Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Waltz With Bashir 25 f.p.s. ??

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Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-24-2009, 07:26 PM:

We're playing Waltz with Bashir this week. The print is marked "25 f.p.s."

So, we don't have a vairiable speed control on our projector. It will have to play at 24 f.p.s.

Does it really matter?
It'll only run 2.5 seconds longer for every minute.

But there's one thing I notice.
The animation looks "stiff" or "plastic." For a movie that's supposed to have great animation, it doesn't look good to me at all.

Is this because I'm playing it one frame too slowly?

Is this because the animators wanted it to look that way?

Or is this because the animators sucked at programming the kinematics?

Inquiring minds want to know...

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-24-2009, 08:00 PM:

I played it at 24fps and it was fine, got a near-perfect reading in Dolby Digital (2s and 3s) and the audio didn't sound out-of-pitch. Playing it at 25fps won't make the animation look any less sucky, but it will end the movie more quickly and that is always a good thing. It is basically just a huge Flash animation, anyway. I also find it funny that most places list it as being rated "R" even though it shows full cartoon sexual penetration. I think officially it is unrated. Can't remember if there was a blueband on the end since it has been so long.

The opening sequence has some good sound, but you might as well play the rest of the movie in mono.

Posted by Jim Bedford (Member # 4) on 06-24-2009, 08:10 PM:

For some reason (perhaps someone across the pond can enlighten us) most European animation is produced at 25fps. As you note, only the most discerning ear or someone with a stopwatch could likely tell the difference.

From experience I can tell you that the filmmaker can tell the difference even though no one else can. If he's not in the house, run it at 24fps; if he is, get an Etrac or a really, really strong lock for the booth door.

It's the story that carries BASHIR, not the animation. Don't worry, the flatness doesn't get in the way and really enhances the story. It's a really good movie.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 06-24-2009, 08:19 PM:

Joe:
Bashir had a real live MPAA rating of R for:

quote:
Rated R for some disturbing images of atrocities, strong violence, brief nudity and a scene of graphic sexual content.

Apparently cartoon sex and violence is more acceptable than in the days of Fritz The Cat;>

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 06-24-2009, 08:27 PM:

quote: Joe Redifer
and the audio didn't sound out-of-pitch.

Digital sound won't go out of pitch.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-24-2009, 08:34 PM:

Correct, but if you don't have digital sound then you MUST play it at 25FPS because even 1FPS difference in analog sound will definitely be noticeable.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-24-2009, 11:43 PM:

So, then, the animation is crappy, eh?

The walk cycles of peoples' legs and feet looked robotic. Hands seemed to float through the air as if detached from the character's arms. Head movements and facial gestures looked very mechanical.

A lot of people I talked to noticed it too but they thought it was "interesting" to see. I found it to be distracting and quite annoying!

The walk cycles of peoples' feet looked very mechanical. Hands seemed to float through the air as if detached from the character's arms. Head movements and facial gestures looked very mechanical.

I don't know of any professional level animation program that doesn't have advanced kinematics rendering. For cripes sake, even the "lowly" Blender can do inverse kinematics and keyframed interpolation.

Perhaps the animators were too busy tweaking their "digital rotoscope" filters to notice that there are little handles on those Bezier curves?

quote: "Martin McCaffery "

Bashir had a real live MPAA rating of R for:

quote:
Rated R for some disturbing images of atrocities, strong violence, brief nudity and a scene of graphic sexual content.
Apparently cartoon sex and violence is more acceptable than in the days of Fritz The Cat;>

Yeah! You can bet one or two little, old ladies' eyeballs burst into flame when that scene hit the screen! [Eek!]

Funny thing... There were about 4 or 5 splices in the movie, all in a row right in the middle of that scene!
[Mad]

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-25-2009, 12:35 AM:

quote: John Wilson
Digital sound won't go out of pitch.

Thread a loop of film through your Dolby Digital penthouse reader. Do NOT thread the analog soundhead. Turn on the motor, select Dolby Digital and listen. Turn off the motor. The sound slows and the pitch lowers before it eventually drops out. Dolby Digital has plenty of wow and flutter capability. There was even a thread about this not too long ago because the tensioners would bounce during a splice for someone and they could hear the wow and flutter.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-25-2009, 12:58 AM:

You sure the pitch changes? You could be right, but I seem to recall just the speed changed. If I ever get bored I might do that test.

Hmmmmm, where to find a McG movie I can cut into a loop??

