The Science of High Frame Rates, Or: Why 'The Hobbit' Looks Bad At 48 FPS
The hero of Jean-Luc Godard's Le Petit Soldat declared “The cinema is truth, 24 times per second,” as The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw noted while pondering frame rates and cinematic standards last year. Peter Jackson insists that it’s closer to 48 frames per second, as demonstrated by the groundbreaking new frame rate he utilized for this weekend’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. But do scientific theories about the way our brains perceive images and reality — truth unfolding onscreen, in front of our eyes — support Jackson’s brave new vision for cinema, or undermine it?
There is a great gulf between the cinematic look of 24 fps, the traditional rate at which film images are presented in succession to simulate moving images on a screen, and 48 fps. The latter packs more visual information into each second of film, for better and worse. Jackson and his fellow HFR enthusiasts (including James Cameron and Douglas Trumbull) argue that 48 fps and even higher frame rates result in greater clarity and a closer approximation to real life. They also contend it reduces motion blur, thus improving the look of 3-D images.
But scientists and researchers in the field of consciousness perception say that the human brain perceives reality at a rate somewhere between 24 fps and 48 fps — 40 conscious moments per second, to be more exact — and exceeding the limit of the brain’s speed of cognition beyond the sweet spot that connotes realism is where Jackson & Co. get into trouble.
Movieline spoke with filmmaker James Kerwin, who lectured on the subject of the science of film perception and consciousness at the University of Arizona’s Center for Consciousness Studies. (His presentation included an analysis of the work of Dr. Stuart Hameroff and British cosmologist/philosopher Roger Penrose, and their quantum theory of consciousness.) According to Kerwin, there really is a simple scientific answer for why The Hobbit’s 48 fps presentation plays so poorly with some viewers — and it's not something we'll get used to over time.
HOW OUR BRAINS PERCEIVE REALITY
James Kerwin: “Studies seem to show that most humans see about 66 frames per second — that’s how we see reality through our eyes, and our brains. So you would think that 48 frames per second is sufficiently below that — that it would look very different from reality. But what people aren’t taking into account is the fact that although we see 66 frames per second, neuroscientists and consciousness researchers are starting to realize that we’re only consciously aware of 40 moments per second.”
“Dr. Hameroff’s theory has to do with the synchrony of the gamma waves in the brain — it’s called gamma synchrony — the brain wave cycle of 40 hertz. There’s a very strong theory that that is why we perceive 40 moments per second, but regardless of the reason, most researchers agree we perceive 40 conscious moments per second. In other words: our eyes see more than that but we’re only aware of 40. So if a frame rate hits or exceeds 40 fps, it looks to us like reality. Whereas if it’s significantly below that, like 24 fps or even 30 fps, there’s a separation, there’s a difference — and we know immediately that what we’re watching is not real.”
HIGH FRAME RATES AND THE UNCANNY VALLEY
“You’ve got guys like Cameron and Jackson saying, let’s make it more real because the more realistic, the better; the higher the definition, the more 3-D, the more this, the more that. They’re not taking into account what’s called The Uncanny Valley in psychology. The Uncanny Valley says that, statistically, if you map out a consumer’s reaction to something they’re seeing, if they’re seeing something artificial and it starts to approach something looking real, they begin to inherently psychologically reject it."
"Not every person perceives the Uncanny Valley, however. There are some people that just do not reject things that look too real, although the vast majority of people do experience that phenomenon. So you’re going to get some individuals who see it and go, This looks great! The problem is anecdotes are not evidence. You have to look at the public as a whole, and I think that’s what Jackson and Cameron are not doing."
FORWARD-MOVING HFR VS. TRADITIONAL FILM CONVENTIONS
“There are all sorts of conventions in film that are not found in reality. People talk to each other in ways that they don’t in reality. Things are lit in ways that they’re not lit in reality. The make-up, the hair, the props, everything is fake. If you stand on a film set and you watch the actors performing, you don’t for a second think that it’s real. There are acting conventions that we have chosen to accept."
“One thing a lot of people are saying about The Hobbit in 48 is that the acting is bad — well, the acting’s not bad, they’re simply acting with cinematic conventions but it’s such a high frame rate that the motion looks too real and you can see through the artifice of the acting.”
