Are Movies 24 Frames Per Second to Slow in the modern world.

Furp

This is something I have been thinking about for a while and I thought I would just throw it out here for discussion.

Does anyone think that the frame rate of movies is too slow in the modern world, currently films are at 24 frames per second, now increasing this would have huge costs especially for effects work but apart from all that what would be like to watch a film at 30FPS or 50FPS.

The reason I bring this up is that increasingly I have noticed while watching films in the cinema especially on large screens like Ster Century's "Big Fella" is that sometimes on wide panning shots left to right or the other way that the picture can look jerky especially if its something like panning into a city street while dolling from above slowly but with large movements i.e. a building moving across the frame a second or two.

Is it just me or has anyone else seen this, the reason I think I am noticing this more is the large screen but also that I work on a computer a lot with a high refresh rate and I also play games on my home PC which can be running a game anywhere from 30fps to 80fps, also on the Games consoles most games run at either 30fps or 60 fps.

Have I adjusted to the higher frame updates that the PC and Consoles use and now 24FPS looks jerky, or is it a fault on the production of the film i.e. shutter speed to high giving too sharp of a picture and not enough motion blur to lead each frame into the next without jerkiness.

Matt Simis

A complicated topic, but you should be aware that film footage naturally blurs, so the transition from frame to frame looks much smoother (though less detailed) than what your PC can produce at the same FPS.

Also, I was under the impression the larger the screen, the lower the FPS can be (as you cannot see the same amount of the image as a smaller screen).
It probably wouldnt cost much from an effects POV, but the projection equipment is dedicated to a single function and is unlikely to be able to accomodate such changes.

You can watch films in 30fps now BTW, from R1 DVDs.



Matt

Raoul Duke

Also the new 100Hrz tvs show 50 fps.

Even though your console can do 60fps your tv (if an ordinary one) can't show all those frames. Just 25 fps as their refresh rate is 50Hrz.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the frame rate of movies is too slow in the modern world". My grandfather's eyes were the same as mine. If you mean that we should expect more from a technologically advanced culture, then maybe you're right. Maybe the upcoming digital age in movies will speed up the frame rate. I'm not bothered as I've never really noticed this jerkiness.

mycroft

Okay first to clarify, film in the cinema runs at 24fps PAL tv 25fps NTSC tv 29.9fps.

Now firstly the camera in your game is a virtual camera, the camera used in the film has to deal with the annoyance of cracked pavements, uneven surfaces.

I have worked on some commericals where the director shot at 50fps a second , and we motion affected the film back down to 25fps it gives the footage a more fluid feel, hyper real.

Now thats fine for a commerical, but if you consider the average feature film will shoot 10,000 feet of film a day, and at the end of the production they'll have shot approx 250,000 feet of film, you're essentially suggesting they double the budget for what is arguably one of the biggest outlays for the production, because of the odd uneven track, its not really pratical.