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 06-25-2009, 01:03 AM:

quote: Joe Redifer
Thread a loop of film through your Dolby Digital penthouse reader. Do NOT thread the analog soundhead.

I can't do that as I have basement readers.

I'm sure it slows, but I personally have never heard any change in pitch by switching from and to 25fps. Maybe it's just that 1fps increment that it manages to can handle. I've had DTS hold at 30fps and no pitch change...just lots of missing segments as it tries to deal with it.

Analogue on the other hand... [eyes]

Posted by Julio Roberto (Member # 4976) on 06-25-2009, 02:43 AM:

As we all know, a fair number of stuff outside the USA and Japan is done at 25fps, since it matches the way most people will see it and, if it needs to be shown at 24fps, it's usually no big deal, just slow it down a bit.

They may have re-adjusted the pitch during the film transfer to +2.085% (like 24.5fps) figuring they'll play it safe to those that were playing it 24 w/o digital pitch re-adjustment as well as 25. Thus, with approx. 2% analog off-pitch, it pbbly would go unnoticed to most, depending on the content.

Old indian film transfers are always incredible interesting as they often are, hmmmm, "challenged" ( [sex]

-ed up). Here is one where they must have transfered it to 29.96 fps (from original 24 film), then to 25fps with a pulldown removal that must have been out of phase with the actual NTSC-rate pulldown, leaving a video which de-interlaced motion seems to fluctuate half-way between 23.97 and 29.96 playedback sped up by some 4%. The audio must had been set up to follow the frame in the time shifter, and well, it did try to keep up [Wink]

.

Still, if you weren't warned before hand, it may have looked half-decent to most. At least it did to the guy doing the transfer [Roll Eyes]

. And remember we are talking about changes of up to 4fps in this video (30-24/2+4%), not just 1fps. That IS a lot. And it contains music and lyrics, which is usually more noticeable.

I have seen many screws-up during indian film transfers, but some are just ... [Eek!]

Our brains adjust better for this type of speed-variations than we think, even w/o the digital help.

After all, until recently all movies tranferred to TV/DVD are watched at slightly slowed and with un-even (pulldown) motion in some countries and sped up by 1fps in others, and only a few old farts like us ever notice or complain [Wink]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeNoUggxxdM&fmt=22

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-25-2009, 03:32 AM:

quote: Bradzilla
You sure the pitch changes? You could be right, but I seem to recall just the speed changed.

That's what I would have thought, too. But I have done this. Granted, it doesn't take long for the audio to go bye-bye, but in that short time you can hear a clear pitch change. Also, if it were only the speed changing, we wouldn't have had that thread asking about wow in Dolby Digital as it bobbed up and down at the splices (on that particular member's reader) since it really wouldn't be noticeable. Maybe I'll take my camera to work tomorrow and record me doing this if I have time, and then post it here. If I'm wrong, I'll be the first to admit it. I only have 2 to build and 3 to break down.

John, you can do this, just shut off the analog LED if you can.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 06-25-2009, 09:27 AM:

Yes, Dolby Digital can pitch change just like analog. I believe it is made for 24fps plus/minus 3 or 4 before it unlocks. (I have a DD test generator that supplies test signals that are just inside spec to test the decoder.)

btw: 25 versus fps: you are 4.16% higher in pitch. (a440 becomes 458. Perfect pitch people can hear 1 or 2 cycles.

btw: Dolby Digital WILL play backwards; sounds just like analog playing backwards. Louis

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 06-25-2009, 10:07 AM:

quote: Louis Bornwasser
Dolby Digital can pitch change just like analog

Really? I always assumed that the system would take
the slightly-off speed data and and clock-it-out at
the correct rate.
(Within certain limits of equipment tolerance, of course.)

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 06-25-2009, 12:00 PM:

Joe and Louis are absolutely correct, pitch changes with both SRD and DTS, just like it does with analog sound, and I'd be stunned if it were different with SDDS.

Jim, you can't just "clock it out at the correct rate" -- if you did that, then you'd need to resync every once in a while (presumably every few seconds), and the periodic blip from resyncing would be really annoying, as would the lip sync delay you would get.

It's now possible for computers to pitch-correct speed adjusted audio, but this is a relatively new technology, and I don't think it works perfectly (especially with things that are not pure tones). But it certainly wasn't prevalent when the three digital sound systems were introduced, and they haven't changed the way they have been implemented. And it would take more horsepower than I think is available in digital sound decoders.

We ran Waltz with Bashir in 24fps, and I'm embarassed to admit I didn't notice the 25fps notation. It was absolutely fine.
I'll second Jim's comment about filmmakers, though, I've had that happen.

