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Author
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Topic: HFR in 2013
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 12-14-2013 05:46 PM
quote: Steve Guttag
Or worse, the camera movement has an out of focus object quickly come onto screen and then jump off...it actually seemed to call attention to itself...despite being out of focus and clearly not important to the image. In short, it was distracting.
Personally, I find all out-of-focus objects that have some perceivable depth rather distracting. That's probably because it is very unnatural to look at. You try to focus on them, but it won't work, they remain blurry. Having them going in and out of focus makes stuff even worse.
There was one shot where they did this with two actors on screen. The focus went from the one in the foreground to the one in the background. While this might work perfectly fine in 2D, it is utterly distracting and unnatural in 3D.
quote: Steve Guttag
I'm wondering if HFR 3D wouldn't do much better if one where on a VERY large screen where one could not see the edge of the image. I could see where a concert movie would be really enhanced by that. But as far as telling a story...so far, no-sale...it has something but still seems like it has kinks to be worked out. I would still like 60fps 2D...I've seen that...it can look phenomenal.
A screen that could fill your entire field of view would also allow for a more realistic "in your face" 3D effect. Once an object that's supposed to be in front of the screen passes the edge of the screen, the 3D effect is largely lost.
But 3D HFR in 2K would never have sufficient resolution to pull this off in a realistic manner.
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Arnold Chase
Film Handler
Posts: 41
From: West Hartford, CT United States
Registered: Nov 2013
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posted 12-16-2013 01:31 AM
Tonight was the first time I actually sat down and watched an entire HFR movie. Last year, after watching the first Hobbit film in an IMAX house (mistakenly thinking it was going to be in HFR there), I snuck into an adjacent HFR house to get a quick peek at HFR. The AMC theater I saw it in tonight was using a SONY 4k projector. I brought a pair of high-end (real glass lenses) Polaroid Real-D format glasses with me.
Apart from a constant very loud (and noticeable) 60 Hz hum in the left side surrounds, with a lesser hum coming from the screen, the biggest fault I had with the film was it seemed as if the director knew he was using superior motion capturing ability equipment, and then proceeded to play with every camera technique he could to show it off. Until the movie was more than half over did the director start “normalizing” the shooting and editing to follow a more conventional fixed camera shots and conventional cuts, reaction shots, etc. The filming technique was “different” depending on where in the film you were. It was almost like film student that has just rented a jib dolly and Steadicam for the first time, and he/she couldn’t stop using them. This was filmed with so many scenes swooping up to the actor’s faces, quick pans to meet a speaking actor, shaky-cam shots, etc. that a smooth story line was impossible to follow due to all the technique distractions. Many scenes looked like the camera was attached to a pendulum, etc. As has been reported before, the outdoor long-range scenes were absolutely gorgeous, probably because the camera motion was inherently limited.
I experimented during the film by removing my glasses during the most “real” (non film-looking) parts of the movie, and to my surprise the “film look” returned. Since this was a SONY 4k projector, I assume the ‘flash’ rate to the eyes stayed the same in both 2D and 3D, since the lens splits the same frame making the two polarities simultaneous, no?
Since I saw the film on a HFR 4k projector with superior glasses (with NO perceived ghosting), I got the most intense HFR/video/non-film look experience possible. It looked VERY different from what I was used to (and expecting). At first I really didn’t like it, but by the second hour I found my negative reaction waning. HFR seemed to make me acutely aware of bad acting, and even stunts such as actors jumping from place to place looked far less believable than a regular film would present, almost like looking at a person in real-life trying to jump across the room and only moving a few feet, while in film at 24fps the same attempt would have looked believable, like a lot more distance had been traveled.
I found HFR looked better with close-ups than medium shots as well.
My conclusion was that the technology has great potential, but the implementation and how it is shot can drastically change the end result. Historically, every new tool for the filmmaker has faced a steep learning curve, whether it was the addition of sound, color, low-light film stock, etc. One thing that is for sure is that we are closer than people think to the day when film-stock will no longer be available and ALL movies will originate on video. Once those ties with legacy frame rates are gone, I expect HFR to be a regular, (but much better utilized) part of movies.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 12-18-2013 10:55 AM
quote:
I experimented during the film by removing my glasses during the most "real" (non film-looking) parts of the movie, and to my surprise the "film look" returned. Since this was a SONY 4k projector, I assume the ‘flash’ rate to the eyes stayed the same in both 2D and 3D, since the lens splits the same frame making the two polarities simultaneous, no?
