Reactions to The Hobbit’s 48 fps, HFR 3D!

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The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey‘s world premiere was yesterday, along with at least one screening for press. And although there is an embargo until December 3 quite a few reactions to the world’s first high frame rate 3D movie have leaked.

Below is an assortment of comments from Twitter and elsewhere regarding the HFR 3D. I’ll be updating this as more reactions roll in. And please comment below if you find any reviews/reactions that talk about the 48 fps. Thanks!

And these two who saw a test reel in HFR 3D:

Quotes from premiere attendees, via Stuff.co.nz:

-“It was amazing, especially the battle scenes and it left you wanting more at the end,” Paul Bingham said. “The 48 fps is totally the future of movies. It takes you a couple of minutes to get used to it, but the clarity is amazing. I read the initial media criticism but I have to say: It’s just fantastic.”

-The new 3D format “did feel a bit voyeuristic at first but once you get used to how crystal clear it is, I think it is quite amazing. It is arresting when you first see it. It is almost like something you shouldn’t really be seeing it. It’s cool,” [Shihad frontman Jon Toogood] said.

-Another movie-goer described it as the best of fantasy put into 3D. “I don’t know if it was so advanced or if it was so old, that’s how I would describe it. It was just gorgeous,” she said.

-“I thought it was fantastic. The bits you can probably most appreciate are the sound quality, that was extraordinary, and all of the technical side of it. The 48 frames per second, it’s some of the best 3D ever produced, and then the story itself, I think it just captures you,” [Economic Development Minister Gerry Brownlee] said.

Quotes from the NY Daily News:

-The movie offers technological wizardry, thanks to a 48 frames-per-second format, twice the industry standard. Critics who saw a trailer earlier this year were unimpressed, but after a minute or two of adjusting, the higher resolution is eye-popping, similar to discovering HD television for the first time.

Alas, the higher resolution has one downside: it really makes you wince when you see the obscenely corpulent Goblin King in such crystal clarity.

  • northisland

    It seems that maybe some people are confusing the high resolution with 48 frames per second. The 48fps is a separate thing from colour, clarity and resolution. For example NY Daily News talks about poor critical reception earlier this year but that you adjust to the “higher resolution”. Yet 48fps has nothing to do with resolution. And as I understood it the poor critical reception was mainly about 48fps not high resolution.

    • Rooster

      Actually, the amount of FPS does help with resolution. It’s because of motion blur. At 24fps, fast moving scenes degrade the resolution. The faster the camera moves, the lower the resolution (amount of detail you see) becomes. Just freeze frame any scene in an action movie where people are running and the camera is panning and try to make out fine details. At 48fps, the fast moving action scenes will have more detail, because of less motion blur.

      • http://twitter.com/scottish_dave David Roberts

        Hmmm this is not true I’m afraid. You can stop motion blur at 24 frames if you want to. You simply shoot at a higher shutter speed. Of course this introduces judder if not handled correctly but just have a look at the opening scene from Saving Private Ryan for an example. Motion blur affecting resolution is at best true in an abstract sense as the pixel count is exactly the same. On a steady dolly shot panning left to right you will see blur along the horizontal plane but the perceived sharpness on the vertical plan is unaffected. I think most of these responses are people grasping to articulate why they are impressed. Colour, resolution etc are no different in HFR. I’m very excited for HFR for 3D, I think it will help a lotn and I’m really looking forward to it but I’d be wary of being overly critical of things like blur. Would you describe the bokeh from a shallow depth of field to be a negative? Perceived ‘resolution’ is ‘degraded’ there too yet we all strive for this effect in film and photography. There’s more to a great picture than sharpness ;)

  • Hans

    Not quite true, it has everything to do with resolution, as with 24 fps you lose a lot of it as soon as the camera or the objects in the scene move. Somewhere else a CE manufaturer was quoted on Ultra HD (8K), and at screen sizes of 82 inches Ultra HD doesn’t make any sense with 24 fps, as you only get a much lower resolution in motion. So 8K and 60 fps sounds good to me :-)