THE NECESSARY SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF — WHICH 48 FPS LACKS
“It’s psychological: we need suspension of disbelief, and suspension of disbelief comes from the lower frame rate. The lower frame rate allows our brains to say, Okay — I’m not perceiving 40 conscious moments per second anymore; I’m only perceiving 24, or 30, and therefore this is not real and I can accept the artificial conventions of the acting and the lighting and the props. It’s an inherent part of the way our brain perceives things. Twenty-four or 30 frames per second is an inherent part of the cinematic experience. It’s the way we accept cinema. It’s the way we suspend our disbelief.”
“Those high frame rates are great for reality television, and we accept them because we know these things are real. We’re always going to associate high frame rates with something that’s not acted, and our brains are always going to associate low frame rates with something that is not. It’s not a learned behavior; [Some say] you watch it long enough and you won’t associate it with cheap soap operas anymore. That’s nonsense. The science does not say that. It’s not learned behavior. It’s an inherent part of the way our brains see things.”
James Kerwin is currently in development on an adaptation of R.U.R. Find more about him at his website, and head here to read further on Dr. Stuart Hameroff's consciousness studies.
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Comments
I appreciate the general idea that James Kerwin is studying, but his premise is totally wrong: "The acting’s not bad, they’re simply acting with cinematic conventions but it’s such a high frame rate that the motion looks too real and you can see through the artifice of the acting."
I watched "The Hobbit" in the non-3D, 24fps conversion and the acting is still bad. It has nothing to do with the uncanny valley or fps - it's that the majority of the characters sleepwalk through their roles, and had no help from a lousy production: poor script, weak story structure, and overbearing music/visuals.
Elijah Wood looked bored and awkward. Thorin (Richard Armitage) comes across as a totally irreconcilable a**hole, and thus cartoonish (ditto for the overacted CG orc adversary that pursues him throughout the film). To further prove that it wasn't the framerate, Martin Freeman (Bilbo), in contrast, was mostly outstanding in his role. The voice acting for the trolls and goblin king was lousy.
The visuals don't look fake because of the frame rate, they're just poorly done. The majority of the sets were on a green screen, and it shows. The artificial "outdoor" lighting looks fake. The lighting of the gold-filled dwarf kingdom is far too bright for an underground cavern.
Finally, the imagery itself is overbearing, along with the music. The music often plays way too loud (in volume) with orchestration that is far too dense rather than subtle. The reveal of Galadriel is a great example as she turns slowly against an obvious greenscreened background, with excessively sweeping music, her over-done giant flowing dress (must be hard to walk) and a crescent moon behind her. Ok, we get it. This is supposed to be magical. Enough already.
And no matter what fps you watch the movie in, a Donkey Kong Country chase on falling platforms through a cave with absolutely no consequences related to the laws of physics and bodily injury will ALWAYS look fake.
48 fps was the least of The Hobbit's problems unfortunately 🙁
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i dont think he was reviewing the film.. but explaining why many people did not like the look of the high frame rate.
Clearly the author has never been to live theatre. Of course people can adapt to 48fps and theatrical conventions!
Why was 24fps settled on in the first place? and 1.37:1?
Kerwin's right, but for the wrong reasons. Thing is, mechanical projectors don't actually do 24fps. They use a Geneva drive, Maltese Cross or butterfly stepper which exposes each frame at least at twice, plus the equivalent of two black frames. At 24 fps, the brain is receiving 72 impressions - 36 of which convey information - very close to the gamma rate, and probably the reason for the "magical" film effect perceived by at least some viewers.
It was settled on as the cheapest minimum frame rate that looked good enough, due to the high cost of film.
Not sure why the original aspect ratio was chosen, but wider ratios (and original 3D) were all introduced to separate the cinema experience from watching television.
"We’re always going to associate high frame rates with something that’s not acted, and our brains are always going to associate low frame rates with something that is not. It’s not a learned behavior"
I disagree. If this was true, there wouldn't be theatre, because people couldn't bear something that is not real, actually happening in front of their eyes. It's all about conventions, about what we are used to see. At a higher frame rate things may look more like real life but you still know you are in front of a screen. It's not like people believed it was real, it's just that we are used to see that on TV.
But we can get used to something different... life is in constant change and we get used to new things all the time... really, what does this guy mean?
