After hearing your argument about being conditioned to 24 fps, I've noticed that I do not feel the same way and I realized why. During my teen years my dominant medias were not movies, but video games and anime, which reside on opposite sides of FPS spectrum. Games want to be 60+ and nowadays even 120+, but your output depends on your hardware, no guarantees of constant framerate here. At the same time anime varies from scene to scene in approximately 3 to 20 fps range. This is constraint of hand-drawing images instead of just shooting with a camera, and at the same time it's an actual tool at director's disposal to distinguish between static dialog and super climactic action scene. So I pretty much grew in variable framerate environment, haven't developed any attachment to cinematic 24 fps and actually fine with whatever is thrown at me by the authors.
in gaming high fps is important because with slow fps means that you could miss that one important bullet shot of the enemy. higher fps player always has the upper hand than the slow fps player.
Something being "cinematic" is all about controlling and motivating the image. Not enough people understand this. A shot is not magically cinematic because you shot it at 120FPS and slowed it down
This point cannot be stressed enough. Movies just dont need 60fps, 24 is what brings out the feel in it. A feeling of perspective, a feeling of storytelling. You've explained it quite well. 👌 . Although you've got the cinemascope aspect ratio all wrong. It's not cropping from 16:9, it's extended width from 16:9. Not witholding information, but a wider, grander view. Some filmmakers nowadays do that, but it just looks so wrong when it's cropped.
You made a good point - "departing from that feels like a new language", and this is pretty much sums up all things "wrong" with 60/120fps, people who tried to shoot in those framerates treated like it was 24fps, without taking into consideration that you'll need, basically, to invent a new type of cinema language - camera movements, editing, acting plastic etc etc. Higher framerates (probably) can work in cinema, but it shouldn't be treated like it's usual 24fps (maybe combining two types of framerates for different sequences of the movie, like another planet environment, thus creating an eerie feeling of something drastically different, unnatural even).
That I have noticed myself when I was in the theatre watching the first Hobbit. When they where in the caves for the first time, I kinda gell out of the story and thought "hey, I am in the theatre and I looks like a Discovery Channel". Though that was just a moment, I did reimerse then. Back in the day they said the same about color movies -- these look too real, that kills the cinematic effect. And it was true. Look where we are now: black and white movie is just a special case of color balancing special effects. How much more opportunities of artistic expression the color gives. Every technological advance does, actually. The more movies are shot with high frame rate the less the mentioned effect of cinematic picture will work. In 20 years new generation will be having hard time watching old movies because these are so blurry and motion is uneven. And that is kinda right thing.
@@brunogm In my opinion it's the fact that to maintain the 180 shutter angle at 48 fps they have to change the shutter speed to 96 instead of the 48 that we are used to
I dont think so at all. 48 fps and 60 fps looks absolutely garbage from any aesthetic point of view, and any top level artist will most likely agree with that.
@@mikeseager8768 Oh, sure. The picture has to be blurry, shaky and noisy to meet the top artistic requirements. That is only way The Art can be done, right? I would really like to see some confirmation of all "top level artists" sharing your highly controversial opinion.
Gemini man in 4K is one of the clearest, if not THE movie I’ve seen. Even it’s not that great of a film. Billie Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk also has an incredible combat scene.
@@DelcoAirsoft Gemini man looks like shit and the only action scene I've seen of Billie Lynn has terrible vfx in it, probably due to some of the budget going to working on and rendering more frames
i always explained it this way; when you are watching a movie, video, or tv you are just a passenger going along for the ride, everything is slower because you dont care about every main details and see the scenery as a whole while it writes itself. however in games, you are the driver and you are the one in control of the car, every movement of your hands and feets directly influences the narrative to your own story, and focusing on other cars, obstacles are your main priority that you need to solve
We've had this discussion about "Into the Spiderverse," and the creative decision to not only limit the frame-rate of a computer-animated movie that can run at any frame rate the creators want... down to 24 fps, but to also put some character animations on twos, at 12 fps, to highlight or exaggerate certain motions.Exaggerated even more because they've consciously avoided using motion blur. Instead reverting to higher frame rates for key actions that might induce motion blur. Gives a very exaggerated comic book feel, and every single frame feels like a key frame, as they've done it this way.
Literally the worst decision ever. Didn't know this was what they did until a friend told me after but I could tell the animation at times was really choppy and had low fps. It really ruined the experience for me. The whole it imitates a comic book and or it was to show character growth since he get 60fps near the end of the film is dumb af. First off you're story and character development should show character growth not your fucking fps. Second, and more important is that in high-quality 2d animation they get away with lower fps like that because they have the ability to completely morph the character into abstract shapes during quick motions that make it look really smooth in real time. But If you freeze frame at various areas you'll see a fast moving hand or body might actually be a smear across the screen. Into the spider verse doesn't have this ability due to it's 3d nature so it just looks jaring and like a low budget anime or cartoon not to mention the mixture of fps show can literally hurt your eyes. It is the only film to date that I've had that experience. Furthermore when it comes to really high quality 2d scenes they are sometime done in full 24fps and they look fucking gorgeous. There is literally no good reason for it beyond the creators wanting to feel like they did something new and passing off objectively bad practice as a bonus reason to enjoy the film. Overall great film otherwise but i would pay good money for a fully 30-60fps version.
@@mattecrystal6403 Dude what?? They didn't increase the fps as the movie went on and the reason they did the lower fps for the characters and certain objects is because that's how 2d animations are a lot of the time. the comic book feel is the 3d art mixed into the 2d animation style of the characters.
@@paition No they did increase fps over time to simulate miles changing from clumsy and inexperienced to professional and experienced. They also made other characters like normal spider man at 30 or 60fps. I think I did a decent explanation in my last comment regarding why mimicking 2d animation was not a good excuse but I'll try to state it again in more detail as well as touch on some other aspects I left out. 1. First off you could say it's mimicking 2d animation but if you do then it's mimicking low quality 2d animation. This is largely due to a lack of actual animation techniques used in 2d animation to make a lower fps like 12fps seems smooth. For example, in lots of 2d animation will completely morph and stretch fast moving body parts to simulate speed. This creates the Illusion of smooth yet fast moving animation. Into the spiderverese completely lacks this. 2. 2d animation is also able to pass off choppier animation in general because it has far far less detail then real life or 3d animation and is also far more abstract in it's presentation of characters and objects. This causes our brains to fill in a lot of extra information which helps make animation at lower fps look a lot more natural. Into the spiderverse being a detailed 3d film doesn't have this luxury. 3. Finally, while it's true much 2d animation often uses 12fps this is purely a limitation of the medium due to the extreme amount of work required to produce 24fps content. Despite this it's not uncommon to see big budget scenes in 2d animation actually draw all 24 frames. These scenes tend to be highly fluid and detailed and are easily the most hype moments. If a 2d movie or show could be made at full 24fps in it's entirely it would do nothing but benefit the end product drastically. There are a few 2d shows and movies that maintain a higher overall average fps and they benefit greatly from it. (these shows also tend to make really great use of the morph/smearing effect I mentioned earlier) When it comes to 3d like into the spiderverse there is no such limitation preventing 24fps or more hence there is no good reasosn to render at 12 fps. TLDR: Into the spiderverse doesn't take into account any of techniques used in 2d animation to pull off looking good at lower fps. Nor does it consider the inherit properties of 2d animation which naturally make lower fps scenes look more fluid. And in the same vein how the inherit detail of 3d animation causes lower fps to look worse. All of this stems from the idea that making inexperienced chracter's render at a lower fps would be a good idea. Well it's just not. Let you're actual story and character actions portray that not your fps. It's not like lowering the fps actually changes the base moment of the character. It's the same except you feel like your looking at a slide show. Can u imagine if real life worked that way. You suck at skateboarding so you're life literally displays at 2fps meanwhile tony hawk displays at 60fps because he's a pro? The entire concept is just dumb. It's a neat little idea, but never should of actually been put into practice and the end result is undesirable.
@@paition watch any analysis of the film. Miles' animation frame rate changes as he gets better. It's meant to highlight biggie clumsy and awkward he is before he grows into the role. Gwen is always animated at a higher rate in action shots to emphasize the fluidity of her movement. It's incredibly obvious in the forest scene.
A different message with each choice of frame rate, lens, intensity of light, etc. What a great message in this video! My understanding of these languages is what separates my work from my local competitors. They're sending all kinds of messages unintended. Intention and choice....look, I just really love this video. Great freakin work my dude!
Great video. I’ve been trying to figure out what car videos are being shot on for a long time. When I try to replicate these shots my images always look blurred. I thought they were using a faster shutter speed but do you think it’s just a higher frame rate? The car always look super sharp.
@@LaurenceJanus I wasn't talking about car commercials. I was talking about automotive youtubers such as petroliceuous and Carfection. I just want to be able to film cars and keep them sharp in the video.
Honestly, this is a great video and a perfect explanation on the differences between 24fps vs higher frame rates when it comes to movies. I've always said that 24 fps is cinematic: higher frame rates are fine but--hot take--they're not cinematic. It's always amused me to watch all these channels on here giving tips on "shooting cinematic video!" that are shot at 60fps or 24fps but at crazy high shutter speeds (that just end up making it look like video). As you articulate here, we've built an entire cinematic language on 24fps and higher frame rates just rob cinema of its magic. You can see the make up on the actors faces; you can clearly spot the stunt doubles; the costuming, art direction and VFX look shitty and, ironically, more artificial. And I don't understand people's antipathy toward motion blur. To me, it's another texture like film grain or lens flares. I don't look at a painting and go, "well, this would be better if I couldn't see the strokes of the paint brush"--no, that's *part* of the painting. I'm kind of against this push toward making everything "technically perfect." Like, yeah, super sharp lenses are cool but they're also clinical and soulless.
@Impersonal Brand: "And I don't understand people's antipathy toward motion blur. " Maybe lots of modern videographers (like me) come from photography and dived into video because cameras have that option now. (EDIT: I dreamed about a movie camera since the mid 1980s but they were too expensive for my wallet :) I do my youtube videos in 24p because it reduces the data rate and is good for some explanatory video (about energy, sorry, only in german up to now). I am absolutely stunned how sharp these videos are if looked as a video and how "bad" motion blur is if I look to single frames. I think our eye-brain system is trained to get "sharpness" from stopped motion between waving arms etc. but 180° shutter angle helps to make motion really flow so motions are absolutely realistic in video. About your remark about lenses: I have all my old FD lenses if I will ever make a large movie because they have character and really nice flares due to their single layer coatings - funny thing is that you can buy really expensive lens series with single coating brand new.
literally explains nothing. The core of the argument is 24 fps has more motion blur. You can literally set 60fps to have the same or more motion blur. In terms of quality' being able to see details that you can't see on 24fps like makup, stunt doubles, art, etc. Like wtf, none of that it tied to fps, it's tied to resolution. Furthermore, even if being able to see this detail was an issue then you literally could just lower the quality in post and still keep the higher fps.
@@mattecrystal6403 higher FPS is, literally, higher motion resolution. At equivalent shutter angles, 60FPS will have twice as much angular resolution as 30FPS - i.e. you'll be able to resolve elements that are half as large in angular size.