The Sony split-lens solution indeed shows both images on screen at the same time, just like a dual projector setup usually does.
It's a bit strange that the "film look" returned after you removed your glasses. The actual "perceived frame rate" didn't change at all in your situation, obviously the brightness increases a lot once you get rid of the glasses. So, if this is the case, all we need to do to bring back the film look to HFR is add a lot of blur. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
quote: Arnold Chase
My conclusion was that the technology has great potential, but the implementation and how it is shot can drastically change the end result. Historically, every new tool for the filmmaker has faced a steep learning curve, whether it was the addition of sound, color, low-light film stock, etc. One thing that is for sure is that we are closer than people think to the day when film-stock will no longer be available and ALL movies will originate on video. Once those ties with legacy frame rates are gone, I expect HFR to be a regular, (but much better utilized) part of movies.
It is hard for most of us (including me) to imagine how it felt when movies got sound. Color is even a more complex beast, because it went even trough more iterations than sound, back from tinted black and white productions from over a century ago up to the multi-layered color 35mm films of today. The switch from 35mm to digital was rather unimpressive, compared to previous achievements. In many cases it's even hard to consider it a real upgrade. It is noteworthy tough, that the transition from 35mm to digital didn't really hurt the cinematic feel of most movies.
While HFR could have the potential of eliminating the few remaining 24 FPS artifacts, it's of no use, when we introduce only new issues. A lot of what we now perceive as "cinematic look" might be based on what we've become used to: The limited color gamut of filming, printing techniques and projection techniques, the 24 frames per second and 35mm film width, as a tradeoff between motion fluency, resolution and the amount of film and technical sophistication that's needed to make it work.
Modern innovations allow us to bypass those "golden standards" and even make those "improvements" affordable on a greater scale.
But, maybe it's just not such a good strategy to make movies feel more like reality... If you make movies look more like the Evening News, then your mind might perceive it just like that, like the Evening News. If a movie looks more "cinematic", your mind might perceive it more like what it is: a form or art. A story, told in picture and sound and not a capture of reality.
Something that looks like reality could be great for a sophisticated theme park ride, but not necessarily for a movie.
I would love to get rid of the remaining distractions, which are still largely due to the limitations of the technological standards as of today. Until now, HFR didn't really solve any of those distractions, it actually created new ones. Personally, I would rather like to see other improvements happening first, before we consider an increased frame rate the next level of achievements:
- A general increase in resolution. For me, 2K is just too low as a standard. It might be "good enough" for current projection standards in many locations, but it sure isn't good enough as a master or even intermediate and it is obviously not good enough for "oversized screens". The push for higher frame rates is actually bad for the developments in higher resolutions, since the extra bandwidth that newer technology allows is being used for that, instead of resolution.
- None of the current DMD designs allow for anything that resembles real black. Ever since the switch from 35mm to Digital, dark grey has become the new black. I would really love to see some improvements here. Some say that laser light sources will solve this problem in the future, but I'm still quite curious how that's going to work if the imager itself is still a conventional DMD.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 12-18-2013 01:55 PM
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Something that looks like reality could be great for a sophisticated theme park ride, but not necessarily for a movie.
It all depends on the subject matter. I think certain movies shot with video cameras would have been better with the video looking like video. I've cited Collateral as one example, partly because such a poor job was done with hiding its video origins.
These various horror and thriller shows largely using "found" POV footage would be more authentic looking if the video looked like video. The story characters aren't going to professionally color grade their video footage and they certainly can't do it while the footage is still in the camera.
Any movie spoofing the reality TV angle should look like video instead of film. Most of those TV shows look like video.
Ultimately it would be nice if video camera technology could rise past the contraints of the movie look or six o'clock news video look. I don't know if that necessarily lies in using a higher frame rate, such as 48fps or 60fps. But deeper color bit depths would help a lot. Combine that with better lenses, better camera sensors and we should arrive at something that looks better than film or standard video at some point. This pretentious process of taking video footage and trying to make it look like film can be pretty destructive to image quality.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
A general increase in resolution. For me, 2K is just too low as a standard.
It's OK for a HDTV screen in the living room, but it sucks on a really big screen. The limits of 2K resolution, namely that pixel grid, becomes glaringly obvious when displaying graphics, or even the end credits. In some of these big screen theaters I suspect they're either throwing the image slightly out of focus or even using lesser quality lenses as a means of hiding that pixel grid.
