What are everyone's thoughts on the use of higher frame rates on The Hobbit and possibly other feature films?
Personally I'm open to it, but it has to be really really good, decided by the director for personal taste, and not just for the sake of advancing technology.
I love the look of 24 fps, it just looks right to me as someone who loves movies. I associate the look of higher frame rates with soap operas (though some have changed to 24fps now), and HDTVs with motion smoothing turned on. I know that isn't a fair comparison and they aren't the same thing, but I imagine the reaction from anyone who is confused when seeing The Hobbit will be very similar.
A movie can have amazing performances, lighting, framing, music, etc., but if all of it looks like what I associate with the previous examples, I don't think I'll be able to get over that feeling without having the format forced onto me. It could be that I have experience with film and video production, and I'm so used to things looking a certain way that I don't want my favorite form of the medium (movies) to start looking like everything else on TV and the internet. Either way the verdict will come in on the 14th when the Hobbit comes out and we start seeing the general public's reaction to it.
I'm all for it being used as a personal choice for a director, but the proprietary branding of it as "High Frame Rate" added to Peter Jackson and James Cameron's statements about wanting to make it the new standard for movies pushes me towards an outright rejection of it as a defense mechanism. I'm not even that confrontational of a person, but the implication of this changing for mainly money-making reasons and to make 3D look better rubs me in all the wrong ways.
Thoughts?