I feel that this is all due to what we are used to. To me there is no "cinematic" way if doing things. We only used 24 fps because of not only technological limitations but monetary ones to, back then. I think we should allow ourselves to experience different forms of viewing cinematic art. To me 24 fps can be a very boring experience. I like variety. Someone mentioned anime in the comments, ands that is very true. It is so varied that it keeps me engaged personally. However, I do understand your view, and I respect it. 😁
We still use 24 fps in movie because we are used to. Early movies were 16 ~ 18 fps because that's the lowest amount film stock usage with a special 3 blade shutter in projectors to create fast enough flashes (flash 3 times per frame) that human eyes can't detect. When the sound era came, sound was printed on the film like tapes. 18 fps was not fast enough for high sound fidelity, so the framerate needed to be faster. The number 24 was chosen because it's easy for editing. 24 can be divided by 2,3,4,6,8,12. 23.98, or 23.876 to be exact (this is the exact number), is more common today because when NTSC standard was developed, chromas signal was added to the pre-existing black and white standard, and it need to be slowed 1% in order to separate from the audio signal. So now we have the strange number like 23.976, 29.97, 29.94, 119,88. Frame rate standard was set always because of cost and technical limitations. Those limitations are way way smaller today. I hope you could do some research before making a video.
I watched Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk and Gemini Man in cinema in 4k120fps hdr format. The viewing experience was phenomena. It's not like any movie. I feel like it's stage play with 20 ft tall faces. I think Billy Lynn's was the right way to use the 120 fps, to recreate subtle performance of the actors.
And motion blur. We all know that people usually use 90 degree or even smaller shutter angle to shot a very intense fight scene. Filmmakers already knew the motion blur of 24fps 180 degree shutter angle is too much.
You are exactly correct. In interlaced video the equivalent of a film frame is a video field. A video "frame" has no existence outside of storage and editing. That is, no interlaced camera ever captures and one ever sees an interlaced video "frame." When you watch interlaced video on a modern display you're seeing a sequence of 50 or 59.94 images per second, each using line-doubling or interpolation to fill in what would be gaps. Cameras likewise pair pixel rows to create scan lines. (The only difference between successive fields is the whether the scan lines / pixel rows are paired (in capture) or duplicated/interpolated (in display) upward or downward. If there were gaps we'd see glaring artifacts in the form of bright horizontal bits of detail that flash off and on at 25 or 29.97 times per second, well below the frequency of our vision's flicker fusion. Even in the old black-and-white days of image orthicon tubes, the scanning spot was shaped vertically to avoid gaps.) Of course, unless you're shooting for broadcast you should not be shooting interlaced at all, and you should not be shooting at 23.976, 29.97, or 59,94 since that's really pointless. Those archaic rates are an artifact of the introduction of the chroma subcarrier by the NTSC in the 1950s and the need to shift the field rate slower by 1000/1001 in order to avoid a problem you can look up if you care (and there's no reason you should).
@@DGaryGrady I agree that most people shouldn't shoot/edit/finish in interlaced. However, 23.98/29.97/59.94 aren't obsolete as most people don't have cameras that can even shoot at 24.00/30.00/60.0 fps. The 1‰ difference isn't noticeable, just choose the proper setting in your editing software. The only time that these small differences in field/frame rates matter is for older video game capture. eg. ~60.05 Hz or ~59.83 Hz.
@@Crlarl That's a good point. What I was really trying to say is that there's no point in preferring 23.976, 29.97, or 59.94 over 24, 30, or 60 unless one is producing for broadcast. But of course you're right that it's not a bad thing either, and obviously if your camera won't do 24 fps, shooting at 23.976 is fine. For that matter, movies shot at 24 fps are routinely viewed on televisions at 25 fps in PAL/SECAM countries with no problem. (There are potential sync problems when recording video and audio separately, but that's in practice something every NLE I know of can deal with pretty easily.) Also, for what it's worth, cameras able to shoot at 24.00 fps are now pretty common at least at the prosumer level and higher, including e.g. the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera (which also does 30.00 and 60.00), most Canons, the Panasonic GH5 and close relatives, Z Cam, etc.
@@DGaryGrady That makes more sense. Integer rates should be preferred in many cases. Most consumer cameras (action, camcorder, point & shoot, low to mid DSLR/mirrorless) don't have 24.00/30.00/60.0 fps. There are exceptions but they are usually reserved to professional cameras and higher end DSLRs and mirrorless. The Panasonic GH-series are higher-end in my opinion.
Frame rates also impacts exposure if you maintain the same shutter angle. Shooting at 120 fps will require 5 times the light as shooting at 24 fps. Back when the standard was developed, I’m quite certain film wasn’t nearly as fast as the digital sensors we have today.
I think it depends on the kind of content that you make, even documentaries or UA-cam videos. As an example, my channel is primarily about aquarium fish. 90+% of the time, I’m not going to want any motion blur. This is why I usually opt for a slightly higher frame rate (30 and 60).
Oh wow, I really like your Cinematic Visual Language concept, makes total sense, love the video, so informative, and easy to follow, all the best, and stay strong!
Dude I hope this is a "shot heard around the world" so-to-speak. The advise you gave back in the day to shoot base framerate more often has done wonders for my cinemetography. Nothing feels like filler content anymore and it helps my shooting and editing workflow so much. More intentional, more organic, and more beautiful as a result. Thank you!
Nice video. Unless you plan to deliver to broadcast, there is no reason to use 23.976P or 59.94P. 23.976 is technically the HMI flicker free frame rate at any shutter angle for the US standard 60Hz power. 23.976 was intended as a compromise for tape based systems no one shoots on anymore. With the 23.976 frame rate, a 180 degree shutter is technically not flicker free, though the flicker is not noticeable in most circumstances so everyone ignores this fact. But there are some situations and circumstances on set where the 23.976 might present a noticeable flicker where a hard 24P wouldn’t, but they’re sometimes hard to spot. Technically any program that’s primarily intended for on air broadcast in the US may still benefit from originating at 23.976. But pretty much any other platform - from Netflix to UA-cam, Hulu etc. actually is probably better off capturing at a true 24P frame rate since they are presented over the internet and not through the NTSC based broadcast system. A lot of Netflix and Amazon originals actually shoot at true 24P as well as a lot of movies intended for theatrical release. As with all movies shot on film, a true 24P program can be transferred to 23.976 for broadcast. A 23.976 program can also be transferred to true 24P - but that won’t erase its imperfections when it comes to HMI flicker.
I am new to this though I did take a class on film making in 1973 (used a super 8 camera and learned how to splice film). Now retiring from my engineering life, and want to get back to what I learned so long ago...thanks for the very clear explanation!
I remember in my gamer days being so mad anyone said 24fps looked filmic. It's funny how it is almost always gamers complaining about it. 24 is for sure my favorite now.
24 IS terrible for gaming... But games are not movies and morons should stop thinking they are the same thing. Movies should be shot at 24, games should be at 60+ minimum.
Yep. The biiiig difference is that in video games, you control the camera, and you want it to be as responsive as possible, else it breaks your suspension of disbelief. In film, you are looking through someone else's lens, which is a fundamentally different perspective.
Dude. You are a good teacher. I’m a teacher. I know good from bad. You take tools and yiu describr them so well and so clearly that even a newb can catch on. Thank you.
I think one could make the case that shooting at 24fps with a large shutter angle is cinematic not because it has lots of motion blur, but because it forces the cinematographer to shoot in ways that actually minimize motion blur. You must avoid fast pans, fast motion in general, and, move the camera around your subject maintaining a shallow depth of field to keep the background from smearing, and so forth. Our eyes may perceive motion at 60fps, but we can focus our attention on only one thing at a time, and shooting at 24fps with large shutter angle forces that same focus through the lens. On a side note. I've flown FPV aircraft for 20 years, and normal FPV video footage breaks pretty much all interframe digital compression. The whole flight is a continuous zoom, and when we turn we're creating fast pans. We use cameras with small sensors that have near infinite depth of field so we get high motion and high detail. But if you look at the way movies and TV are shot for digital broadcast, they have to be careful to avoid breaking the digital compression. Shallow depth of field when possible, switch angles instead of fast pans, zooms, and avoid high detail at fast motion, and so forth. Every so often you'll it fail on a reality TV show and the video goes to digital mush. YT is the same.. They simply don't dedicate enough bitrate to 1080p and below videos to show high detail and fast motion. That's why GoPro trailers for many years have been shot more cinematically, while PoV downhill bicycle videos generally look awful, unless they post at 1440p or 4K (even if shot at 1080p, always upscale).
Mark, thank you so much for putting this together. I'm a relatively new photographer (who loves video - but has NO experience). The combination of your clear basic discussion and side-by-side comparison was so helpful in "visualizing" the differences between Cinematic and Hyper-realism. Very well done and good luck with your course. I hope one day to benefit from that. Other than news and sports, what other areas could you see yourself using high frame rates (60 or above). Thanks again. Just loved your explanations.
Outside of motion blur, 24 fps is actually better for fiction, fighting or drama. When recording more than 60 fps we can easily notice punches not connecting with the oponnent, and in drama, the acting is more noticed as forced and faked, since we're getting more information. So more than 60fps should only be used if it's everything cgi, animated or trying to show real life.
what about 16fps? early motion pictures were shot at about 16fps. and they wanted to shoot at 8fps. they just could not figure how to shoot at 8fps progressively and shot at 16fps intermittently. now we have technology to shoot 8fps progressively and quality of sound is independed from fps. for some reason almost nobody shoots at 8fps.
@@l21n18 if you shoot with a cinema camera with a shutter angle of about 180 then still pictures become a movie at about 16fps for most people. 8 fps is enough for still pictures to become a movie if you shoot with a shutter angle of 360. at least that's how the industry experts thought in silent movie era. I can't confirm this as I can't find any video on youtube shot at 8fps with 360 shutter.
one thing that i think needs to be pointed out is higher frames automatically correlates to more "stressed" experience, whether that is attention-wise or mood-wise. That's because it has to do with how our eyes perceive things. Our eyes are not FIXED on one frame rate, per say... well it doesn't really work like frame rates in camera but let's just go with the comparison because it has to do with motion blur. The more attention u give to something the less blur u see in movements. You can try that like right now. Waive ur hand and then focus, you'll see "more" of your hand. Squint and relax your eyes a bit, you'll see more "shadows" of your hands. Lower frame rates lead to more disbelief and immersion, as Mark points out, exactly because of that. It's more relaxing. It's less "attention seeking". I guess in a way that justifies why some prefer higher frame rates. They are used to how much attention they pay at video games. Similar to how we like faster paced plot, more action scenes, more grandeur stage designs, people nowadays might just be more accustomed to the "more stressful" vibe higher frames rates bring to the theaters (at least more people than before). That's just my two cents in attempt to de-mystify the phenomenon/trend we see happening today. Feel free to disagree or add anything cuz if one thing is sure, there's no one answer to this whole discussion.
When gaming via a high refresh rate monitor (144hz), I do love me more fps...however...when I am filmmaking it is always 23.976, ALWAYS. for that cinematic feel. If its B-roll that we want to slow mo in post then 60 or 120 fps comes into play but rarely. Like someone doing something (for documentary sake) like getting ready for their day or contemplation moments within the doc that need to be slowed down. Otherwise 23fps all day! Cheers Mark!