Totally ridiculous comments re the 48 per second frame rate. Movies shot at 24 fps flicker, but we accept this convention because we're used to watching this relatively crude approximation of motion on the movie screen. What's wrong with the action on the screen flowing more smoothy? And guess what? James Cameron is planning on shooting features at 60 fps second. In the not too distant future it'll be coming to a theatre near you... get used to it.
If the crux of Kerwin's theory is that we can't be entertained because the film is too fast for our brains, I think that's bubkus.I'm admittedly no expert in perception, but I was always taught that if our brain receives more information than it can handle, it simply throws the extra away; if there are gaps in information, it tries to fill it in. The discomfort comes from lack of adaptation to the sensory input. Certain frequencies of sound are very disconcerting, but after prolonged exposure, silence is equally so. The brain simply adapts.
I'm not a fan of either Cameron's or Jackson's films--mostly because the stories, writing and acting rarely appeal to me--but I think they have the vision and money to push technology to its limits, so that it can eventually be put in the hands of scientists and artists who produce work that's worthwhile.
Film making has evolved significantly over the last century, and the entertainment value changes with it; only the best really holds up. So now the actors, set designers and technicians have to learn to catch up with the medium, then faster film will be the new normal.
Sorry, but I don't agree with this article at all. According to this, all video games running in 60 fps (and there are a lot of those) should overload our brains and make things less believable. However, the opposite is fact. All video games that run in 60 full images per second are better to control, show more detail in movement and enhance the overall experience. I had the same feeling when I saw the Hobbit movie in 3D / HFR. It took me less than 30 minutes to compeltely get used to the high frame rate and really enjoy it. Yes, I enjoyed this, and not only I did. My wife (who has no idea about what HFR is) claimed that she really enjoyed the way the movie was presented, and that she pitys older movies for their lack of crispness and fluid movement. She even determined, that we won't get a 3D TV before HFR gets the standard, if it doesn't then we will not buy a 3D TV. Ever.
Actually, what he was saying is that at 48fps, the film becomes very real and lifelife and thus bumps into
the Uncanny Valley, and so our minds reject the images. You really can't compare video games to this. For one, video games don't yet approach the photo-realism of the CGI or shot images in a film and thus the Uncanny Valley is not as much of factor (Although games like Heavy Rain are coming closer to this). Secondly, games are an interactive experience and thus the higher framerate is justified and noticeable in games due to increased responsiveness when controlling the game.
Vivan los 24p..... fuera el sonido, viva el cine mudo.... que es eso de colores, arriba el blanco y negro.
So I guess the backlash and boredom against 3D is just people not "getting used to it/the future of film"... Sure. 3D always adds value to fllms, right? So 48fps, making things look fake and videogame-like adds even more value and attraction, yes? Wrong.
Being that the article is based on scientific experiment, you've got to come with counter expeirements. If i's being shown in labs, it's meaningless to have a different opinion. The real question is about the science. If it's accurate, there's not a lot you can do about it. I don't know th e science behind this article, but it does correspond - exactly to my own perceptions and thoughts on the matter.
To all the ones rejecting scientific experiments and probable facts on how the body/vision/perception works...
You can think that gravity will not apply to you as well but, if you jump off a high place, believe it or not, you will splat on the floor. Gravity applies to you no matter what.
Think about that for a second...
If the brain can't perceive more than 40 frames per second, then what difference could excess fps make? This article hasnt convinced me that it does make a difference, I think the fakeness of the hobbit was not an inevitable by-product of the technology.
Researchers believe humans see 66 frames per second? Citation needed. I've never heard of humans seeing in frames at all.
By Kerwin's theory, no one would ever go see live actors on the stage. The stage, the props, the acting is all obviously not real. By Kerwin, it is impossible to suspend disbelief while watching Shakespeare in the round, or watching The Stage Manager talking from a stepladder in a nearly propless rendition of "Our Town." Which is funny, because Kerwin is a stage director and little-known film director, not a scientist. His website give the vibe of a self-regarding BS artist.
Pulling in the cosmology of mathematical physicist Roger Penrose is reaching pretty far up your colon sphincter.
