The Hobbit at 48 fps: Film, It Ain’t

I made it a point this weekend to be among the first to view Peter Jackson’s latest epic, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, in its native 48 frames-per-second frame rate. If you’ve not been keeping up with the news surrounding this movie, Jackson made the decision early on to shoot it digitally at twice the 24 fps rate used for the last 80 years or so. The 24 fps rate is closely associated with the look of film as we’ve come to know it. Increasing that rate can greatly reduce blurring and judder on fast motion and camera pans, allowing for extra detail that would otherwise be lost when shooting either film or video at 24 fps. Fast frame rates also improve the 3D experience, making viewing easier on the eyes and reducing the instance of crosstalk or “ghosting” artifacts. But it imparts a sheen that most of us would more closely associate with native video rather than film. If you’ve looked at film-based content on any LCD television that has its 120 Hz or 240 Hz motion enhancement features turned on, you know what I’m talking about. Such circuits cause content originally shot at 24 fps to look like video — the so-called “soap opera” effect. Some folks like the look and some don’t. Whichever side you fall on, there’s no arguing that the look these circuits impart to 24 fps native content is an artifice—it’s clearly not what the director was watching when he composed the film or what he intended for your viewing.

That’s not the case here. Jackson went into the project believing that just because movies have looked a certain way for all these years, it doesn’t mean they always should. Back then, 24 fps was what was possible, but in today’s digital-video driven world there’s no reason to eschew higher frame rates that can add detail and enhanced realism for a movie. Jackson, for his part, is letting us decide for ourselves: several hundred theaters around the country are displaying the film digitally at its native frame rate. The website 48fpsmovies.com has compiled a list of theaters if you’d like to find one near you.

Although I fall into the crowd who prefers to watch 24-frame content without artificial motion enhancement, I went into my viewing this weekend with an open mind, knowing that I would be seeing the film exactly as Jackson intended for me to see it. The AMC theater in New York I visited was only showing the high frame rate in the Imax/3D version, so in some respects it wasn’t quite the controlled experiment I would have wished for. But it still gave me a feel for what the future of movies might look like.

And what did it look like? Well…it looked like video. Maybe not quite as shiny and bright as I might normally associate with traditional video-based content seen on TV, but it was unmistakingly video-like. I have seen many movies captured with 24 fps digital cameras that successfully faked the audience into thinking they were shot in film, but the effect here was something of a hybrid. And I’ve gotta tell you — I didn’t love it, though not for the reasons you might expect.

It was hard to point directly at the additional detail in the many battle-action scenes, though I don’t doubt for a second that they were crisper and cleaner than they would have been at 24 fps. But to my eye, both the color and contrast fell well short of what I’d normally associate with a 24 fps production, and certainly a 24 fps production shot natively in film. This may be a very unfair observation: 3D, even Imax 3D, is always challenged for brightness. But from the opening frame to the last, whites were badly blown out in a way that gave the movie a kind of surreal softness in spite of the obvious detail in darker parts of the image. Details in white areas were lost, and white or bright objects had a bit of halo effect around them. Shadow details—and much of this film was shot in dark environments—were lacking and difficult to pull from the dark muck. And the colors, to my eye, looked under-saturated and without the pungency I expect to see on the big screen, especially an Imax screen. Scenes showing greenery and blue skies just didn’t have the punch I expected.

Did Jackson give the movie this look intentionally? Was it a creative decision arrived at by his vision for Middle Earth, or one partially forced by limitations of the available digital cameras? (The RED Epic cameras used for this production would have been state of the art at that time, but many cinematographers still see digital capture coming up short compared to film on matters of contrast and shadow detail.) Could I even be sure that the DLP-driven Imax projectors used for my showing were properly set up? How much of what I saw could be associated with having to watch it in 3D,and the naturally reduced brightness from the passive glasses?

