There has been much debate over the upcoming film, The Hobbit and the 48 FPS rate that Peter Jackson shot it in. When it screened at Cinema Con there was a very lukewarm response, and accordingly, Warner Bros. announced that the format will only be available at a limited number of theaters. They have yet to announce where those theaters will be, but have already said that it might not be available in all major cities. This sucks for a lot of people that want to see it in the format it was intended, won't be able to. I feel like really this means that studios and exhibitors will now be testing out the audience response before making any huge upgrades to their equipment; especially as it costs about $10,000 to upgrade the software in a projector in order to allow the film to play at that frame rate.
Given this expense, I feared that tickets for the 48 FPS would climb even higher than the already enormous cost for a 3D ticket. However, it was announced that thankfully they will be the same.
I am curious to see what upgrades the new frame rate will make to the 3D experience. As of right now, I am not a huge fan of the 3D format, but I am ready to be wowed by Mr. Jackson and hope that I am.
I wonder if the IMAX version will be at 48fps because that's the version I'm hoping to see.
Also, it's Warner Bros. not Universal.
I wonder how they'll handle the down-conversion from 48 to 24fps.
Because the 48fps footage wouldn't have the blurred frames that 24fps footage needs to convey smooth motion, will they have to add that in?
@zoozilla: The footage will look really good at 24. It'll still have that blur but it won't be as pronounced as a normal movie would look when shot at 24. Generally, the trailer gives a good indication how it'll look.
If I can find it in 48, that's how I'll watch it.
You probably won't be able to notice the difference unless you were watching the two versions simultaneously.
I just can't wait for The Hobbit, i've had a long standing passion with LOTR's since 1978. I was literally in tears when the start of Fellowship began. so, regardless of frame rate, i just want to see what Jackson can deliver
@zoozilla said:
They're shooting in 48. There's no intentional blurring to convey smooth motion, the image will just look naturally smoother. It's the same affect as when you play a game at 21 fps and the turn the settings down and then get 60 fps, it just naturally looks smoother. The 48 to 24 isn't really a conversion, it's just ripping out half the frames. As a result it won't look as smooth, you can't artificially mess with that to make it smooth. So in the end it really isn't that big of a deal. The big issue is that a 48 fps Imax film roll is going to be one of the biggest rolls of film ever issued in the history of film because it has double the frames of a normal film it's length. And it'll be really expensive so they wont make as much of a profit than usual probably.
I haven't really read the production stuff yet though so it could be crazy.
im curious as to what 48fps looks like so ill try to find a theatre playing it that way.