Current frame rates for shooting movies?

[GregBest]

my noob group claims 30p has replaced 24 for commercial movies... is this the case now?

In all the pics i've seen, most were 23.97, and 24.

[David Mullen ASC]

No, most movies are shot at 23.978 or 24.

[Max Field]

No, most movies are shot at 23.978 or 24.

I know this questions is splitting hairs, but is anyone going to worry about the difference between 23.978 and 23.976 if there's a difference between software/systems?

[Phil Rhodes]

It's an issue of audio synchronisation. There's still a need to produce versions of movies for 29.97fps systems using 3:2 pulldown. With this technique the frame rate is increased by 25%, so to end up at 29.97 we actually need to shoot at 23.976. If we shot at 24, we'd end up at 30, meaning that our picture would be played back slightly too fast on a 29.97 system, and we'd have huge audio sync problems.

 

Modern systems can retime audio quite effectively, but this may be expensive and it can create artifacts.

 

This does still bear cautious talking-about before production starts, involving the camera and sound departments as well as postproduction people and any expected delivery requirements from the people buying the movie.

 

As an interesting aside, digital cinema packages do theoretically support 23.976, though it's deprecated and I'm not sure what the real-world support is like. Sensibly, the DCI people seem to prefer whole-number frame rates. It's a shame this decision couldn't have been made when we went to HD, but it would have created complicated problems with simultaneous broadcast HD and SD material. The whole thing comes down to an exceptionally bad engineering decision which was made at the dawn of colour television and is going to take a lot of getting rid of.

 

P

[Perry Paolantonio]

I know this questions is splitting hairs, but is anyone going to worry about the difference between 23.978 and 23.976 if there's a difference between software/systems?

I think that was just a typo. It's 23.976.

[David Mullen ASC]

Sorry, it was a typo.

[Mark Dunn]

 

 

The whole thing comes down to an exceptionally bad engineering decision which was made at the dawn of colour television and is going to take a lot of getting rid of.

 

P

Do you mean using the mains frequency as a sync reference?

[John E Clark]

Do you mean using the mains frequency as a sync reference?

 

The reason is that to place the color burst information between the luminance and the audio of the NTSC broadcast signal, a slight adjustment was made to the horizonal line frequency. NTSC used a 6 MHz bandwidth, while PAL used 8MHz, and did not 'suffer' from having less bandwidth, so the color carrier could be placed further away from the audio carrier.

 

Had the US used 8MHz bandwiths for the TV channels, where would have been a better placement for the color burst, and not had to compromise...

[Carl Looper]

This is a really good summary. Around the 7:10 mark, he discusses the introduction of colour in TV, and how that complicated the situation. They had to alter the field rate by an ever so small amount to avoid the colour sub carrier signal interfering (beating) with the audio signal.

 

Edited February 19, 2016 by Carl Looper

[GregBest]

I appreciate 24 and all, and realize the advantage of LESS data, but 60, 120, can't get here soon enough to me. Bring on the clearer, better looking visuals. We've been stuck in the past too long with THIS technology while everything else has advanced.

[Perry Paolantonio]

I appreciate 24 and all, and realize the advantage of LESS data, but 60, 120, can't get here soon enough to me. Bring on the clearer, better looking visuals. We've been stuck in the past too long with THIS technology while everything else has advanced.

 

Er, not everyone thinks it's "clearer, better looking." Frankly I find high frame rate footage to be unwatchably weird looking.

[Kenny N Suleimanagich]

Is it a matter of technology? Or aesthetics?

[John E Clark]

I appreciate 24 and all, and realize the advantage of LESS data, but 60, 120, can't get here soon enough to me. Bring on the clearer, better looking visuals. We've been stuck in the past too long with THIS technology while everything else has advanced.

 

As far as I've read, the only 'theatrical' frame rates that are under realistic discussion are the traditional 24 fps, and 48 fps, which apparently 'helps' 3-d viewing... since I'm not a fan of 3-d, I've not been to too many presentations. But I recall the "Hobbit being shot @ 48 fps", and for 3-d, projected at 48 fps. Since I've only seen the 2-d at 24 fps... can't comment on the quality difference, if any...

 

For 'Video' (hey there's that Video word again....), 25 and 30 are the traditional frame rates, and there is some movement perhaps to 50/60p (modulo the NTSC color madness for 60...).

 

But I suspect most people will be watching at 25/30 if playing standard Blueray/DVD/InternetStreaming.

[Carl Looper]

Are these things technological or aesthetic?

 

Perhaps there is no real distinction to be made between these two terms. The ancient greek word for art was τέχνη (or techne).

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techne

 

 

The choice of 60Hz mains frequency has it's origin in ancient (3rd millenium BC) Sumerian number system, which was base 60, which our present day time and angle measurements still use.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal

 

 

The distinction between art and technology doesn't really emerge (or re-emerge) until after the Renaissance. Da Vinci will be an expert in both, and this would not have been regarded as unusual. But Ancient distinctions existed, and would re-emerge in modernism. Plato would famously put geometers ahead of artists. Artists would be banned from his republic.

 

In Diderot's encyclopedia we'll find art/technology are related under the category of nature (uses thereof), whereas science will be separated out into a different category altogether: that of reason.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figurative_system_of_human_knowledge

 

There is a distinct bias throughout history for heirarchial classifications (and force fitting knowledge into such) rather than alternatives such as a more networked approach.