You've finally put into words what I have been trying to say to people for years. Higher FPS is great for when I'm watching hockey but I hate it for watching movies. I will send people this video now when I'm trying to explain my view on the topic. Thanks!
the soap opera effect is annoying when watching a 'movie'. I remember the first hi def TV I bought, and I ran THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY on it with the thing maxed out and ultra refresh rates running and.... it looked like I was watching a MAKING OF documentary of THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY. It ruined everything.
I never really shoot in 120fps, but I used to shoot all my weddings in 24fps, but this year I switched to 30fps. I like the extra sharpness it gives the images, but eventually I'll probably switch...never satisfied 😁
Interlaced visuals can give the same effect as 59.94Hz. Each field can be and often is a different moment in time. So effectively you're viewing 60fps material. Broadcast TV is still usually 1080i so those news and sports are all 60fps, but being displayed in an interlaced signal. Some channels are still 720p 60 of course. LOL remember 720p? Anyway movies aren't cropped, or at least they shouldn't be, but instead actually wider. Theaters usually had scope be wider than flat with movable side masking. Many movies these days do crop especially when they try to sell IMAX as seeing more of the picture, which itself sometimes makes it look more video-y because of non-frame rate issues that are a different discussion altogether. Lastly 23.98, 29.97, and 59.94 all need to die already. NTSC is no longer relevant.
As Noot mentioned that probably has to do with telecine judder. Try it for yourself, take a game with realistic visuals, cap it at 24fps using RTSS, and just watch (don't move the camera, that'll ruin the effect). I guarantee you it'll be smoother than 90% of stuff you see on TV, because of consistent frame pacing.
The best quote I got out of this was the definition of cinematic: in cinematic style, we limit things, we limit the screen in aspect. Ratio, we limit the area of focus. That's great it's about storytelling. Thanks again, Mark.
I totally get, and love, the cinematic feel of 24fps. However I do find that 24fps isn’t smooth enough for some slow camera pans. Especially for 3D movies, you can start to see the individual frames on foreground elements and the experience gets somewhat ruined. (This is in the cinema I’m talking about, so it shouldn’t be a 24 into 60Hz problem) I also think that the action scenes in some movies become incomprehensible at 24. For example the shaky cam factory fight scene in Minority Report. At 60fps action is easier to follow, camera pans can look smoother and 3D holds up better. To me watching 60fps reminds me of being at the theatre, watching a live performance. No one complains that they can’t suspend their disbelief whilst watching Hamilton because they can tell it’s not real or that there isn’t enough motion blur in real life. As such I don’t quite get why high frame rate (HFR) is being derided so much. There are 5 movies I can think of (Including 3 Hobbit movies) which were released at HFR in the cinema, only one of which is available at 60fps on home media. So you can continue to watch every movie ever released on home media and feel good about 24fps. I’ll just keep watching my UHD Blu Ray of Gemini Man over and over. I don’t want every movie to be in HFR, I just want it to be available to filmmakers as a creative choice; or to have that option for more movies myself.
Great stuff and much respect to Mark!! However a bit narrow in scope as a lot of us don’t shoot ‘cinematic movies’! I do school corporate videos and stage plays and other fast moving scenes where 24p just doesn’t cut it especially when panning. Not enough frames and too juddery and choppy when transferred to UA-cam. And so I shoot 30p and edit on a 30p Timeline though for real-time. Those extra frames give me better sharpness when moving and panning but still with nice motion-blur to keep it real. Insisting on shooting and editing everything in 24p is too limiting for me but relying on old-school traditions that are still valid in SOME SITUATIONS I will concede is still appropriate sometimes….just not all the time
So the main reason for 24p is nostalgia and "we're used to it". There is some flaws in in this argumentation, because framerate has nothing to do with motion blur. If you dont plan on using it for slowmotion you could just record 60p with a 1/60th shutter speed and achieve the same motionblur the usual 30p footage has. Also 120fps video was never intended for real time playback, but for slowmotion, I don't know why this is the main discussion in this video. 120p is good for recording birds or stuff like parkour & skateboarding. I have not heard of a single person advocating it for interview-style shots.
it's been a long time I haven't watched a youtube video until the end without being tempted to check my IG, my TT, mail, or anything else. VERY interesting and finally someone who can talk about it in a constructive way (and without bragging!!!!!) thx dude!
Having watched Gemini man in 120fps I thought it was the cleanest 3D I had ever seen but I was watching Gemini man and that film was god awful. I think it set the world back from ever wanting to do another HFR movie. That being said I would pay money to watch animals and landscapes from other places in 3d 120.
It looked like a video game, i think it only looks good for nature Documentaries, and maybe a 3d animated movie would be cool to see at 120 since its already Artificial looking
I definitely think this is a generational thing and the older the person you are talking to the more likely they are to cling to 24 fps, I think 60 fps could be a standard for film especially if a new generation of ppl start pushing a change. To me it just seems like a nostalgia thing.
I think you looked best at 60fps. I love Hobbit at 48fps and Gemini Man at 120fps. As a filmmaker/video marker, I think it's best to position yourself as someone who's creative rather than a conformist. Yeah, film has been shot at 24 fps for over 100 years. That frame rate wasn't chosen because of it's artistic merit or visual impact. It was chosen because it was the lowest frame rate they can use where people can still perceive motion. It was a cost-based decision. Society is just used to 24 fps for movies, 30 fps for TV shows/news and 60 fps for sports. Ang Lee and Peter Jackson said nah bro we ain't conforming, we're going to do something new. I agree with them. Let's be creative and push it! Also, as a gamer who has a 165hz monitor and loves it, I hope UA-cam gives us the ability to playback 120 fps+ content soon.
Trying out new is indeed great but when I watched that Hobbit or Gemini clips I've felt it was done by an complete Amateure. Im gaming on a 144hz Monitor and boy is that smooth. Even 60hz feels unplayable for me now. But when I do cinematic gaming videos I still stick to 30 (cause I record in 60) and even add motion blur because it takes you way more into the action. But when I watch a simple Gameplay I want it to be 60 just like sports. I hope that standard will stick to 24. Image someone in 2040 buying a new cam cause his old one can only shoot 120fps at 8K :D 120fps is awesome for slowmo at least
I remember when I went to see The Hobbit in theaters when it first came out. It was so jarring to watch and I felt uncomfortable the entire film. I recently finally got around to watching the whole series in 24fps, and it was like watching it for the first time. Couldn't even remember most of the film because I was so focused on how bad it looked and wasn't able to enjoy the story when I saw it the first time. 🤣
You're totally right that frame rate is part of a language, but languages evolve and change. Even the cinematic languages changed over it's very short life with technological enhancements. It changed when audio could be integrated, which created talkies, but then sound became the norm and non-talkies were called silent-movies to differentiate. The same happened with color. Technological enhancement expand the range of the language. It could very well be that ~24 fps will remain the norm for cinema, but stating that THIS IS the cinematic language feels hand wavy to me like a black & white era director saying color movies are just a fad because the point of cinema is to reduce information. 24 fps is our current cinematic lingua franca, not THE CINEMATIC LANGUAGE.
@@andersistbesser maybe true. But I definitely prefer 24p. 60p for gaming is fine but it’s a different purpose- u don’t want screen tearing, response time matters and so on. For movies, majority seems to agree - the stuff filmed in higher frame rates received bad press.
Totally agree with you on that visual feeling. Before, I didn't even know this effect is because of frame rate. I just knew modern TVs are showing this smooth movies, and I HATED them because it felt like I am in a theater rather than watching a movie.
It's funny. Seeing a movie shot on 60 fps looks wrong, even though I love high fps motion. But watching a movie in 24 fps that has been interpolated (not to be confused with interlaced) to 60 fps is really cool and an unique experince to watch. Yes, the technology is not perfect with a lot of artifacts. But some of the best technologies make it look near impossible to notice for the naked eye. A movie that looks 24 fps but in reality is 60 fps (or the other way around depending on how you look at it) is in my opinion more satisfying to watch. You get the smooth motion but you keep most if not all of the other elements that make 24 fps look cinematic, like the before-mentioned motion blur. It's weird to explain and sounds completely dumb until you try it yourself. The feature is called "frame interpolation" but is also known as "motion smoothing" but it's name differs from brand to brand, e.g.: Samsung has named theirs "Auto Motion Plus". And a big plus is that the feature is pretty much built into every smart tv or projector that is sold to this day.
With 60/120fps, I feel like I am on set. A friend put on an Avengers movie with 60 or 120 interpolation turned on with the TV's processing, and I felt like I was looking through the camera viewfinder at Tom Hiddleston in his Loki costume and I expected to see the 3d tracker balls and tape for hitting marks. At any moment, someone would yell "CUT!" and I would see the crew walk onto the set to reset some prop or other. I absolutely did not feel like I was watching a film. That effect was actually great at 2:49 in this video. Hey Mark! Nice to be sitting behind the camera in the same room with you! Maybe there is a place for this in certain types of docs. But I am 100% with you that for most docs, particularly the stories of the subjects you tell, 24 is the right frame rate, and the effect of 60fps is a much less effective tool for that task. Though for some people, they hate 24 and love 60fps. I had a friend in college who was always, always thrown off by black and white - it just took him out of whatever he was watching. It looked "wrong" and "fake." Until someone colorizes Citizen Cane, Rashômon, Wings of Desire or other classics, he will never enjoy those films, no matter how beautifully they were shot. Part of the potential audience will always have these deeply personal feelings.
The mind doesn't begin to disassociate reality from the moving picture until the framerate goes below 30fps, so and that's where the magic of cinema and the suspension of disbelief takes effect. Pretty interesting phenomena really
Your differentiation here is very clear and helpful, Mark. I hadn't really thought about how film uses elements like shallow depth of field, frame rate, etc. (your CVL) to pull you into the story. It's obvious when you think about it, but I didn't think about until you mentioned it. Pretty cool.
As a person who has never heard of you before this video and knows almost nothing about the technical side of filming, I totally agree with you. I feel like this video explains some things I've been wondering about for years.
On thing that made gemini man feel off was the shutter angle. (they were closer to a 360 degree shutter or 1/120 vs 1/240 for a lot of gemini man). And from what I remember reading about the Hobbit, it was a similar half baked kind of measure. Because they had to convert to other framerates, they were stuck shooting at longer shutter speeds. I find that true 120p films shot at 1/240 has that kind of a true to life feel, almost like real life. Some research has concluded that 120 is slightly beyond what the human eye can decern, and that 60 is still a little slow. Anyway, this is a great piece, thank you for making this! If I'm honest, in some cases that can feel very unique, maybe even be ideal. One doc I think I actually dug the HFR was Aquarela shot at 96FPS and projected at TIFF at 96fps. Felt really interesting, strange and maybe beautiful. Really worth exploring if you can find it. Oh and one more thing, Ang Lee felt that the biggest gain was in the close ups. Something I think I kind of started to understand a little bit. He felt the still closeups were where things were the HFR really felt new, maybe even better.
