Let's be honest, in the past when live & videotaped drama was the norm on TV, I doubt anyone at the time thought it looked "cheap" or there was anything wrong with it. It's only been since film, and sticking the film effect on video has took over that this perception that it's "cheap" has emerged. When it was normal and the standard, nobody thought anything of it.
It always looked cheap, anyways videotaped tv drama tended to be filmed on film... transferred to video for a better look.
Its why we have high definition transfers of shows like startrek the original series. There was a period where some dramas were shot on tape and those look terrible forever.
We need to get away from this idea that video and higer framerates are "cheap" and "tacky", becuase they're not. It's all a matter of conditioning and perception of what we've come to expect over the years. Basically, people think "low framerates= big budget TV and cinema. high framerates= low budget TV", and it's an assosiation that needs to be broken. Let high frame rates become standard, and in a few decades time the idea that the "film look" is better and high framerates are "cheap" will seem as ridiciulous as the ideas of the past that sound and colour would destroy cinema.
Some people are just stuck in the past, resistant to change. Heck, you only have to look at the crap that's spouted about 24fps. The amount of people who are insistent that it's "the best" and was chosen because it looked "best" just proves people don't have a clue (24fps exists because it's the bare minimum they could get away with for sound in 1927, and therefore cost the least- nothing to do with it "looking better" or a "dreamlike state" or whatever other crap people spout), [...]The sooner both TV and movies get out of this mentality and sentimentality, the better.
People keep saying the goal of media is to represent reality, not really, all films are colour graded, the palette is altered for artistic style, it isn't real at all. In fact the entire image is not real, real vision is not all in focus the same way a film image is. So artificial "improvement" in some ways can simply be off putting and not cinematic at all. "Realistic" video/camcorder lighting is not more real, it just looks cheap as michael mann has shown so clearly. People do expect a heightened reality in film, not reality.
Just take a look again.. http://host.trivialbeing.org/galleries/tdk-dec17-trailer-screenshots-high-res/snapshot20071217191644.jpg http://www.nolanfans.com/images/galleries/thedarkknight/7big.jpg
That is not real colour. It is an artistic choice.
Directors choose what is in focus, what is not in focus, what lens to use to exploit certain distortions and the rest, it is not about making reality.
I think these two arguments can and should be squared.
I'm sure that what James2001 says about the association between low frames rates and a sense of 'quality', and high framerates 'cheapness', being a historical and culturally learned quirk is true. But this actually fits with pocatello's point about film producing a heightened reality. This has always been true, from the size of the screen to all the other things he/she points out.
My point is that the move to sharper or clearer motion rendition does not move film closer to reality any more than, as James2001 says, the move to sound or colour does. From the reports of that demo I've read, people come out talking about how it's realler than real. Precisely. What is captured by the steady gaze of the high framerate camera no more reproduces actual human vision, with its saccades and the rest, than any previous process. It just, apparently, produces an even more hyperreal experience. And that's before you get to colour grading or the other directorial/human choices, of course.
While I do see that there are many close associations between dreams and cinema, I don't think people dream in 24 fps, and I'm very keen to see what this new process will do to enhance our larger than life cinematic future!
I agree with him that film style news reports are irritating though. The directors should get a job that suits them rather than pretending to be something they aren't.
I decided to screen the “Hobbit” reel at Comic-Con in 2-D and 24 frames per second, so the focus stays firmly with the content and not the technical stuff. If people want 3-D and 48fps, that choice will be there for them in December.
Hmm. Wonder if 24fps and 48fps will be evenly distributed/promoted?
Comments
Its why we have high definition transfers of shows like startrek the original series. There was a period where some dramas were shot on tape and those look terrible forever.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/29/difference-hobbit-news-not-much
I think these two arguments can and should be squared.
I'm sure that what James2001 says about the association between low frames rates and a sense of 'quality', and high framerates 'cheapness', being a historical and culturally learned quirk is true. But this actually fits with pocatello's point about film producing a heightened reality. This has always been true, from the size of the screen to all the other things he/she points out.
My point is that the move to sharper or clearer motion rendition does not move film closer to reality any more than, as James2001 says, the move to sound or colour does. From the reports of that demo I've read, people come out talking about how it's realler than real. Precisely. What is captured by the steady gaze of the high framerate camera no more reproduces actual human vision, with its saccades and the rest, than any previous process. It just, apparently, produces an even more hyperreal experience. And that's before you get to colour grading or the other directorial/human choices, of course.
While I do see that there are many close associations between dreams and cinema, I don't think people dream in 24 fps, and I'm very keen to see what this new process will do to enhance our larger than life cinematic future!
He'll catch up...
I agree with him that film style news reports are irritating though. The directors should get a job that suits them rather than pretending to be something they aren't.
http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2012/07/11/the-hobbit-at-comic-con-peter-jacksons-san-diego-plan/
Hmm. Wonder if 24fps and 48fps will be evenly distributed/promoted?
seems not,i suspect we will be lucky to have a handful of cinemas in the UK showing it in 48fps which is real shame