Remember back in April 2011 when Peter Jackson revealed the exciting news that The Hobbit would be shot and projected at 48 frames per second (fps)? No, of course not. The average punter never really cared or understood exactly how this would affect the finished film, so why should it matter? The announcement was met with a resounding “meh”, and everyone went back to fondling themselves over fan-drawn pictures of Arwen fisting Galadriel (caution: possible conjecture). The muted response was far from surprising. Differing frame rates as a conversation topic pales in comparison to the greatly anticipated return of one of the most celebrated trilogies of all time! I mean, it’s only the really creepy nerds and techies – the ones who rant about ‘Han shooting first’ while emitting excessive sputum – that care about those boring technical details, right?
However, as indicated by the uneasy reactions to advanced previews, a shitstorm of news articles last week confirms that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey‘s visual format is causing audiences to chuck their guts up. A slight exaggeration perhaps, but based on the reported reactions, it is clear that a portion of viewers are responding negatively to the High Frame Rate 3D (HRF 3D). So why is this happening? The problem seems to be the effect produced from the faster frame rate, designed to improve the digital footage and enhance the 3D by reducing motion blur and strobing. An undesirable result of this new technique is the ‘Soap Opera Effect’ (SO effect), a by-product usually associated with motion interpolation. For those who may still be none the wiser: have you ever watched a film on someone’s massive HDTV, but it just looked cheap and nasty? Did it look like a badly-made home movie? Were the actors moving a bit too fast, and the whole thing just didn’t ‘feel’ cinematic? This is the Soap Opera Effect, and if you’re only just noticing that your 240hz HDTV makes everything look like a crappy videotape: congratulations! You are now fucked for life, just like the rest of us.
To some, this is all just techno-babble; and those who drone on about the ‘cinematic quality’ of frame rates, merely reveal themselves to be the dribbling, technologically-anal introverts that are just out to push their viewing habits on others. This may well be the case. I have had loved ones swear to me that they really cannot see “what’s wrong with the film”, as they wrestle me to the ground when I attempt to defenestrate the television. The off-putting reports of The Hobbit causing people to feel sick may well be overblown, media-hype based on a few comments from undesirable pedants such as myself. As a film student, my own tastes are far more likely to be the result of personalized (and inexorable) viewing habits that would not necessarily be shared by the average cinema-goer. Conveniently, I choose to believe this is not to be the case, and anyone who disagrees with me is simply wrong. Glad we got that sorted.
The frame rate is different! Fuck you TV, fuck you…
Only time will tell if this is a fleeting uneasiness towards new technology or a cinematic epidemic that will be rejected and expelled. I was initially wary when Peter Jackson first promoted the new 48 fps over the conventional 24 fps, but nonetheless had complete faith in the man who brought us the original Lord of the Rings series. I was worried that the SO effect may emerge from doubling the frame rate of the film, but seeing as I had never watched a film that was actually shot at 48 fps, perhaps this would counterbalance the effect. Alas, this does not appear to be so. As the initial negative reactions began to ebb on to the internet, I resigned myself to the possibility that although I may end up loving this film, I will hate watching it.
On the other hand, all of these concerns could be viewed as self-serving bullshit. While my brain, and many like it, may be trained to associate 24 fps with a certain cinematic allure, this could easily be overturned in a few years if The Hobbit is successful and the 48 fps becomes an accepted industry standard. Sure, audiences may find the transition a bit nauseating at first, but if Peter Jackson is able to demonstrate the visual benefits of the faster frame rate, then we may well witness an aesthetic revolution of digital cinema. For those who work with video editing software, the practice of 24 fps as a cinematic standard seems outmoded anyway, seeing as the majority of material uploaded to YouTube already demonstrates a multiplicity of frame rates in current use. The notion of limiting digital video to 24 fps seems absurd at this juncture, especially to those gamers who try and squeeze every last frame per second from their gaming PC leviathans. On paper at least, 24 fps does now seem rather tawdry.
YOU SHALL DEAL WITH IT!!!
So now we come to the real crux of the matter that renders the whole discussion academic. Despite the building anticipation for a potentially revolutionising visual experience, many cinema chains have decided to screen The Hobbit at the standard 24 fps. This is motivated in part by technological constraints (fair enough), but also due to a growing anxiety that audiences may very well reject the HFR 3D. Now this really perturbs me more than anything. If I have trouble keeping track of which screens are showing the film in 2D, 3D, or HFR 3D, how the hell is average schmo going to work it out? Not only does this demonstrate a lack of faith in the new technology, it could well divide audiences if spectators end up viewing the film multiple times to ‘work out’ which version they like best. I would much prefer to give Peter Jackson a fair chance and embrace the film as it was meant to be shown. I mean, what’s the point in a cinematic experiment if the distributors bottle out and screen the film in a standard format. I guess the ‘sink or swim’ approach doesn’t really play well with investors. So I urge everyone reading this (all four of you), to seek out a venue that will be showing The Hobbit in all its stomach-churning, HFR 3D glory. Bugger it, why not go see it in IMAX as well. If this really is the future of cinema then you don’t want to miss out, and if it bombs, let it die knowing at least you gave it a fair chance.
Just remember to ignore the long-haired, ginger, weirdo sitting at the front, muttering to himself about Gandalf’s beard not having enough motion blur.
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