@@markbone so that was part of the point I was trying to make. there's no way to truly compare framerates in a single video because they are all tied to a single timeline. I understand your arguments still stand but you're asking the viewer to see the difference when the difference isn't exactly rendered correctly. like showing a 24fps video in a 60FPS timeline isn't the same as showing a 24fps video in a 24fps timeline. At least there weren't frames decimated.
@Mark - is the fps something that needs to happen when recording or will a 60 fps video that is rendered at 24 fps have the same amount of motion blur?
Another reason to film at a higher frame rate is when doing green screen action shots for visual effects. It's a pain to key out extreme motion blur. The less fringing we can get on those edges the happier your VFX artist will be. We love crisp edges as much as possible.
I've watched movies shot at higher frame rates but didn't realise it at the time and wondered why they looked kinda off? Here you've explained that clearly and know I know better. Thank you. Liked and subbed 👍
I don't mind the motion blur of 23.98/24 (which isn't necessarily inherit to framerate by the way), what actually bothers me is the stutter/judder that occurs when you have a display with really fast pixel response times, like an LG OLED for example. This is especially noticeable in panning shots that are fast enough to need the temporal resolution, but slow enough to not have much motion blur (for sake of simplicity, I'm not going to mention shutter speed). A display with a slow enough pixel response, or a CRT with phosphor persistence, will significantly mask this effect. In the event that there isn't enough motion blur, but the motion is still significant, and your display is fast enough, 24fps is simply not enough frames to trick your brain into seeing smooth continuous motion, they just appear as individual frames popping up onto the screen one after the other (which they are, of course).
I was just testing out the 120fps mode for a ps5 game called Ghostrunner, my brother was watching also. I recently got a monitor capable of 120fps so my brother and I wanted to see what it was like. Immediately we noticed it was… too much? I felt my brain having to hold on and focus on only a small amount that I could . It’s such a fast moving game but 120fps almost made it feel too fast . Honestly, felt kind of bad to play for a game like this So I came to UA-cam to see what other opinions there were about 120 , and found this video. The way you articulated everything and explained things was familiar and really easy to understand mate , it was said in a way that would help professionals but also non-camera-visual professionals like myself . I really appreciate it man. Really cool video and you helped me make sense of something I didn’t understand. Thanks a lot mate
Well... motion blur is not really dependent on the frame rate but rather on the shutter speed used. You can also shoot 30p and use 1/50 of a second and get the same motion blur as with 24p and 1/50 of a sec. That's what I do, most of the time, since I can't stand the stutter of 24p when there's panning or tilting of the camera involved on 60 Hz screens (the majority of smartphone and computer displays). 30p 1/50 works good for me and I dare say that nobody would notice a difference (except for the smoother camera pans and tilts).
@@Videofilealways True! At some other point in the video, Mark says that motion blur is dependent on frame rate, that's what I was referring to. But thanks for pointing me to the part where he clears it up :)
There is more than just the actual frame rate in real "motion pictures". Physical pacing is sometimes deliberately slowed down. A director will guide actors to move at certain speeds. I think that when they see the rushes, the re-takes are probably adapted to 24 fps. Then that gets ingrained into an actor's "natural pace" and it continues. If you get used to 30 fps, then your acting, speech patterns and so on will probably slightly increase. Then again, down at the 24 vs 30 fps speeds, there is the mutual incompatibility. Sometimes you can convert between them, but sometimes it doesn't really work (well). I have been playing with the idea that I would like to record in 36 fps for everything. The only problem is that I do not have a camera that does this. . . .
At home we still have as our main TV a screen that can only show 1080 ‘full HD’ at it’s maximum. A few years ago I went to a friend’s house who had a new ‘super HD’ TV and whilst watching it I couldn’t work out why all the TV drama we were watching looked absolutely awful, even though the picture was (in theory at least) “so much better” and “super sharp”. It took me ages to work out that the default settings for this TV was showing the HD TV programmes at a higher frame rate than what we’re normally used to and, whilst this is great for watching sports or maybe a nature documentary, it made beautifully lit, shot and crafted drama just look like some weird reality TV show that totally lost all it’s magic! Anyway, so this video makes sooooo much sense, yet most ordinary people with their brand new super HD resolution TV’s set to show everything with abnormally high frame rates by default didn’t even realise their screens had been set up this way, or why some programmes looked plain weird, unless they were watching sports
This argument for 24fps is very similar to the argument for sticking to imperial system of measurement: because we’re used to it. Maybe straight up moving to higher frame rates isn’t the problem but rather that we’re moving to higher frame rates while still sticking to old methods.
I'm a gamer who *totally* gets the concept of movies being a different thing than games, and higher framerates not being better necessarily. It applies to games, as well. Temporal resolution is more important in the types of games where reaction time is paramount; usually details and other facets of world design have to be sacrificed to meet those frame-rate targets. CS Go, designed to run at framerates upwards of 300fps, looks very simplistic visually compared to AAA games such as Tomb Raider which target 30 on many platforms. In such a "sightseeing" game where the gameplay is less twitchy or reliant on reflexes, 30 or 60 is a much more appropriate target because it frees up resources for things like better textures, lighting, etc. This was the first video I watched of yours; I enjoyed it very much!
The acknowledgement of the existence of PAL will be appreciated in Europe and Austria! 🤘😁 It's hard to compare the different framerates when all played in a 24 fps timeline. So all we see basically is different 24p footage with different shutterspeeds. I found the hobbit displayed in 48fps not as bad to watch as I did so in this direct comparison. But I still felt more like watching a cutscene for all the fight/action scenes. Overall I agree with everything you said. ✌️
Very very interesting! I actually want to shoot a documentary and was thinking to go for 120fps. Maybe I'll go for 60fps, because I wanted a very realistic view, and actually with as much depth of field as possible. But it's very interesting to see the comparison and be able to think what is right for each of us
I think it's better to discuss motion blur in the context of the stylistic choice of shutter angle. Want to trim motion blur for the purposes of a high energy fight scene? - trim your shutter angle. Want smooth buttery motion blur? - open that puppy up. While at the same shutter angle higher frame rates result in less motion blur, I think discussing motion blur as a function of frame rate obscures the role of shutter angle and the choice it provides the filmmaker. With respect to frame rates, it's really about the interpretation of motion and how valuable information between frames is. Games typically don't have motion blur at any frame rate, but if you're gaming in a lower frame rate, you can miss vital information that might be obscured between frames. The more frames per second, the better reproduction of motion, and the more frame samples a gamer has to respond to stimuli. With cinema, I think you hit the nail on the head - it's about withholding information, and interpretation of motion isn't always beneficial for suspension of disbelief.
What about judder? On a 60 Hz display (typical display refresh rate), 24p playback will show every other frame or so for a slightly longer length of time. Each frame is displayed, but the length of time each frame is displayed is not the same. There is a test video you can use where a square is shown in different locations progressing forward for each frame; if you take a long exposure of the display with a camera, some of the squares will be darker than others, indicating that those frames are being displayed for a longer length of time... Doesn't this ruin the flow and timing of 24p by creating these micro jitters or judder on 90% of viewing displays? I believe the only way to smoothly playback 24p is if the display is set either to 24Hz, 48Hz or 120Hz and this seems like a huge oversight by most creators. I like the dreaminess of 24 fps, but it does annoy me that it's probably not even being displayed correctly(?).
Great video! Even before being conscious about frame rates I've had the same observations and could not enjoy above 30. Now, here you give a clear explanation.
For the record, all interlaced television, even all the way back to black & white in 1939, is 60 images per second. Each interlaced frame in a separate moment in time, despite being only every other line. So a proper conversion of old analog TV recordings at 480i, or even HD at 1080i, is to 60fps. The term "frame" in interlaced video is confusing. It's not the same as a film or progressive video frame. It just means all the lines are done being scanned, but it contains two separate images. If you deinterlace to 29.97fps, you either have to blend fields and lose temporal resolution (creating blurry motion), throw out every other field and lose spatial resolution (very soft image), or do fancy A.I. processing to determine a best guess across the image.
At 24 fps, you see dwarfs fighting goblins. At 48, you see men running around in silly costumes. :)
Bahahahaha. Yup!!
Perfect description
Haha… exactly… Always thought the same…😂👍
that's accurate lol
Damn that is on point.
After hearing your argument about being conditioned to 24 fps, I've noticed that I do not feel the same way and I realized why. During my teen years my dominant medias were not movies, but video games and anime, which reside on opposite sides of FPS spectrum.
Games want to be 60+ and nowadays even 120+, but your output depends on your hardware, no guarantees of constant framerate here.
At the same time anime varies from scene to scene in approximately 3 to 20 fps range. This is constraint of hand-drawing images instead of just shooting with a camera, and at the same time it's an actual tool at director's disposal to distinguish between static dialog and super climactic action scene.
So I pretty much grew in variable framerate environment, haven't developed any attachment to cinematic 24 fps and actually fine with whatever is thrown at me by the authors.
What a beautiful sense of freedom you have when viewing! You’re frame rate agnostic
in gaming high fps is important because with slow fps means that you could miss that one important bullet shot of the enemy. higher fps player always has the upper hand than the slow fps player.
evangelion even makes you ok with 15 spf
@@user-sl6gn1ss8p most anime (and cartoons) are even animated at no higher than 12 frames per second even.
@@H4WKB13 it was a joke, like, seconds per frame : p
Something being "cinematic" is all about controlling and motivating the image. Not enough people understand this. A shot is not magically cinematic because you shot it at 120FPS and slowed it down
Funny seeing you here. Your videos feel cinematic regardless of framerate.
This
This point cannot be stressed enough. Movies just dont need 60fps, 24 is what brings out the feel in it. A feeling of perspective, a feeling of storytelling. You've explained it quite well. 👌
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Although you've got the cinemascope aspect ratio all wrong. It's not cropping from 16:9, it's extended width from 16:9.
Not witholding information, but a wider, grander view. Some filmmakers nowadays do that, but it just looks so wrong when it's cropped.
But... but... but how about all those slow mo videos of a girl walking in a forest? They're cinematic, right? Right....?
@@kamilbudzynski7362 I know man 😂😂😂
What you said about withholding information was a ‘eureka’ moment for me; thank you! 👏🙏
horror films couldn't exist without being able to withhold spacial awareness
I know, my eyes opened up on that line! 👍
But filmmakers like the camera with high dynamic range. Please don't only use limited types of examples to feed your brain.
You made a good point - "departing from that feels like a new language", and this is pretty much sums up all things "wrong" with 60/120fps, people who tried to shoot in those framerates treated like it was 24fps, without taking into consideration that you'll need, basically, to invent a new type of cinema language - camera movements, editing, acting plastic etc etc. Higher framerates (probably) can work in cinema, but it shouldn't be treated like it's usual 24fps (maybe combining two types of framerates for different sequences of the movie, like another planet environment, thus creating an eerie feeling of something drastically different, unnatural even).
That I have noticed myself when I was in the theatre watching the first Hobbit.
When they where in the caves for the first time, I kinda gell out of the story and thought "hey, I am in the theatre and I looks like a Discovery Channel".
Though that was just a moment, I did reimerse then.
Back in the day they said the same about color movies -- these look too real, that kills the cinematic effect. And it was true.
Look where we are now: black and white movie is just a special case of color balancing special effects. How much more opportunities of artistic expression the color gives. Every technological advance does, actually.