--jhawk

Posted by Jack Theakston (Member # 4484) on 06-25-2009, 12:09 PM:

Do your audience a favor and run the film at 48fps. They will thank you for it later.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-25-2009, 12:45 PM:

What Jim said--only filmmakers tend to notice (and not all of them do!). Obviously, if you have the capability of running at 25fps, then you should do so.

The only way that I know how to tell if a particular print is 25fps is by checking the leader: if it is marked in seconds and has 25 frames instead of 24 per second, then the print is to be run at 25fps. Is there any other way to tell?

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 06-25-2009, 12:49 PM:

Well, sometimes music can be obvious too. Especially, but not exclusively, to people with perfect pitch.

--jhawk

Posted by Sean Weitzel (Member # 244) on 06-25-2009, 01:00 PM:

Some years ago, I bought a PAL dvd of a guilty favorite of mine "Raise the Titanic" I grew up watching an NTSC VHS of it taped from HBO in the 80's.
When the DVD arrived, I put it in my Cyberhome DVD player that can playback PAL discs and output NTSC. The 25fps transfer was immediately noticable with the John Barry score over the opening credits. I don't have perfect pitch by any means, but I couldn't watch the movie because it just sounded too 'wrong'. I gave the disc to my brother who imported it into his computer and did some magic video wizardry and created a 24fps version and burned me a new copy.

Posted by Julio Roberto (Member # 4976) on 06-25-2009, 01:54 PM:

It's our very own friends at Dolby that make the standard equipment 585 Time Scale Processor for these types of endevours [Wink]

http://www.dolby.com/uploadedFiles/zz-_Shared_Assets/English_PDFs/Professional/152_Model585.Manual.pdf

Yeah, music, if you are a musician or very familiar with the piece, you can tell it's a tad fast (4%) if you pay attention, specially if you are used to listening to it in NTSC which is a tad bit slow to begin with (23.97 against 24).

If you are not familar with the piece, well, then you assume that's the beat it's meant to be. The pitch is always digitally adjusted during transfers, though, and you'll be hard pressed to notice any difference whatsoever.

If you were trying to playback a PAL disc on a DVD player that changed it to NTSC (29.97) .... well, the net effect would be a SLOW DOWN of about 4% which I doubt your DVD player was digitally pitch-correcting ...

Either watch a PAL disc at 50i on a PAL TV or an NTSC 29.97 disc (or 23.98 disc which the player will output at 29.97) on an NTSC TV at 59.94i (typically, until recently) ... if you try to convert-on-the-fly, it's up to your player to time-shift and pitch adjust, which pbbly will suck ...

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 06-25-2009, 05:03 PM:

quote: John Hawkinson
pitch changes with both SRD and DTS

You sure about that? Like I said, I've had DTS hold at 30fps and it all sounded normal (not like Christopher Lloyd at the end of Roger Rabbit at all) but only skipped large sections as it went to stay in sync.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 06-25-2009, 05:10 PM:

While we're being embarassed about this, there were two of these this season.

Jeffrey Johnson said on the FITA that it was claimed on the CML list on 12/9/2008 that Slumdog Millionaire is supposed to be in 25fps as well.

I thought Jao Ho sounded a bit funny, but just chalked it up to differently-tonal Indian music...

Yes, John, I'm sure. The worst case we had came about shortly after we installed DTS, and it turned out our two projectors were slightly off-speed from each other. When doing a changeover from our trailer reel to reel 1 of a feature, we would hear the DTS player pitch-bend the audio to compensate for the speed difference, across its 300ms crossfade. This invariably lead to the last note of the DTS trailer (basically a sine wave) shifting in pitch dramatically. It sounded really bad.

I can't account for your 30fps behavior. Why the heck would you be running 24fps content at 30fps? If it was a 30fps soundtrack, it would sound right at 30fps, of course.

--jhawk

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 06-25-2009, 05:55 PM:

quote: John Hawkinson
Why the heck would you be running 24fps content at 30fps?

Well obviously it was a test to see what would happen.
What did you think...I wanted to get home early? [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 06-25-2009, 08:19 PM:

25fps is/was the speed for British television film. It's easy to match to the 50Hz rate.

I always suspected that the Michael Apted series, "28 Up," "35 Up", "42 Up," etc. were 25fps shows, since the published running times never matched the movies, and since they were originally made for British television.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-26-2009, 02:54 AM:

Dolby Digital CANNOT be played backwards!