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Arnold Chase
Film Handler
Posts: 41
From: West Hartford, CT United States
Registered: Nov 2013
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posted 12-18-2013 03:08 PM
quote:
The Sony split-lens solution indeed shows both images on screen at the same time, just like a dual projector setup usually does.
It's a bit strange that the "film look" returned after you removed your glasses. The actual "perceived frame rate" didn't change at all in your situation, obviously the brightness increases a lot once you get rid of the glasses. So, if this is the case, all we need to do to bring back the film look to HFR is add a lot of blur. [Razz]
Actually, I was not addressing the perceived effect of just the higher frame rate, per se, but rather the total perceived experience which was a combination of 4K resolution, 3D, and frame rate.
In 1977, a film production company used our corporate offices to film a scene for a major CBS movie, "The Deadliest Season" with some really seasoned actors such as Meryl Streep, Patrick O'Neal, and Michael Moriarty. I was there when they filmed it, and I kept thinking to myself, "Boy, their acting is SO phoney looking and way over the top". Yet, when I saw it on TV, it looked absolutely fine and energy level appropriate! Around that same time I was featured in an "PM Magazine" segment for my pre-World War II TV set collection. While it was being filmed, my perception was that I had done a good job, yet when I saw it on-air, I was stunned as to how laid back and non-expressive I was. I then realized that in everyday life we experience things in three dimensions, and when we watch movies or TV, we are minus a dimension which requires actors to "boost" or compensate their delivery to make up for the dimensional deficit.
The reason I took off my glasses during Hobbit was to see if the "overacting" I perceived in the "fully dimensioned" setting (with all three things) would now seem in balance in a 2D world. Interestingly, even though it was still at 48 fps and 4K, the removal of 3D was enough to tamp down any "overacting" perception.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 12-18-2013 06:12 PM
quote: Bobby Henderson
Any movie spoofing the reality TV angle should look like video instead of film. Most of those TV shows look like video.
If we're talking about stuff like Cloverfield (which must have had an impressive surround microphone system mounted to the camera), Paranormal Activity, etc. Sure, that stuff may look as video-ish as they want. In this case, Digital projection might even help them to achieve that look a bit easier. Luckily, those kind of productions are still an exception.
quote: Bobby Henderson
In some of these big screen theaters I suspect they're either throwing the image slightly out of focus or even using lesser quality lenses as a means of hiding that pixel grid.
Trowing the image slightly out of focus is the most used solution and it works quite OK to hide the pixel grid for most viewers. But still, it is far from optimal. Also, around here, most shows do have subtitles as they're usually shown in their native language. Those pixels are almost always clearly visible, even if the subtitles are using some form of anti-aliasing, the contrast is large enough to single out the pixels. Those same subtitles also continuously cause ghosting issues during 3D shows, only Dolby 3D and active systems like XPand3D seem to be largely immune to that, but that's a different story...
quote: Arnold Chase
Actually, I was not addressing the perceived effect of just the higher frame rate, per se, but rather the total perceived experience which was a combination of 4K resolution, 3D, and frame rate.
I hope I don't disappoint you, but you didn't watch a 4K presentation. First of all, there is no 4K 3D out there yet and certainly not in HFR. Even the newest IMBs on the market don't support the bit-rates necessary... (And actually, the DCI specs also don't allow it for now.)
Furthermore, the Sony 3D solution horizontally splits the imager between left and right eye when you use that split lens option, so there goes your 4K.
quote: Arnold Chase
I then realized that in everyday life we experience things in three dimensions, and when we watch movies or TV, we are minus a dimension which requires actors to "boost" or compensate their delivery to make up for the dimensional deficit.
Besides that "dimensional deficit" as you put it, there are other things that are vastly different. For example, there is no direct eye contact possible, there is absolutely no bi-directional feedback. Also, you're not 100% in control as what to look at, the director will focus on what he deems important. That way, your brain will lose important cues that would otherwise be interpreted as emotions.
It has been shown before that higher frame rates have an interesting aspect on how people perceive human expressions and it would not be unreasonable to expect that it also has an impact on the perceived "fakeness" of those expressions.
quote: Arnold Chase
The reason I took off my glasses during Hobbit was to see if the "overacting" I perceived in the "fully dimensioned" setting (with all three things) would now seem in balance in a 2D world. Interestingly, even though it was still at 48 fps and 4K, the removal of 3D was enough to tamp down any "overacting" perception.
Maybe the fuzziness of the image was sufficient to "fix" your subconsciousness, as it is now clearly aware that the image it is receiving is utterly fake.
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