Movie making hasn’t changed nearly as much in the last 30 years as video game making. More filmmakers have moved from film shooting to digital shooting, special effects (SFX) have certainly improved, 3D has come and gone like a fad everyone suspected, and IMAX is more popular than ever. But that’s about it.
However, one of the greatest advancements in the art of filmmaking is filming at ‘High Frame Rate’, or ‘HFR’ for short – something that has been in the news lately due to its success in Avatar: The way of the water. Traditionally, movies are shot at 24 frames per second (fps), but HFR boosts that to 48 fps or higher. The reality is that the higher the frame rate, the smoother the video. After all, the more frames there are, the less blur there is. from Peter Jackson Hobbit trilogy and that of James Cameron avatar films have demonstrated the benefit of HFR treatment in recent years, although it is by no means ubiquitous in filmmaking today.
While for some the jump to HFR may feel unnaturally smooth and jarring, I’m terribly excited to see this technology spread throughout the film industry in the coming years, and I think you should be too. Allow me to explain why…
What is HFR and why is it important?
On a fundamental level, a movie looks and feels “cinematic,” partly because of the frame rate. Movies usually run at 24fps for a reason: it’s widely believed to be the lowest frame rate needed for motion to look natural and smooth to the human eye. Anything less can come across as unnatural and jerky.
Okay, but why not more frames? Thanks to video games and the proliferation of higher frame rate content on YouTube, where you often have to choose between 30fps and 60fps, high frame rate content is much more familiar to the general population today than it was 10 years ago. And the case for higher frame rates in film is much the same as for YouTube videos and video games.
The higher the frame rate, the smoother the video. With more frames, there’s less blur – and this can generally be useful as an aid to improving image quality. For example, a hallmark of modern Hollywood (think Marvel movies) are action-packed scenes bursting with fast-paced clips to accentuate the intensity of what’s happening onscreen.
However, during these fast, dense action sequences, it’s hard to really make out fine details due to the blur inherent in fast movement and rapid panning in cinematic 24fps film. HFR filming can alleviate these problems. That’s why sports broadcasts are sometimes shown in 60fps – it’s much easier to see what’s happening on the screen.
So why not just film everything at the highest possible frame rate for the smoothest video possible? Well, here’s where the situation gets complicated. See, HFR content can appear at smooth, making a movie or TV show feel unnatural. This is generally what people call the “soap opera effect,” because soap operas were traditionally filmed at higher frame rates than movies and therefore appeared hyper-real. Where does that soap opera effect come from? Partly purely aesthetic preference, partly because of our familiarity with watching movies at 24fps, and partly because of how the human eye actually works.
However, there are applications where HFR can work very well as an aid in the pursuit of better image quality. Enter James Cameron, who is doing his best to use HFR as a tool for that.
James Cameron, HFR and Avatar
Whatever you think of him or his films, James Cameron is without a doubt a pioneering filmmaker. The script of the original avatar can be criticized, and his love of 3D may not have served him or the industry very well, but he is certainly a man who pushes the technological boundaries of filmmaking.
With its latest installment in the avatar franchising, The way of the waterJames Cameron uses HFR filming in a rather unique and extraordinarily modern way that I hope is more widely adopted in the future.
In the recent past, HFR movies were mostly HFR movies: they were shot in their entirety at a frame rate greater than 24 fps. However, Cameron chose to rely on HFR for some scenes and not for others, sometimes even jumping from 24fps to 48fps within several moments in a single scene. Generally, avatar uses HFR to enhance scenes when there’s a lot of on-screen action – flying scenes and those underwater – while opting for a standard 24fps for more static and conversational moments to avoid unwanted hyper-realism.
Of course, the idea of such technology is that you don’t notice it explicitly; you should just see that what’s on screen looks ‘real’ (and really good!) rather than distractingly fake (and bad!). In avatar2the underwater scenes in particular look stunning in HFR, not only when the characters are swimming at high speed or riding animals, but also when the camera is static and underwater objects move past – but there are a few occasions where you notice when it drops to 24fps, and that’s not ideal and hopefully something that can be improved upon in future HFR/SFR hybrid movies.
This takes some getting used to, especially if you’re already sensitive to frame rate changes, as many gamers can be, but the result is that 24fps cinematic feel equipped with all its traditional weight and blur alongside the pristine clarity of HFR movie footage when it is best used for the greatest effect. A kind of ‘best of both worlds’ scenario.
HFR filming in the future
Smooth out some of the transition issues (in post-production, in all likelihood) and I believe the way The way of the water was filmed is a blueprint for the future. Since Peter Jackson’s Hobbit came out in 2012, a lot has changed: entire generations of kids have grown up watching 60fps YouTube videos and playing games at frame rates well above 24fps.
In some ways, the mockery of the HFR versions of the Hobbit films received when released can be explained by the general population’s exposure to higher frame rate content at the time. In 2012 we were still on the PS3 generation of consoles that ran games at mostly 720p 30fps, and YouTube didn’t even support 60fps until 2014.
Now high frame rate content is everywhere and zoomers are playing Minecraft at 60fps and boomer sports obsessives watch 60fps feeds of their games, it’s gaining acceptance and should make for a significantly less jarring experience at the cinema.
It may never make sense to shoot a very slow, dialogue-rich indie romance at a higher frame rate than usual, but that’s okay. Just as not every movie needs to be shot in IMAX, you don’t need every high frame rate movie either. However, considering how popular higher frame rate content is becoming, and its obvious benefits in certain cases, we’re definitely going to see more of it.
And when it comes to Hollywood’s action-packed nature with its relentlessly fast pace, shooting HFR footage and swapping out blur for pristine clarity feels like a total no-brainer.
LAKE:
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