in 3D, I was blown away by how they changed the interpupillary distance for different scenes to get different moods, using unrealism as part of the craft. And it's an easy segue into the highly creative movie it revolves around. Even in 1902, they could have made the moon more realistic!

 

Specifically on the topic of framerate, Spiderverse did a fantastic job using different frame rates to convey different moods. Some of it is explained here:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN5sqSEXxm4

^ This is another favorite movie (and it's recent--they could have shot digital or HFR if they'd wanted). Everything works because of unrealism, from the costumes, to the sets, to dialog, sound, delivery.

 

I would argue that purposely making films look or act realistic results in boring content.

 

Quote

I also find this whole dreamlike concept puzzling. When I watch a movie, I imagine myself looking through a perfectly clear window, not some kind of dreamy view. 

I don't necessarily disagree. Good movies transport me to that world with perfect clarity, but the world may not be realistic. When I watch the Third Man, I'm there, in black and white, with the grain, and the film noir corny dialog, and Orson Welles' overacting. That's the world I'm in.

[JulioD]

It’s my view that 24 FPS is the goldilocks temporal resolution for listening to a story. 

Realism?? Give me a break. What’s realistic about a Death Star? 

Human beings are story tellers.  Religion is stories. Sitting around a fire telling stories, making sense of the world is what we do that makes us human. 
 

Representation.  Not realism.  

[PannySVHS]

I want to see my world in 12K and 120fps, how our planet is getting fried and resources being plundered by power hungry production, distribution and consumption of 12K 120fps content and hardware.

It will be so clear like looking outside ze window, I would have cleaned before.

Zeeing izzt beliehieving! I will see our planet is in trouble.

Before I will have consumpted some Teletubbies in 50 or 60p. 50p is foreign to me though.

 

4 hours ago, zlfan said:

red one mx olpf is special, the image is nicely soft. i like the results very much, more than other cams i have. 

 

What are the other cams you have? Which one would be the one and only for you? What frame rate did you shoot mostly in? Have you done a short film with your red one mx in higher framerates?

[Django]

3 hours ago, Jedi Master said:

I only listen to classical music, which isn’t subject to the regrettable loudness war that has been plaguing rock and pop recordings on CD for the past few decades, so I’ll only comment in the first recording discussed on the link you provided, since that score, although electronic music, is probably the closest to classical than the others. The CD recording of Chariots of Fire was released in 1984 (I have a copy), at a time when CD’s were in their infancy. Recording and mastering equipment weren’t as sophisticated as today and techniques such as dithering and noise shaping were not yet in use. It doesn’t say on the CD whether it was originally recorded on analog equipment or digital, but since it was recorded in 1981 I’ll assume it was an analog recording, and that may have been responsible for a higher noise floor on the CD recording than what might have been had it been recorded digitally (I have dozens of CDs released around the time CD audio emerged in the marketplace, and the ones recorded digitally have an exceptionally quiet noise floor).

You assume correctly. Chariots of Fire was produced and recorded by Vangelis in his Nemo Studio in London. And it was pretty much all analog aside from a Lexicon 224 reverb. Recording was printed on Ampex 1/2" tape machine. DBX noise reduction was involved. Full details and recording equipment list can be found here:

https://www.soundonsound.com/people/vangelis-recording-nemo-studios

 

3 hours ago, Jedi Master said:

I really don’t want to argue this to extremes, but my professional experience in signal processing gives me the tools to understand the nuances involved. There’s also a big industry devoted to selling snake-oil audio products (such as magic crystals you tape to speaker cables, $5000 power cords, and $150,000 turntables), and they have a vested financial interest in getting people to buy this stuff, so push all sorts of outlandish claims in audio publications to that end.

FWIW my background is actually in studio recording. Not as an engineer but as a player and back liner of vintage equipment both outboard and electronic analog and mechanical instruments. I've also had a DJ career and still hold on to a couple hundred (thousand?) rare 12" vinyl releases. So yeah I don't wanna argue either (analog vs digital is an old ever lasting debate and today I do use digital audio tools mainly from Universal Audio) but lets just say I'm pretty vested in the subject matter too 😉 .