The more movies are shot with high frame rate the less the mentioned effect of cinematic picture will work.
In 20 years new generation will be having hard time watching old movies because these are so blurry and motion is uneven.
And that is kinda right thing.
hobbit case is interesting but there is a claim that is not the 48fps per se, but shuter speed and other variables that give issue for people.
@@brunogm In my opinion it's the fact that to maintain the 180 shutter angle at 48 fps they have to change the shutter speed to 96 instead of the 48 that we are used to
I dont think so at all. 48 fps and 60 fps looks absolutely garbage from any aesthetic point of view, and any top level artist will most likely agree with that.
@@mikeseager8768 Oh, sure. The picture has to be blurry, shaky and noisy to meet the top artistic requirements. That is only way The Art can be done, right?
I would really like to see some confirmation of all "top level artists" sharing your highly controversial opinion.
@@azgarogly "Cinematic" == judder
Can we stop for a moment and appreciate that your documentary looks way better than the full-featured Hollywood movie Gemini man. 😮
😂 🤷♂️
Not to take anything away from Mark's great cinematography but I've seen phone footage better that Gemini Man 😂
Absolutely! Haven’t seen Gemini Man, but that footage looks terrible.
Gemini man in 4K is one of the clearest, if not THE movie I’ve seen. Even it’s not that great of a film. Billie Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk also has an incredible combat scene.
@@DelcoAirsoft Gemini man looks like shit and the only action scene I've seen of Billie Lynn has terrible vfx in it, probably due to some of the budget going to working on and rendering more frames
i always explained it this way; when you are watching a movie, video, or tv you are just a passenger going along for the ride, everything is slower because you dont care about every main details and see the scenery as a whole while it writes itself. however in games, you are the driver and you are the one in control of the car, every movement of your hands and feets directly influences the narrative to your own story, and focusing on other cars, obstacles are your main priority that you need to solve
We've had this discussion about "Into the Spiderverse," and the creative decision to not only limit the frame-rate of a computer-animated movie that can run at any frame rate the creators want... down to 24 fps, but to also put some character animations on twos, at 12 fps, to highlight or exaggerate certain motions.Exaggerated even more because they've consciously avoided using motion blur. Instead reverting to higher frame rates for key actions that might induce motion blur.
Gives a very exaggerated comic book feel, and every single frame feels like a key frame, as they've done it this way.
Literally the worst decision ever. Didn't know this was what they did until a friend told me after but I could tell the animation at times was really choppy and had low fps. It really ruined the experience for me. The whole it imitates a comic book and or it was to show character growth since he get 60fps near the end of the film is dumb af. First off you're story and character development should show character growth not your fucking fps. Second, and more important is that in high-quality 2d animation they get away with lower fps like that because they have the ability to completely morph the character into abstract shapes during quick motions that make it look really smooth in real time. But If you freeze frame at various areas you'll see a fast moving hand or body might actually be a smear across the screen. Into the spider verse doesn't have this ability due to it's 3d nature so it just looks jaring and like a low budget anime or cartoon not to mention the mixture of fps show can literally hurt your eyes. It is the only film to date that I've had that experience. Furthermore when it comes to really high quality 2d scenes they are sometime done in full 24fps and they look fucking gorgeous.
There is literally no good reason for it beyond the creators wanting to feel like they did something new and passing off objectively bad practice as a bonus reason to enjoy the film. Overall great film otherwise but i would pay good money for a fully 30-60fps version.
@@mattecrystal6403 Dude what?? They didn't increase the fps as the movie went on and the reason they did the lower fps for the characters and certain objects is because that's how 2d animations are a lot of the time. the comic book feel is the 3d art mixed into the 2d animation style of the characters.
@@paition No they did increase fps over time to simulate miles changing from clumsy and inexperienced to professional and experienced. They also made other characters like normal spider man at 30 or 60fps.
I think I did a decent explanation in my last comment regarding why mimicking 2d animation was not a good excuse but I'll try to state it again in more detail as well as touch on some other aspects I left out.
1. First off you could say it's mimicking 2d animation but if you do then it's mimicking low quality 2d animation. This is largely due to a lack of actual animation techniques used in 2d animation to make a lower fps like 12fps seems smooth. For example, in lots of 2d animation will completely morph and stretch fast moving body parts to simulate speed. This creates the Illusion of smooth yet fast moving animation. Into the spiderverese completely lacks this.
2. 2d animation is also able to pass off choppier animation in general because it has far far less detail then real life or 3d animation and is also far more abstract in it's presentation of characters and objects. This causes our brains to fill in a lot of extra information which helps make animation at lower fps look a lot more natural. Into the spiderverse being a detailed 3d film doesn't have this luxury.
3. Finally, while it's true much 2d animation often uses 12fps this is purely a limitation of the medium due to the extreme amount of work required to produce 24fps content. Despite this it's not uncommon to see big budget scenes in 2d animation actually draw all 24 frames. These scenes tend to be highly fluid and detailed and are easily the most hype moments. If a 2d movie or show could be made at full 24fps in it's entirely it would do nothing but benefit the end product drastically. There are a few 2d shows and movies that maintain a higher overall average fps and they benefit greatly from it. (these shows also tend to make really great use of the morph/smearing effect I mentioned earlier) When it comes to 3d like into the spiderverse there is no such limitation preventing 24fps or more hence there is no good reasosn to render at 12 fps.
TLDR: Into the spiderverse doesn't take into account any of techniques used in 2d animation to pull off looking good at lower fps. Nor does it consider the inherit properties of 2d animation which naturally make lower fps scenes look more fluid. And in the same vein how the inherit detail of 3d animation causes lower fps to look worse.
All of this stems from the idea that making inexperienced chracter's render at a lower fps would be a good idea. Well it's just not. Let you're actual story and character actions portray that not your fps. It's not like lowering the fps actually changes the base moment of the character. It's the same except you feel like your looking at a slide show. Can u imagine if real life worked that way. You suck at skateboarding so you're life literally displays at 2fps meanwhile tony hawk displays at 60fps because he's a pro? The entire concept is just dumb. It's a neat little idea, but never should of actually been put into practice and the end result is undesirable.
Yeah, I think the way forwards is to creatively use frame-rate.
@@paition watch any analysis of the film. Miles' animation frame rate changes as he gets better. It's meant to highlight biggie clumsy and awkward he is before he grows into the role. Gwen is always animated at a higher rate in action shots to emphasize the fluidity of her movement. It's incredibly obvious in the forest scene.
finally someone said it.. Ive never had the urge to shoot 120.. I love the way 24/60 looks..
A different message with each choice of frame rate, lens, intensity of light, etc. What a great message in this video! My understanding of these languages is what separates my work from my local competitors. They're sending all kinds of messages unintended. Intention and choice....look, I just really love this video. Great freakin work my dude!
Thanks Lee!!
Great video. I’ve been trying to figure out what car videos are being shot on for a long time. When I try to replicate these shots my images always look blurred. I thought they were using a faster shutter speed but do you think it’s just a higher frame rate? The car always look super sharp.
photo or video?
The dirty secret of car commercials is that they’re usually mostly CGI
@@LaurenceJanus this 👆
@@LaurenceJanus I wasn't talking about car commercials. I was talking about automotive youtubers such as petroliceuous and Carfection. I just want to be able to film cars and keep them sharp in the video.
I've seen for green screen they shoot higher shutter rate to eliminate blur for clean key. Then they add artificial blur afterwards.
Honestly, this is a great video and a perfect explanation on the differences between 24fps vs higher frame rates when it comes to movies. I've always said that 24 fps is cinematic: higher frame rates are fine but--hot take--they're not cinematic. It's always amused me to watch all these channels on here giving tips on "shooting cinematic video!" that are shot at 60fps or 24fps but at crazy high shutter speeds (that just end up making it look like video). As you articulate here, we've built an entire cinematic language on 24fps and higher frame rates just rob cinema of its magic. You can see the make up on the actors faces; you can clearly spot the stunt doubles; the costuming, art direction and VFX look shitty and, ironically, more artificial. And I don't understand people's antipathy toward motion blur. To me, it's another texture like film grain or lens flares. I don't look at a painting and go, "well, this would be better if I couldn't see the strokes of the paint brush"--no, that's *part* of the painting. I'm kind of against this push toward making everything "technically perfect." Like, yeah, super sharp lenses are cool but they're also clinical and soulless.
Could not agree more
@Impersonal Brand: "And I don't understand people's antipathy toward motion blur. " Maybe lots of modern videographers (like me) come from photography and dived into video because cameras have that option now. (EDIT: I dreamed about a movie camera since the mid 1980s but they were too expensive for my wallet :)
I do my youtube videos in 24p because it reduces the data rate and is good for some explanatory video (about energy, sorry, only in german up to now). I am absolutely stunned how sharp these videos are if looked as a video and how "bad" motion blur is if I look to single frames.
I think our eye-brain system is trained to get "sharpness" from stopped motion between waving arms etc. but 180° shutter angle helps to make motion really flow so motions are absolutely realistic in video.
About your remark about lenses: I have all my old FD lenses if I will ever make a large movie because they have character and really nice flares due to their single layer coatings - funny thing is that you can buy really expensive lens series with single coating brand new.
literally explains nothing. The core of the argument is 24 fps has more motion blur. You can literally set 60fps to have the same or more motion blur. In terms of quality' being able to see details that you can't see on 24fps like makup, stunt doubles, art, etc. Like wtf, none of that it tied to fps, it's tied to resolution. Furthermore, even if being able to see this detail was an issue then you literally could just lower the quality in post and still keep the higher fps.
@@mattecrystal6403 higher FPS is, literally, higher motion resolution. At equivalent shutter angles, 60FPS will have twice as much angular resolution as 30FPS - i.e. you'll be able to resolve elements that are half as large in angular size.
I feel that this is all due to what we are used to. To me there is no "cinematic" way if doing things. We only used 24 fps because of not only technological limitations but monetary ones to, back then. I think we should allow ourselves to experience different forms of viewing cinematic art. To me 24 fps can be a very boring experience. I like variety. Someone mentioned anime in the comments, ands that is very true. It is so varied that it keeps me engaged personally. However, I do understand your view, and I respect it. 😁
We still use 24 fps in movie because we are used to. Early movies were 16 ~ 18 fps because that's the lowest amount film stock usage with a special 3 blade shutter in projectors to create fast enough flashes (flash 3 times per frame) that human eyes can't detect. When the sound era came, sound was printed on the film like tapes. 18 fps was not fast enough for high sound fidelity, so the framerate needed to be faster. The number 24 was chosen because it's easy for editing. 24 can be divided by 2,3,4,6,8,12. 23.98, or 23.876 to be exact (this is the exact number), is more common today because when NTSC standard was developed, chromas signal was added to the pre-existing black and white standard, and it need to be slowed 1% in order to separate from the audio signal. So now we have the strange number like 23.976, 29.97, 29.94, 119,88. Frame rate standard was set always because of cost and technical limitations. Those limitations are way way smaller today. I hope you could do some research before making a video.
I watched Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk and Gemini Man in cinema in 4k120fps hdr format. The viewing experience was phenomena. It's not like any movie. I feel like it's stage play with 20 ft tall faces. I think Billy Lynn's was the right way to use the 120 fps, to recreate subtle performance of the actors.