I don’t really know, in the end, what I was seeing. I remain open to the 48 fps viewing experience, and if that’s how the director made it, that’s how I want to watch. I’ll also say that, once I got past a few minutes of getting used to the video-ish look, the storytelling took over, and there was a certain allure to the realism. But after looking at a lifetime of Kodak moments in my local cinema and being wowed again and again by beautiful saturated colors and breathtaking contrast, I can only hope that this first bold experiment with 48 fps digital doesn’t suggest that a gain in detail and dimensionality necessitate a sacrifice in some other key attributes we’ve come to associate with traditional 24 frames-per-second capture.

COMMENTS
mdanderson's picture

Thank you Mr.Sabin for your observations about "The Hobbit" in the new frame rate. I saw it in Dallas last night at Cinemark that had the 48fps in 3D and and overall I like what I saw. I may not be as discerning as you are but I just kind of got lost in the story like you did.

The 3D effect was kind of rather cool to me and used quite well in some scenes more than others. I got a bit tired of wearing the 3D glasses over my regular presciption glasses and I wish I could see the film without the 3D effect but at the higher frame rate. I loved the movie but at times it seemed to have a cartoonish look to the film. I look forward to see this in bluray at regluar fps so I can compare.

Mister Leadfoot's picture

As a movie I absolutely loved it. Maybe not as much as the apocalyptic struggle that LOTR was, but still a fun film. I thought that the 3D was great, doing a wonderful job bringing you into the environment (and I'm not someone who enjoys many 3D movies). The 48 fps I felt (as someone who despises the motion smoothing effect on my HDTV) wasn't horrible but I didn't think its revolutionary. I wasn't in love with it that's for sure. I am interested in seeing it again in 2D just to compare on the detail side of things during the pans and action.

Rob Sabin's picture
I also thought 3D on this was tastefully used and enhanced the movie, though I hate the loss of brightness and punch that comes with theatrical 3D and most at-home 3D displays. I, too, would like to see this again in 2D to get some sense of how much of what I obsered with the color palate and dynamic range of the image was endemic to the creative vision vs. an effect or limitation of the technologies at use.
Jarod's picture

Thanks for the info Rob. I viewed The Hobbit in just 24fps 3D and I really enjoyed it. Even tho it was projected in 24fps, the film seemed smoother than usual having been filmed in 48fps being the reason perhaps. Especially the pans that had less of a judder effect than usual. I loved the film tho.

sukhwindersandy's picture

One of the best things about The Hobbit is the truly magical locations and imagery that are completely immersive and make you feel as if you are in JRR Tolkien's Middle-earth. It will entertain you even if you haven't seen any of the previous Lord of the Rings movies. Also noteworthy is the music, which meshes really well with the film and is not distracting at all.

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Jarod's picture

Agreed the soundtrack was awesome! I stayed till the end of credits to hear every last note of it.

d6a4s5's picture

You say how you saw it at that AMC's IMAX screen in the HFR 3D...but HFR 3D in IMAX is NOT one of the available formats. There's 2D, RealD 3D, HFR 3D, and IMAX 3D. That's all. So, as you suggested might have been possible, perhaps the projectors weren't properly set up.

I saw it in HFR 3D and really kinda loved it. I wasn't expecting in the least for it to look like film...especially since it wasn't shot on film. Sure, there have been digitally shot films in the past that "faked the audience", but if you're aware that it was digitally shot before viewing it, I highly doubt you'd expect a "film-like" look. You might be surprised after the fact, but surely not before.

What I liked most about the look and feel of the HFR was how it almost felt as if I was there on the journey with Bilbo and the dwarves. HFR certainly helped the 3D effect overall. I also had no problems with the color, contrast, brightness, etc.

So yeah, I'm really thinking your screening might have been flawed.

Jarod's picture

Some IMAX's are showing The Hobbit in HFR 3D. A simple Google search would have shown you this bro.

d6a4s5's picture

Some IMAX screens may be showing it, but that doesn't mean that they are supposed to be, or that it was properly formatted. The website for the movie itself says that it's only available in those select formats and that "HFR IMAX 3D" is NOT one of them.

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