For fun, too, follow up that Hameroff link. Hameroff asks, referring to himself, "Isn’t this guy just an anesthesiologist who’s playing around with quantum mechanics and consciousness stuff as a strange sort of hobby? " I'd say yes, and that's he's also bloviating. Playing word games with misunderstood quantum mechanical concepts is not science; go solve Schroedinger's equation for a 3-dimensional potential well, and then see if you can solve human consciousness.
Anyway, a certain kind of brain wave has a frequency of 40 cycles per second. And from this, you can conclude---well, you can conclude jack squat. But that doesn't stop these bold pioneers of science. No, what they're doing is "SCIENCE!". No references, no reproducible results, no publications, just obfuscation to impress the masses.
The most important thing a scientist knows is how much he doesn't know. But then, I'm not a director, or an anesthesiologist.
Thanks for your thoughts, David! I'll keep the self-regarding BS artist thing in mind when updating my website. As for your theatre comments, I've already addressed that here.
As for Hameroff and "pulling in the cosmology of Penrose," apparently you aren't aware that Penrose and Hameroff are partners in the Orch-OR model of quantum mechanics, and that Penrose is the one who originally proposed Hameroff's quantum theory of consciousness. Apparently you also don't know that the Penrose-Hameroff model has been experimentally tested multiple times and their work has been published in peer-reviewed journals the world over. Or that I was invited by Dr. Hameroff to speak at his conference at UofAZ on this very issue.
First of all there is no experimental evidence of the Penrose-Hameroff model. There are theoretical models that estimates the decoherence time of the quantum states at brain temperature and it's substantial smaller than the time cycle that the Orch-OR requires. There are a lot of other legitimated problems that were pointed out and were addressed by Hameroff in a poor fashion (just throwing out whatever slightly plausible process could justify the discrepancies without presenting experimental evidence or theoretical calculation).
At the moment we don't even know if there are non-trivial quantum effects in biological systems (some photosynthetic systems and the magnetic orientation systems in birds seem promising and are being studied but we still don't have proof of this quantum effects).
Honestly, nowadays, wielding the "quantum conscience" argument outside the higly specialized fields that are trying to study it is just silly. More so knowing that it is usually overused for mysticism bullshit and pseudoscience claims.
Recent experiments re: the Penrose-Hameroff model look promising. Regardless, though, my argument is in no way dependent on the model being accurate, so I'm not sure why you and others insist on going off on this tangent.
If you're able to provide a cogent argument as to why the majority of audience members polled state that they prefer lower frame rates -- and have for decades -- then please do so. Otherwise, lumping this discussion in with "mysticism and pseudoscience" is, frankly, just cyberbullying.
A great article. I was very uneasy watching the hobbit in 48fps, and the comparison to the uncanny valley explained a lot to me regarding how it made me feel during the movie. I could not settle the entire movie, and felt I missed a lot of the emotion and depth into the plot because of it.
I am interested to go back again and see a 24fps version and see if it still looks cheap to me. I wonder if shooting in 48, and then dropping half the frames would really help? Because as I understand 24 captures a more natural motion blur, as if you were to wave your hand in front of your face, it naturally blurs, close to what a moving object would when shot in 24fps.
Yeah it made me feel a little bit uneasy too for a little while and then got used to it. This guy describes it as the 'Soap opera affect' where its all a little bit too clear and you can see faults http://bit.ly/10AzcIu
The article says you cannot get used to it but you can. I have one of those crazy TVs with the motion correction thing and I also saw the Hobbit in 48 FPS. Long story short, did everything look freaky and fake when I first got the TV? YES. But after watching my TV for 2 months, I don't notice it--it just looks clearer and more real. I've regained my ability to suspend my disbelief. When I saw the Hobbit, I did notice what was freaky before (limbs and people look like they are moving faster than they should) but not to the extent as when I first got my TV and only in hurried action shots (read: the beginning). Additionally, the "fast limbs" on my TV were not as choppy, obviously because of the additional frames. (One thing I must mention that looked absolutely stunning in 48 FPS were the slow-mo scenes.)
No one of my friends seems to believe me but it REALLY IS just a matter of getting used to it.
I also love that this is the "science" of HFS yet I don't see a single primary literature citation. (I work in evo bio.) 😛
What are you watching on your tv that was shot and broadcast in 48 fps?
All this proves is that you are one of the people who are able to "get used to it." That's anecdotal; and as a person who works in evo bio, you know that anecdotes are not evidence.