And motion blur. We all know that people usually use 90 degree or even smaller shutter angle to shot a very intense fight scene. Filmmakers already knew the motion blur of 24fps 180 degree shutter angle is too much.
in 30fps interlaced, each field is taken in a different moment in time, and the resulting motion cadence is the same as 60 fps progressive.
You are exactly correct. In interlaced video the equivalent of a film frame is a video field. A video "frame" has no existence outside of storage and editing. That is, no interlaced camera ever captures and one ever sees an interlaced video "frame." When you watch interlaced video on a modern display you're seeing a sequence of 50 or 59.94 images per second, each using line-doubling or interpolation to fill in what would be gaps. Cameras likewise pair pixel rows to create scan lines.
(The only difference between successive fields is the whether the scan lines / pixel rows are paired (in capture) or duplicated/interpolated (in display) upward or downward. If there were gaps we'd see glaring artifacts in the form of bright horizontal bits of detail that flash off and on at 25 or 29.97 times per second, well below the frequency of our vision's flicker fusion. Even in the old black-and-white days of image orthicon tubes, the scanning spot was shaped vertically to avoid gaps.)
Of course, unless you're shooting for broadcast you should not be shooting interlaced at all, and you should not be shooting at 23.976, 29.97, or 59,94 since that's really pointless. Those archaic rates are an artifact of the introduction of the chroma subcarrier by the NTSC in the 1950s and the need to shift the field rate slower by 1000/1001 in order to avoid a problem you can look up if you care (and there's no reason you should).
@@DGaryGrady
I agree that most people shouldn't shoot/edit/finish in interlaced. However, 23.98/29.97/59.94 aren't obsolete as most people don't have cameras that can even shoot at 24.00/30.00/60.0 fps. The 1‰ difference isn't noticeable, just choose the proper setting in your editing software.
The only time that these small differences in field/frame rates matter is for older video game capture. eg. ~60.05 Hz or ~59.83 Hz.
@@Crlarl That's a good point. What I was really trying to say is that there's no point in preferring 23.976, 29.97, or 59.94 over 24, 30, or 60 unless one is producing for broadcast. But of course you're right that it's not a bad thing either, and obviously if your camera won't do 24 fps, shooting at 23.976 is fine. For that matter, movies shot at 24 fps are routinely viewed on televisions at 25 fps in PAL/SECAM countries with no problem.
(There are potential sync problems when recording video and audio separately, but that's in practice something every NLE I know of can deal with pretty easily.)
Also, for what it's worth, cameras able to shoot at 24.00 fps are now pretty common at least at the prosumer level and higher, including e.g. the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera (which also does 30.00 and 60.00), most Canons, the Panasonic GH5 and close relatives, Z Cam, etc.
@@DGaryGrady
That makes more sense. Integer rates should be preferred in many cases.
Most consumer cameras (action, camcorder, point & shoot, low to mid DSLR/mirrorless) don't have 24.00/30.00/60.0 fps. There are exceptions but they are usually reserved to professional cameras and higher end DSLRs and mirrorless. The Panasonic GH-series are higher-end in my opinion.
@@Crlarl yeah my sony a7 can. Og a7
Mate. I love youtube for the little gems you find, and this was one of them. Thanks so much.
Frame rates also impacts exposure if you maintain the same shutter angle. Shooting at 120 fps will require 5 times the light as shooting at 24 fps. Back when the standard was developed, I’m quite certain film wasn’t nearly as fast as the digital sensors we have today.
Love your visuals, your content, your vibe, and i was having a rough day ... it help me! Thanks!
Thanks Jon! Hope the day is going better
Cinematic is dream-like.That's why we love it.
I think it depends on the kind of content that you make, even documentaries or UA-cam videos. As an example, my channel is primarily about aquarium fish. 90+% of the time, I’m not going to want any motion blur. This is why I usually opt for a slightly higher frame rate (30 and 60).
You have just addressed the problem I never knew I had. I wondered why some movies looked off. Thanks 😊😊
Oh wow, I really like your Cinematic Visual Language concept, makes total sense, love the video, so informative, and easy to follow, all the best, and stay strong!
Im always using 24 FPS. While the world is looking at 120FPS and up. I am sticking with the 60 for slo mo. thanks for the excellent content Mark~!
me too. Hobbit came out almost 10years ago and 48fps has had very little impact, no one seems to be using it
@@markbone Frame rate of the month! LOL
That was one of the most educational UA-cam vids I have seen in a while that was not the latest gear release hype. Looking forward to the next EOD.
Dude I hope this is a "shot heard around the world" so-to-speak. The advise you gave back in the day to shoot base framerate more often has done wonders for my cinemetography. Nothing feels like filler content anymore and it helps my shooting and editing workflow so much. More intentional, more organic, and more beautiful as a result. Thank you!
Love this mate. So glad it’s helping
The way you started this video i subscribed within 10 seconds. Keep up the positivity friend!
I really do enjoy those UA-cam videos where people walk around cities for hours and shoot in 60fps. It really gives it a hyper-realistic look.
That was the nicest intro to a video I've seen in a while, thank you
Nice video. Unless you plan to deliver to broadcast, there is no reason to use 23.976P or 59.94P. 23.976 is technically the HMI flicker free frame rate at any shutter angle for the US standard 60Hz power. 23.976 was intended as a compromise for tape based systems no one shoots on anymore.
With the 23.976 frame rate, a 180 degree shutter is technically not flicker free, though the flicker is not noticeable in most circumstances so everyone ignores this fact. But there are some situations and circumstances on set where the 23.976 might present a noticeable flicker where a hard 24P wouldn’t, but they’re sometimes hard to spot.
Technically any program that’s primarily intended for on air broadcast in the US may still benefit from originating at 23.976. But pretty much any other platform - from Netflix to UA-cam, Hulu etc. actually is probably better off capturing at a true 24P frame rate since they are presented over the internet and not through the NTSC based broadcast system.
A lot of Netflix and Amazon originals actually shoot at true 24P as well as a lot of movies intended for theatrical release.
As with all movies shot on film, a true 24P program can be transferred to 23.976 for broadcast. A 23.976 program can also be transferred to true 24P - but that won’t erase its imperfections when it comes to HMI flicker.
Came here to say this exact thing. Would love to hear a response from OP.
@@tyke23vids OP might not dig being corrected on his own video...
I am new to this though I did take a class on film making in 1973 (used a super 8 camera and learned how to splice film). Now retiring from my engineering life, and want to get back to what I learned so long ago...thanks for the very clear explanation!
I remember in my gamer days being so mad anyone said 24fps looked filmic. It's funny how it is almost always gamers complaining about it. 24 is for sure my favorite now.
Gamers haaaaaaaate 24.
Same.... As a gaming kid, I was so adamant that 60fps was superior in every way.
24 IS terrible for gaming... But games are not movies and morons should stop thinking they are the same thing. Movies should be shot at 24, games should be at 60+ minimum.
Yep. The biiiig difference is that in video games, you control the camera, and you want it to be as responsive as possible, else it breaks your suspension of disbelief. In film, you are looking through someone else's lens, which is a fundamentally different perspective.
So, 24 fps is your favorite simply because some don't like it?
I've never gained so much knowledge from one video. I'm just getting into making videos and understood everything perfectly! Thank you
Dude. You are a good teacher. I’m a teacher. I know good from bad. You take tools and yiu describr them so well and so clearly that even a newb can catch on. Thank you.
Thank you! That’s great confidence for me teaching our documentary course
Yeah bro, it takes one to know one!
I think one could make the case that shooting at 24fps with a large shutter angle is cinematic not because it has lots of motion blur, but because it forces the cinematographer to shoot in ways that actually minimize motion blur. You must avoid fast pans, fast motion in general, and, move the camera around your subject maintaining a shallow depth of field to keep the background from smearing, and so forth. Our eyes may perceive motion at 60fps, but we can focus our attention on only one thing at a time, and shooting at 24fps with large shutter angle forces that same focus through the lens.
On a side note. I've flown FPV aircraft for 20 years, and normal FPV video footage breaks pretty much all interframe digital compression. The whole flight is a continuous zoom, and when we turn we're creating fast pans. We use cameras with small sensors that have near infinite depth of field so we get high motion and high detail. But if you look at the way movies and TV are shot for digital broadcast, they have to be careful to avoid breaking the digital compression. Shallow depth of field when possible, switch angles instead of fast pans, zooms, and avoid high detail at fast motion, and so forth.
Every so often you'll it fail on a reality TV show and the video goes to digital mush.
YT is the same.. They simply don't dedicate enough bitrate to 1080p and below videos to show high detail and
fast motion. That's why GoPro trailers for many years have been shot more cinematically, while PoV downhill bicycle videos generally look awful, unless they post at 1440p or 4K (even if shot at 1080p, always upscale).
Looking forward to the frame rate over friendships T-shirts.
haha, good call
You got a new subscriber .. much love from Ghana 🇬🇭
Thank you . that was informative
Mark, thank you so much for putting this together. I'm a relatively new photographer (who loves video - but has NO experience). The combination of your clear basic discussion and side-by-side comparison was so helpful in "visualizing" the differences between Cinematic and Hyper-realism. Very well done and good luck with your course. I hope one day to benefit from that. Other than news and sports, what other areas could you see yourself using high frame rates (60 or above). Thanks again. Just loved your explanations.
Your ‘one day’ could be this September! Join the course and community when we re open on the 12th.
@@markbone I just knew you were going there! I will take a look. Again, thanks!
Outside of motion blur, 24 fps is actually better for fiction, fighting or drama. When recording more than 60 fps we can easily notice punches not connecting with the oponnent, and in drama, the acting is more noticed as forced and faked, since we're getting more information. So more than 60fps should only be used if it's everything cgi, animated or trying to show real life.
what about 16fps? early motion pictures were shot at about 16fps. and they wanted to shoot at 8fps. they just could not figure how to shoot at 8fps progressively and shot at 16fps intermittently.
now we have technology to shoot 8fps progressively and quality of sound is independed from fps. for some reason almost nobody shoots at 8fps.
@@woozyyt5573 I think below 16 it becomes Obvious it’s just still pictures being shown one after the other.
Maybe all film will be cgi in the future
@@l21n18 if you shoot with a cinema camera with a shutter angle of about 180 then still pictures become a movie at about 16fps for most people.
8 fps is enough for still pictures to become a movie if you shoot with a shutter angle of 360. at least that's how the industry experts thought in silent movie era. I can't confirm this as I can't find any video on youtube shot at 8fps with 360 shutter.
one thing that i think needs to be pointed out is higher frames automatically correlates to more "stressed" experience, whether that is attention-wise or mood-wise. That's because it has to do with how our eyes perceive things. Our eyes are not FIXED on one frame rate, per say... well it doesn't really work like frame rates in camera but let's just go with the comparison because it has to do with motion blur. The more attention u give to something the less blur u see in movements. You can try that like right now. Waive ur hand and then focus, you'll see "more" of your hand. Squint and relax your eyes a bit, you'll see more "shadows" of your hands.