 

C

Edited February 20, 2016 by Carl Looper

[Satsuki Murashige]

To be fair, the 'clearer better pictures' thing is true in the realm of consumer and prosumer cameras. A decade ago, professionals had 35mm, 16mm, Varicam, F900, etc. while prosumers were stuck with Super 8 and sub-HD small sensor video cameras like the HVX200, most of which still recorded interlaced footage. So while the new prosumer cameras are still a step down in image quality for most professionals, amateur and no-budget filmmakers have never had it better.

[Carl Looper]

Interesting term: "prosumer".

 

Makes me think there must be a category of camera users that we could call "confessesionals". But not sure how we'd define them.

 

C

Edited February 20, 2016 by Carl Looper

[Max Field]

 

As far as I've read, the only 'theatrical' frame rates that are under realistic discussion are the traditional 24 fps, and 48 fps, which apparently 'helps' 3-d viewing... since I'm not a fan of 3-d, I've not been to too many presentations. But I recall the "Hobbit being shot @ 48 fps", and for 3-d, projected at 48 fps. Since I've only seen the 2-d at 24 fps... can't comment on the quality difference, if any...

Yeah I was about to say that even "regular" viewers who saw The Hobbit were put off by the 48fps. The phrase "soap opera" kept being used.

[Freya Black]

 

As far as I've read, the only 'theatrical' frame rates that are under realistic discussion are the traditional 24 fps, and 48 fps, which apparently 'helps' 3-d viewing... since I'm not a fan of 3-d, I've not been to too many presentations. But I recall the "Hobbit being shot @ 48 fps", and for 3-d, projected at 48 fps. Since I've only seen the 2-d at 24 fps... can't comment on the quality difference, if any...

 

For 'Video' (hey there's that Video word again....), 25 and 30 are the traditional frame rates, and there is some movement perhaps to 50/60p (modulo the NTSC color madness for 60...).

 

But I suspect most people will be watching at 25/30 if playing standard Blueray/DVD/InternetStreaming.

 

The old school TV standards were 50i for PAL and 60i for NTSC.

The more modern high def video standards also support 50i and 60i for 1080i broadcasts.

In the USA 720p is more common at 60p but here in Europe 50i is common. 1080p broadcast is very rare.

 

I understand that blu-ray supports 24p but ironically not 25p. I guess because 25p is that weird frame rate used by the rest of the world outside of Japan (and the USA), so 25/30 will not be common for blu-ray I suspect.

 

Freya

[Freya Black]

To be fair, the 'clearer better pictures' thing is true in the realm of consumer and prosumer cameras. A decade ago, professionals had 35mm, 16mm, Varicam, F900, etc. while prosumers were stuck with Super 8 and sub-HD small sensor video cameras like the HVX200, most of which still recorded interlaced footage. So while the new prosumer cameras are still a step down in image quality for most professionals, amateur and no-budget filmmakers have never had it better.

 

 

To be fair both the HVX200 and the earlier DVX100 were both progressive cameras.

[Robin R Probyn]

Japan is also weird in that the TV system nation wide is NTSC based.. but the country it divided into two different frequencies .. 50Hz and 60Hz.. there is a river which is the border just south of Tokyo !

[Satsuki Murashige]

To be fair both the HVX200 and the earlier DVX100 were both progressive cameras.

I guess I should have used a different example. PD-150 and VX2000, how's that? ;)

[GregBest]

sort of related topical questions:

 

1. could the "Soap Opera" effect be more about the crazy lighting too? I know the 60i frame rate was high and all, but I always thought the lighting on most soaps was horrible "LOOK! LIGHTING IS IN YOUR FACE AND UNNATURAL" like. TO ME, the LIGHTING was the soap opera effect, not the frame rate. Maybe we need to light differently somehow for HFR? What looks good lighting at 24 doesn't look good lit that way at 48 or 60?

 

2. 24 in theater USED TO BE projected with black frames inbetween while the film advanced to the next frame, correct? Do they fake that now in digital theater projectors, AND is THIS the big difference people see in HFR films where it is PIC to PIC to PIC without that BLACK slots inbetween? Happens now because it can, where in film it could never. Isn't it BAD that we want to see a blacked out frame tween every frame?

[David Mullen ASC]

I saw a 48 fps test that Arri shot in 2-perf 35mm film, projected at 48 fps -- it was all day exterior stuff of people on motorcycles. It looked rather video-ish so I don't think it's the lighting.

[GregBest]

so, how can we adjust our age-burnt-in ideas about LOOKS of things, where we admit 24 frames with flashing black in between doesn't look as good as 60 frames with no flashing black, and looking way more "real," and way less "innaccurate"?

 

We're used to "Film Look" and "video look".... why is the video look "bad" to people? It looks so, new, fresh, clear, accurate, real, live, detailed.... I don't get the downside?

 

I feel we should stop thinking "Video-ish" and call it "better", more better of everthing: representing the image in front of our cameras more accurately through the process chain to the end viewer

But I know I am the minority in that. :)

[Bill DiPietra]

I feel we should stop thinking "Video-ish" and call it "better"...

 

As always, that's a matter of taste. You - and others - may see it as "better." Others, quite rightly so, will not see it as a look that should be applying to every project. If the same aesthetic & technical attributes were applied to every project, the medium would be quite dull.