As I've said before on here: If you can provide a cogent argument as to why the majority of people polled state that they prefer lower frame rates -- and have for decades -- then please do so. Otherwise you're simply just stating your opinion that "it looks good," which is meaningless beyond you personally.
"The visuals don't look fake because of the frame rate, they're just poorly done. The majority of the sets were on a green screen, and it shows. The artificial "outdoor" lighting looks fake. The lighting of the gold-filled dwarf kingdom is far too bright for an underground cavern."
True//but it It all looks even more fake because of the Frame Rate!
And Avatar? it looks like a video game in anything other than 3d. Lame. Bad Cameron.
I personally hate it. I prefer the dreamy atmosphere of 24. 48? gag. Sorry, I don't go to movies for "reality".
Still, nothing messes up 3D like subtitles!
dude. the film is called "the hobbit." (if you can't suspend disbelief, you are a psychopath). the film looked bad because it was poorly written. if we had been properly drawn into the characters (and thus, the plight of their world), we would all be singing the praises of the film - instead of pondering the frame rate. enough with the psychobabble.
Theatre vs 48 fps doesn't wash.
A) "Theatre" acting is significantly different than "film acting". Theatre acting needs to be "big, grandiouse, projecting to the back of the theatre aka Theatrical" while film acting is generally subtler, more like the cadence (if the not actual dialogue) of "real life". It seems more "naturalistic".
B) A play is viewed "live" so the brain perceives it as life, there's no "brain/image overload" involved...48 fps doesn't look like film nor does it look like "reality". Its just looks flat and fake (while the exteriors fare OK, EVERY built set looked like a cheap paper mache build to the unforgiving "unblinking eye of 48FPS".
C) Maybe its just not the frame rate. Showscan (a 60FPS, 65 millimeter film capture/projection format) is incredibly sharp but still looks like film. "Hobbit" looks "electronic" (the claim it looks and is lit like a really really sharp, flatly lit soap opera).
I thought it looked just fine - I'm guessing that a lot of people have poor visual cognition and that is what is causing them to have a whine about it. Sorry for you guys, perhaps you should try finding a cinema that shows films in poor quality to match your capacity.
Not 'poor visual cognition', just a passion for storytelling through the visual medium. This 'Hobbit' is a more like an expensive science project. According to many of the people here, a perfectly focused image from corner to corner would be best, at like 2 millions frames per second.
Cinema is not about technological perfection, in fact, that thinking will continue to strip away all that's genuine about what it actually is, an emotional experience.
As a fan of the LOTR series, I enjoyed this film. I drove an hour away to watch it as it was filmed in HFR IMAX 3D. I had two friends, both of whom wear glasses, and both of whom were VERY upset that this was in 3D. They both hate 3D due to the headaches they get. They gave it a chance and were pleasantly surprised. It didn't give them a headache nor did it make any of us nauseous. I personally thought it was the best looking film I have ever seen in theaters. Some people will love it while others will hate it. But I hope that more theaters become equipped to handle HFR so that I don't have to drive an hour away and I hope that more movies are filmed this way.
It is like seeing a high def tv for the first time. Where everything looks weird and super clear. Which I hated at first. You get used to it and once you do, you hate to go back.
Sure, it may look GREAT and SUPER CLEAR, but it's bad film making. It's not good photography for storytelling. It should be down the science museum for 3D trip on the Space Shuttle or Deep Sea Dive or whatever. But it's bad, bad, bad for storytelling. When I'm supposed to be immersed in the story, I'm busy saying to myself, Wow, I can see each strand of hair, and look at the water dripping in the corner of the frame, etc. etc. Bad choice on the part of Peter to make a prequel so vastly different to what follows - the beautiful The Lord of the Rings adventure.
Just my opinion, though.
People will complain about any and every thing. They cry for realism then cry cause it is too real. But then cry cause something looks fake. Then cry cause there is film grain. Then cry cause there is no film grain. Then cry cause something is too dark or bright or colorful or not colorful enough. Just shut up and watch the damn movie. All of you analytic, over thinking, pretentious bastards can suck it. You are complaining just for the sake of complaining. Go somewhere else.
what are you complaining for? And why are you even commenting on this article; an 'analytic' discourse about the technology? It seems you're in the wrong place - not all the 'pretentious bastards' here. They're on topic.
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