Lower frame rates lead to more disbelief and immersion, as Mark points out, exactly because of that. It's more relaxing. It's less "attention seeking". I guess in a way that justifies why some prefer higher frame rates. They are used to how much attention they pay at video games.
Similar to how we like faster paced plot, more action scenes, more grandeur stage designs, people nowadays might just be more accustomed to the "more stressful" vibe higher frames rates bring to the theaters (at least more people than before).
That's just my two cents in attempt to de-mystify the phenomenon/trend we see happening today. Feel free to disagree or add anything cuz if one thing is sure, there's no one answer to this whole discussion.
When gaming via a high refresh rate monitor (144hz), I do love me more fps...however...when I am filmmaking it is always 23.976, ALWAYS. for that cinematic feel. If its B-roll that we want to slow mo in post then 60 or 120 fps comes into play but rarely. Like someone doing something (for documentary sake) like getting ready for their day or contemplation moments within the doc that need to be slowed down. Otherwise 23fps all day!
Cheers Mark!
yeah i play COD at 120fps and 60... it's the right choice. I take off motion blur also. But when i want to film or a watch a movie, it's 120fps always
You've finally put into words what I have been trying to say to people for years. Higher FPS is great for when I'm watching hockey but I hate it for watching movies. I will send people this video now when I'm trying to explain my view on the topic. Thanks!
the soap opera effect is annoying when watching a 'movie'. I remember the first hi def TV I bought, and I ran THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY on it with the thing maxed out and ultra refresh rates running and.... it looked like I was watching a MAKING OF documentary of THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY. It ruined everything.
The video is great as always, but can we take a moment to appreciate the lighting on this video!? On point @Mark! 😍
I never really shoot in 120fps, but I used to shoot all my weddings in 24fps, but this year I switched to 30fps. I like the extra sharpness it gives the images, but eventually I'll probably switch...never satisfied 😁
Totally - me too!!
Interlaced visuals can give the same effect as 59.94Hz. Each field can be and often is a different moment in time. So effectively you're viewing 60fps material. Broadcast TV is still usually 1080i so those news and sports are all 60fps, but being displayed in an interlaced signal. Some channels are still 720p 60 of course. LOL remember 720p? Anyway movies aren't cropped, or at least they shouldn't be, but instead actually wider. Theaters usually had scope be wider than flat with movable side masking. Many movies these days do crop especially when they try to sell IMAX as seeing more of the picture, which itself sometimes makes it look more video-y because of non-frame rate issues that are a different discussion altogether. Lastly 23.98, 29.97, and 59.94 all need to die already. NTSC is no longer relevant.
Its something about 24fps, its looks so choppy to me.
It could be that your screen refresh rate is 60hz. 24 doesn't fit 60 evenly so you get a bad case of judder.
I have always thought the same. I wished Hollywood's lack of experience was holding high frame rates back and not the technology
As Noot mentioned that probably has to do with telecine judder.
Try it for yourself, take a game with realistic visuals, cap it at 24fps using RTSS, and just watch (don't move the camera, that'll ruin the effect).
I guarantee you it'll be smoother than 90% of stuff you see on TV, because of consistent frame pacing.
The best quote I got out of this was the definition of cinematic: in cinematic style, we limit things, we limit the screen in aspect. Ratio, we limit the area of focus. That's great it's about storytelling. Thanks again, Mark.
24fps for the win. It looks awesome, natural and saves ton of money when you are creating CGI :)
how is 24 fps natural?
The info in the video is absolutely spot on. Very well put together.
I totally get, and love, the cinematic feel of 24fps. However I do find that 24fps isn’t smooth enough for some slow camera pans.
Especially for 3D movies, you can start to see the individual frames on foreground elements and the experience gets somewhat ruined. (This is in the cinema I’m talking about, so it shouldn’t be a 24 into 60Hz problem) I also think that the action scenes in some movies become incomprehensible at 24.
For example the shaky cam factory fight scene in Minority Report. At 60fps action is easier to follow, camera pans can look smoother and 3D holds up better. To me watching 60fps reminds me of being at the theatre, watching a live performance. No one complains that they can’t suspend their disbelief whilst watching Hamilton because they can tell it’s not real or that there isn’t enough motion blur in real life.
As such I don’t quite get why high frame rate (HFR) is being derided so much. There are 5 movies I can think of (Including 3 Hobbit movies) which were released at HFR in the cinema, only one of which is available at 60fps on home media. So you can continue to watch every movie ever released on home media and feel good about 24fps. I’ll just keep watching my UHD Blu Ray of Gemini Man over and over. I don’t want every movie to be in HFR, I just want it to be available to filmmakers as a creative choice; or to have that option for more movies myself.
Great stuff and much respect to Mark!! However a bit narrow in scope as a lot of us don’t shoot ‘cinematic movies’! I do school corporate videos and stage plays and other fast moving scenes where 24p just doesn’t cut it especially when panning. Not enough frames and too juddery and choppy when transferred to UA-cam. And so I shoot 30p and edit on a 30p Timeline though for real-time. Those extra frames give me better sharpness when moving and panning but still with nice motion-blur to keep it real. Insisting on shooting and editing everything in 24p is too limiting for me but relying on old-school traditions that are still valid in SOME SITUATIONS I will concede is still appropriate sometimes….just not all the time
I can honestly say he’s right. To me it just looks weird as well watching movies in 48fps or 120fps.
Nothing wrong with that if you have a clear and present reason for doing do.
So the main reason for 24p is nostalgia and "we're used to it". There is some flaws in in this argumentation, because framerate has nothing to do with motion blur.
If you dont plan on using it for slowmotion you could just record 60p with a 1/60th shutter speed and achieve the same motionblur the usual 30p footage has. Also 120fps video was never intended for real time playback, but for slowmotion, I don't know why this is the main discussion in this video.
120p is good for recording birds or stuff like parkour & skateboarding. I have not heard of a single person advocating it for interview-style shots.
it's been a long time I haven't watched a youtube video until the end without being tempted to check my IG, my TT, mail, or anything else. VERY interesting and finally someone who can talk about it in a constructive way (and without bragging!!!!!) thx dude!
❤️ thanks Wayan!!
Having watched Gemini man in 120fps I thought it was the cleanest 3D I had ever seen but I was watching Gemini man and that film was god awful. I think it set the world back from ever wanting to do another HFR movie.
That being said I would pay money to watch animals and landscapes from other places in 3d 120.
It looked like a video game, i think it only looks good for nature Documentaries, and maybe a 3d animated movie would be cool to see at 120 since its already Artificial looking
Obsessed with your content brother!! please keep up!!
Thanks Russell!!
I definitely think this is a generational thing and the older the person you are talking to the more likely they are to cling to 24 fps, I think 60 fps could be a standard for film especially if a new generation of ppl start pushing a change. To me it just seems like a nostalgia thing.
Another banger! Great informative video man!
I think you looked best at 60fps. I love Hobbit at 48fps and Gemini Man at 120fps.
As a filmmaker/video marker, I think it's best to position yourself as someone who's creative rather than a conformist. Yeah, film has been shot at 24 fps for over 100 years. That frame rate wasn't chosen because of it's artistic merit or visual impact. It was chosen because it was the lowest frame rate they can use where people can still perceive motion. It was a cost-based decision. Society is just used to 24 fps for movies, 30 fps for TV shows/news and 60 fps for sports. Ang Lee and Peter Jackson said nah bro we ain't conforming, we're going to do something new. I agree with them. Let's be creative and push it!
Also, as a gamer who has a 165hz monitor and loves it, I hope UA-cam gives us the ability to playback 120 fps+ content soon.
Trying out new is indeed great but when I watched that Hobbit or Gemini clips I've felt it was done by an complete Amateure. Im gaming on a 144hz Monitor and boy is that smooth. Even 60hz feels unplayable for me now. But when I do cinematic gaming videos I still stick to 30 (cause I record in 60) and even add motion blur because it takes you way more into the action. But when I watch a simple Gameplay I want it to be 60 just like sports.
I hope that standard will stick to 24. Image someone in 2040 buying a new cam cause his old one can only shoot 120fps at 8K :D
120fps is awesome for slowmo at least
Awesome video again, Mark! Love your content as always
I remember when I went to see The Hobbit in theaters when it first came out. It was so jarring to watch and I felt uncomfortable the entire film. I recently finally got around to watching the whole series in 24fps, and it was like watching it for the first time. Couldn't even remember most of the film because I was so focused on how bad it looked and wasn't able to enjoy the story when I saw it the first time. 🤣
You're totally right that frame rate is part of a language, but languages evolve and change. Even the cinematic languages changed over it's very short life with technological enhancements. It changed when audio could be integrated, which created talkies, but then sound became the norm and non-talkies were called silent-movies to differentiate. The same happened with color. Technological enhancement expand the range of the language. It could very well be that ~24 fps will remain the norm for cinema, but stating that THIS IS the cinematic language feels hand wavy to me like a black & white era director saying color movies are just a fad because the point of cinema is to reduce information. 24 fps is our current cinematic lingua franca, not THE CINEMATIC LANGUAGE.
24p definitely feels more cinematic. I can't stand watch 60p - looks like a low budget soap opera or video game. unnatural.
Agreed
Actually the oposit is true. 24 is unnatural. You are just used to it.
@@andersistbesser maybe true. But I definitely prefer 24p. 60p for gaming is fine but it’s a different purpose- u don’t want screen tearing, response time matters and so on. For movies, majority seems to agree - the stuff filmed in higher frame rates received bad press.
Totally agree with you on that visual feeling. Before, I didn't even know this effect is because of frame rate. I just knew modern TVs are showing this smooth movies, and I HATED them because it felt like I am in a theater rather than watching a movie.
It's funny. Seeing a movie shot on 60 fps looks wrong, even though I love high fps motion. But watching a movie in 24 fps that has been interpolated (not to be confused with interlaced) to 60 fps is really cool and an unique experince to watch. Yes, the technology is not perfect with a lot of artifacts. But some of the best technologies make it look near impossible to notice for the naked eye. A movie that looks 24 fps but in reality is 60 fps (or the other way around depending on how you look at it) is in my opinion more satisfying to watch. You get the smooth motion but you keep most if not all of the other elements that make 24 fps look cinematic, like the before-mentioned motion blur. It's weird to explain and sounds completely dumb until you try it yourself. The feature is called "frame interpolation" but is also known as "motion smoothing" but it's name differs from brand to brand, e.g.: Samsung has named theirs "Auto Motion Plus". And a big plus is that the feature is pretty much built into every smart tv or projector that is sold to this day.
What a video 💝
I will surely buy your course when I will have enough money
With 60/120fps, I feel like I am on set. A friend put on an Avengers movie with 60 or 120 interpolation turned on with the TV's processing, and I felt like I was looking through the camera viewfinder at Tom Hiddleston in his Loki costume and I expected to see the 3d tracker balls and tape for hitting marks. At any moment, someone would yell "CUT!" and I would see the crew walk onto the set to reset some prop or other. I absolutely did not feel like I was watching a film. That effect was actually great at 2:49 in this video. Hey Mark! Nice to be sitting behind the camera in the same room with you! Maybe there is a place for this in certain types of docs. But I am 100% with you that for most docs, particularly the stories of the subjects you tell, 24 is the right frame rate, and the effect of 60fps is a much less effective tool for that task. Though for some people, they hate 24 and love 60fps. I had a friend in college who was always, always thrown off by black and white - it just took him out of whatever he was watching. It looked "wrong" and "fake." Until someone colorizes Citizen Cane, Rashômon, Wings of Desire or other classics, he will never enjoy those films, no matter how beautifully they were shot. Part of the potential audience will always have these deeply personal feelings.
