[MrFoof]

"It doesn't look 'cinematic', lacking that filtered or gauzy look we're all accustomed to"

"Not all will like the change. 48 fps has an immediacy that is almost jarring."

"...he elaborated his thoughts, and essentially, the crisper looking image had the odd effect of making everything seem almost too realistic".

Lighting and set-design issues aside (sets shouldn't feel artificial), these comments seem ridiculous to me. It would be like a Triumph TR3 or Sunbeam Tiger owner lamenting over the Mazda MX-5 (Miata), saying that it's not an authentic British-style roadster unless it regularly hemorrhages its fluids when stationary in your driveway, occasionally fails to maintain an idle, or if an artifact of one the builders can't be found hidden in the trunk. Oh, wait -- people actually made those sorts of complaints.

People dislike change, even when it ultimately is for the better. I'm sure there were plenty of complaints when the industry moved away from nitrate film as well. Heck, since this film is digital I'm going to go find the "Death of the Projectionist" article I'm sure exists.

[waterlesscloud]

Film is an artistic medium. Many many many choices are made in the making of most films that intentionally deviate from reality.

It's completely reasonable to believe that 48fps will not be the right creative choice for all films.

[MrFoof]

I agree. Black and white, sepia-tone, deliberate flicker and visual noise (including cigarette burns) will all have their place when used appropriately and to further push well-thought stylistic choices that are brilliantly executed.

However, those films will certainly be in the minority. To dismiss higher frame rates on the whole seems goofy.

Additionally, googling "death of the projectionist" yields more articles than I'd care to mention, including some that honestly lament that nitrate film is no longer used.

[FreakLegion]

> Black and white, sepia-tone, deliberate flicker and visual noise

Those are merely effects, and usually gimmicky ones at that. A better example would be something like Kubrick's Barry Lyndon[1]:

"The cinematography and lighting techniques Kubrick used in Barry Lyndon were highly innovative. Most notably, interior scenes were shot with a specially adapted high-speed f/0.7 Zeiss camera lens originally developed for NASA. Many scenes were lit only with candlelight, creating two-dimensional, diffused-light images reminiscent of 18th-century paintings."

The best filmmakers obsess over these kinds of details. If I remember correctly, Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures goes into more detail about the techniques Kubrick used in Barry Lyndon[2].

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Kubrick#Barry_Lyndon_.2...

2. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0278736/

[excuse-me]

Higher frame rate doesn't automatically translate as "better"

Our eyes (actually brain) have a natural fusion frequency, images shot with a relatively long exposure at 24fps - with corresponding motion blur - is different from shorter exposures at 48fps.

Remember Ray Harryhausen's stop motion monsters? Those are much 'sharper' than actors, but not necessarily more realistic ( except in the case of Keanu Reeves)

[jcampbell1]

The exposure length could be the same. 360 degrees of shutter at 48fps is the same exposure as the cinematic standard of 180degrees/24fps.

[excuse-me]

IIRC the Red camera has a rolling shutter so is equivalent to a fixed 360deg shutter

(if I understand cinema shutter terminology correctly ?)

[stephen_g]

The two things you posted are completely un-related.

Film cameras generally have a 180 degree shutter, which means that the film is exposed for half the time each frame is in the gate - which means at 24 frames per second, the exposure time is 1/48th of a second. A 360 degree shutter would theoretically therefore be 1/24th of a second at 24 frames per second, or 1/48th of a second at 48fps (so should exhibit similar motion blur to 24fps at 180 degree shutter).

The EPIC is perfectly capable of taking any of these exposure times (up to 360 degrees - I'm not sure what the limit is exactly at the low end - probably something like 1/10000th of a second).

Now, 'rolling shutter' is just the fact that each column of pixels along the sensor are read sequentially, so there is a slight difference in time from the first column to the last one being read (called the read-reset time). This can be really bad on cheap cameras with slow read-reset times, where it can cause vertical things like light-posts to look skewed when you pan across them quickly, but the EPIC's read-reset time is fast enough that it's not a problem (it is similar to the time it takes a film's mechanical shutter to blank).

[jcampbell1]

The red camera has no shutter. It just reads from the sensor. It can set the exposure length to anything less than the frame rate minus the time to read the sensor. So at 48fps, the exposure can be 1/48 second minus the time to read the sensor, which is approximately equal to 1/48th of a second.

A film camera cannot do this because there must be time to move the film around, and so the standard design creates 24 frames per second, with 1/48th of a second to physically move the film, and 1/48th of a second to expose the film. Of course you could expose the film for less than 1/48th of a second, but that would create the problem you originally mentioned.

My point is that the RED camera at 48fps with the "shutter" always open, you have the same exposure length (and motion blur) as a standard film camera.

[visural]

If that's true, is there a technical reason that no one used different frame rates prior during the age of projected film? (for big budget movies)

[farnsworth]

Well you would need twice as many feet of film for 48fps, and it would need to be fed twice as fast, with light flickering twice as fast, etc. I assume that wasn't easy to do.

[excuse-me]

Film was shot at 24fps, a compromise between limiting motion effects while saving on film.

Each frame is actually projected twice in a film projector because you would see flicker at 24fps so the brightness/number of images is the same. It's just that at 48fps each is different

[andrewfelix]

I don't think the car comparison is fair. It's not like 24fps movies are technically inept and we're maintaining the standard for nostalgic reasons.

While I think it's probably just a matter of time until movie makers and audiences adjust to higher frame rates, there are some benefits to lower frame rates and lower resolutions in film. Higher resolutions and frame rates can reveal immersion breaking problems with sets, costumes and make-up.

[abruzzi]

It's not simply nostalgia, but the fact that our eyes, brains, and expectations are firmly rooted in 24FPS, and anything else will have to overcome that aesthetic training. A good analog would be the diatonic system of western (Pythagorean) musical harmony. For 80 years beginning with Schoenberg, classical composers tried to get us to listen to non-tonal music, with extremely limited success.

[lurkinggrue]

Higher frames rates people unconsciously connect with Soap Opera's and other straight video productions that were to lower quality.

On top of that much film making is trying to hide imperfections. We hit the uncanny valley of sets/make up where it just is too clear to suspend disbelief at some level.

It will have a lot of getting used to the look.