When I first read that Peter Jackson was going to show "The Hobbit" in 48 rather than 24 frames per second, or FPS, I was excited to see what this would mean. Having never worked in the film industry, I thought he had a camera that somehow shot twice as much film in one second, and that it required a special machine to be able to project all of that film in the same amount of time it would take to show a regular movie.
However, it is not this way at all. It is the exact same amount of film, but it is sped up. The result is the characters move unnaturally fast, and the camera moves in quick jerky motions whenever it pans.
Instead of being a subtle quality to enhance the picture--like High Definition making the picture clearer--it is something most people will undoubtedly notice. Even if someone does not know the film was sped up, he or she will know there is something off about it.
Furthermore, instead of enhancing the quality, it is actually cheapened. When Peter Jackson filmed the movie, the way everything was timed was assuming it would be the normal 24 frames per second. An example from the trailer is a scene where Bilbo has the ring in his pocket, and it looks like Gandalf is going to find this out. For the sake of clarification, I will describe the scene for you as it appears in the trailer:
"I found something in the goblin tunnels," Bilbo says.
"What did you find?" Gandalf asks with concern. He looks at Bilbo as he fiddles with the ring in his pocket. It seems he knows that Bilbo has it.
"My courage," Bilbo says after a brief pause.
"Good," Gandalf replies, "You'll need it."
The reason this scene works in the trailer and in the 24 FPS version of the movie is because of the timing. It is meant to have pauses throughout to build suspense. It helps us as the audience internalize that Gandalf might suspect Bilbo has the ring, and this holds our attention as we wonder how the wizard will respond. The pace is just right for this to happen. Sped up to 48 FPS, it does not have the same effect. It is much quicker, the pauses are much shorter, and we do not have as much time to try predicting what will happen.
When the movie started I hated this! I felt cheated. I was thinking it was going to be some ground breaking technology, but instead it is an annoying effect that happens when you press the wrong button on some DVD players.
When the action scenes started, I was a little more relieved. The quick movements were pretty fun to watch in those scenes. There were also other scenes in which it was actually a relief to see normal motions made quicker. For example, when a character picks up an apple, instead of waiting a couple seconds for it to be picked up, it is done super fast.
After thinking about it, I have come to the conclusion that this is not a good thing. My being relieved that I did not have to wait a few seconds for a character to pick up fruit is because the society I have grown up in has conditioned me to be impatient. It is increasingly becoming the norm to want something now. For example, when I want to find out about something, I will look on the Internet. When I can find it instantaneously, I am satisfied. When my wi-fi is slow, however, it is not fun to be in the room with me. I get frustrated that I cannot find what I wanted right then. Instead of doing this, I should count my blessings that the Internet exists. If it did not, I would have had to take a trip to the library to look up what I want to know.
Chances are you have experienced the same thing. Society is only increasing our intolerance to be patient. There are two very popular trends that I hate because of this: Twitter and Vine videos. With Twitter, you can only write messages that are 140 characters or less. I believe this website has become popular because of the fact that everything is short, so you do not need to patiently read long articles to get information.
The Vine videos are six second scenes. Some of them are pretty cool, but others are simply ideas of something that could have been so much better. Sometimes they are very short jokes, and they would have worked if they only had a little more buildup. Like HFR, a lot of the problem with Vines is the timing is off.
What are the ramifications of this? This is just speculation, but it can lead to poor communication skills. We need to be patient with others. If my friend does not text me right away, I should not be annoyed with this. If I am talking to him face-to-face, I need to have the ability to patiently listen to what he has to say. If I am impatient with other people, they will not want to talk to me, and I will have poor interpersonal relationships.
I think the reason Peter Jackson is trying to push HFR is he wants to be known for pushing the boundaries of film-making technology. In my opinion, he should stick with being known for bringing Middle Earth to the big screen. HFR cheapens the overall quality, and it can lead our society to grow more impatient.
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