The mind doesn't begin to disassociate reality from the moving picture until the framerate goes below 30fps, so and that's where the magic of cinema and the suspension of disbelief takes effect. Pretty interesting phenomena really
You seem like a cool, sweet human dude. Not sure what the algorithm decided that I may like your content, but I am glad that it did.
Your differentiation here is very clear and helpful, Mark. I hadn't really thought about how film uses elements like shallow depth of field, frame rate, etc. (your CVL) to pull you into the story. It's obvious when you think about it, but I didn't think about until you mentioned it. Pretty cool.
I agree with everything this man said because it's exactly what I wanted to hear.
As a person who has never heard of you before this video and knows almost nothing about the technical side of filming, I totally agree with you. I feel like this video explains some things I've been wondering about for years.
Awesome thoughts "withholding information is cinematic"!
On thing that made gemini man feel off was the shutter angle. (they were closer to a 360 degree shutter or 1/120 vs 1/240 for a lot of gemini man). And from what I remember reading about the Hobbit, it was a similar half baked kind of measure. Because they had to convert to other framerates, they were stuck shooting at longer shutter speeds. I find that true 120p films shot at 1/240 has that kind of a true to life feel, almost like real life. Some research has concluded that 120 is slightly beyond what the human eye can decern, and that 60 is still a little slow. Anyway, this is a great piece, thank you for making this! If I'm honest, in some cases that can feel very unique, maybe even be ideal. One doc I think I actually dug the HFR was Aquarela shot at 96FPS and projected at TIFF at 96fps. Felt really interesting, strange and maybe beautiful. Really worth exploring if you can find it.
Oh and one more thing, Ang Lee felt that the biggest gain was in the close ups. Something I think I kind of started to understand a little bit. He felt the still closeups were where things were the HFR really felt new, maybe even better.
Absolutely outstanding. Your commentary was spot on! New sub
❤️
how can you demonstrate different framerates in the same video? youtube doesn't allow variable framerate videos?
It’s just one 60fps timeline I rendered out. You’re seeing a 24fps pull up to 60
@@markbone so that was part of the point I was trying to make. there's no way to truly compare framerates in a single video because they are all tied to a single timeline. I understand your arguments still stand but you're asking the viewer to see the difference when the difference isn't exactly rendered correctly. like showing a 24fps video in a 60FPS timeline isn't the same as showing a 24fps video in a 24fps timeline. At least there weren't frames decimated.
Man, I loved this video. Thanks, Mark.
@Mark - is the fps something that needs to happen when recording or will a 60 fps video that is rendered at 24 fps have the same amount of motion blur?
Yeah, it’s best to film natively in the frame you want to display in
Another reason to film at a higher frame rate is when doing green screen action shots for visual effects. It's a pain to key out extreme motion blur. The less fringing we can get on those edges the happier your VFX artist will be. We love crisp edges as much as possible.
this is certainly a good reason
Talking into the camera at 60fps with a cinema/film look, (not ultra) wide at 2:1 ish, is the holy trinity.
I've watched movies shot at higher frame rates but didn't realise it at the time and wondered why they looked kinda off? Here you've explained that clearly and know I know better. Thank you.
Liked and subbed 👍
I don't mind the motion blur of 23.98/24 (which isn't necessarily inherit to framerate by the way), what actually bothers me is the stutter/judder that occurs when you have a display with really fast pixel response times, like an LG OLED for example. This is especially noticeable in panning shots that are fast enough to need the temporal resolution, but slow enough to not have much motion blur (for sake of simplicity, I'm not going to mention shutter speed).
A display with a slow enough pixel response, or a CRT with phosphor persistence, will significantly mask this effect. In the event that there isn't enough motion blur, but the motion is still significant, and your display is fast enough, 24fps is simply not enough frames to trick your brain into seeing smooth continuous motion, they just appear as individual frames popping up onto the screen one after the other (which they are, of course).
Instantly subscribed, a pleasure to watch!
thanks Rori!
I was just testing out the 120fps mode for a ps5 game called Ghostrunner, my brother was watching also. I recently got a monitor capable of 120fps so my brother and I wanted to see what it was like.
Immediately we noticed it was… too much? I felt my brain having to hold on and focus on only a small amount that I could . It’s such a fast moving game but 120fps almost made it feel too fast . Honestly, felt kind of bad to play for a game like this
So I came to UA-cam to see what other opinions there were about 120 , and found this video.
The way you articulated everything and explained things was familiar and really easy to understand mate , it was said in a way that would help professionals but also non-camera-visual professionals like myself . I really appreciate it man. Really cool video and you helped me make sense of something I didn’t understand. Thanks a lot mate
Well... motion blur is not really dependent on the frame rate but rather on the shutter speed used. You can also shoot 30p and use 1/50 of a second and get the same motion blur as with 24p and 1/50 of a sec. That's what I do, most of the time, since I can't stand the stutter of 24p when there's panning or tilting of the camera involved on 60 Hz screens (the majority of smartphone and computer displays). 30p 1/50 works good for me and I dare say that nobody would notice a difference (except for the smoother camera pans and tilts).
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@@Videofilealways True! At some other point in the video, Mark says that motion blur is dependent on frame rate, that's what I was referring to. But thanks for pointing me to the part where he clears it up :)
There is more than just the actual frame rate in real "motion pictures". Physical pacing is sometimes deliberately slowed down. A director will guide actors to move at certain speeds. I think that when they see the rushes, the re-takes are probably adapted to 24 fps. Then that gets ingrained into an actor's "natural pace" and it continues. If you get used to 30 fps, then your acting, speech patterns and so on will probably slightly increase. Then again, down at the 24 vs 30 fps speeds, there is the mutual incompatibility. Sometimes you can convert between them, but sometimes it doesn't really work (well). I have been playing with the idea that I would like to record in 36 fps for everything. The only problem is that I do not have a camera that does this. . . .
Very cool, interesting and in-depth video! :)
At home we still have as our main TV a screen that can only show 1080 ‘full HD’ at it’s maximum. A few years ago I went to a friend’s house who had a new ‘super HD’ TV and whilst watching it I couldn’t work out why all the TV drama we were watching looked absolutely awful, even though the picture was (in theory at least) “so much better” and “super sharp”. It took me ages to work out that the default settings for this TV was showing the HD TV programmes at a higher frame rate than what we’re normally used to and, whilst this is great for watching sports or maybe a nature documentary, it made beautifully lit, shot and crafted drama just look like some weird reality TV show that totally lost all it’s magic! Anyway, so this video makes sooooo much sense, yet most ordinary people with their brand new super HD resolution TV’s set to show everything with abnormally high frame rates by default didn’t even realise their screens had been set up this way, or why some programmes looked plain weird, unless they were watching sports
This argument for 24fps is very similar to the argument for sticking to imperial system of measurement: because we’re used to it. Maybe straight up moving to higher frame rates isn’t the problem but rather that we’re moving to higher frame rates while still sticking to old methods.
Nice explanation about frame rate, and the difference between them. Congratulations for your work!
No one has ever before gotten me to subscribe in the first 20 seconds of discovering their channel. A record.
I'm a gamer who *totally* gets the concept of movies being a different thing than games, and higher framerates not being better necessarily.
It applies to games, as well. Temporal resolution is more important in the types of games where reaction time is paramount; usually details and other facets of world design have to be sacrificed to meet those frame-rate targets. CS Go, designed to run at framerates upwards of 300fps, looks very simplistic visually compared to AAA games such as Tomb Raider which target 30 on many platforms. In such a "sightseeing" game where the gameplay is less twitchy or reliant on reflexes, 30 or 60 is a much more appropriate target because it frees up resources for things like better textures, lighting, etc.
This was the first video I watched of yours; I enjoyed it very much!
The acknowledgement of the existence of PAL will be appreciated in Europe and Austria! 🤘😁
It's hard to compare the different framerates when all played in a 24 fps timeline.
So all we see basically is different 24p footage with different shutterspeeds.
I found the hobbit displayed in 48fps not as bad to watch as I did so in this direct comparison. But I still felt more like watching a cutscene for all the fight/action scenes.
Overall I agree with everything you said. ✌️
My eyes adjusted to the hobbit after a while but it was still confronting at first. Felt like videos games
@@markbone yeah for me it was the tunnel ride. That was rough the first time I watched it. 😅
Very very interesting! I actually want to shoot a documentary and was thinking to go for 120fps. Maybe I'll go for 60fps, because I wanted a very realistic view, and actually with as much depth of field as possible.
But it's very interesting to see the comparison and be able to think what is right for each of us
I think it's better to discuss motion blur in the context of the stylistic choice of shutter angle. Want to trim motion blur for the purposes of a high energy fight scene? - trim your shutter angle. Want smooth buttery motion blur? - open that puppy up. While at the same shutter angle higher frame rates result in less motion blur, I think discussing motion blur as a function of frame rate obscures the role of shutter angle and the choice it provides the filmmaker.
With respect to frame rates, it's really about the interpretation of motion and how valuable information between frames is. Games typically don't have motion blur at any frame rate, but if you're gaming in a lower frame rate, you can miss vital information that might be obscured between frames. The more frames per second, the better reproduction of motion, and the more frame samples a gamer has to respond to stimuli.
With cinema, I think you hit the nail on the head - it's about withholding information, and interpretation of motion isn't always beneficial for suspension of disbelief.
What about judder? On a 60 Hz display (typical display refresh rate), 24p playback will show every other frame or so for a slightly longer length of time. Each frame is displayed, but the length of time each frame is displayed is not the same. There is a test video you can use where a square is shown in different locations progressing forward for each frame; if you take a long exposure of the display with a camera, some of the squares will be darker than others, indicating that those frames are being displayed for a longer length of time...
Doesn't this ruin the flow and timing of 24p by creating these micro jitters or judder on 90% of viewing displays?
I believe the only way to smoothly playback 24p is if the display is set either to 24Hz, 48Hz or 120Hz and this seems like a huge oversight by most creators.
I like the dreaminess of 24 fps, but it does annoy me that it's probably not even being displayed correctly(?).
Great video! Even before being conscious about frame rates I've had the same observations and could not enjoy above 30. Now, here you give a clear explanation.
For the record, all interlaced television, even all the way back to black & white in 1939, is 60 images per second. Each interlaced frame in a separate moment in time, despite being only every other line. So a proper conversion of old analog TV recordings at 480i, or even HD at 1080i, is to 60fps. The term "frame" in interlaced video is confusing. It's not the same as a film or progressive video frame. It just means all the lines are done being scanned, but it contains two separate images. If you deinterlace to 29.97fps, you either have to blend fields and lose temporal resolution (creating blurry motion), throw out every other field and lose spatial resolution (very soft image), or do fancy A.I. processing to determine a best guess across the image.
Always learning something new from your knowledge man!