Tag Archives: Avatar

James Cameron talks Avatar sequels in new interview

Posted on by
Reply

avatarPlay.lifegoesstrong.com has a new interview with James Cameron in which he shares some updates on the writing process for Avatar 2 and Avatar 3:

Q: Can you give us some scoop about your upcoming little film called “Avatar 2″

Cameron:  “Oh believe me, it’s not that little! It’s not exactly a little, intimate drama. I’m working on ‘Avatar 2′ and ‘Avatar 3.’ I was talking the other day with Peter Jackson and said, ‘You had it easy dude. You had the books when you did the second and third ‘Lord of the Rings.’ I have to create my own books in my head and extract a script from it. I’m deep into it and I’m living in Pandora right now. There is that start up torque where you feel it’s coming to you. Then you build up momentum. That’s when it gets fun. The characters talk and it’s writing itself. I’m almost there right now. It’s building fast.”

Q: Tell us a little bit about your life. For example, what is your writing process?

Cameron:  “As a writer, I need isolation. I’m calling you from New Zealand right now where I’m writing on a little farm. When you live in a special world like Pandora, you have to live in that world.”

Q: Do you ever feel the pressure of topping yourself? And do you have a release date you can share with us for “Avatar 2 and 3?”

A: “Pressure, no. It’s a little daunting because sequels are always tricky. You have to be surprising and stay ahead of audience anticipation. At the same time, you have to massage their feet with things that they know and love about the first film. I’ve walked that line in the past, so I’m not too worried about it. At the same time, I definitely have to deliver the goods…As for a release date that will be determined by when I get the script out. No pressure!”

Be sure to check out the full interview for talk about Cameron’s 3D Cirque Du Soleil movie (which was apparently shot in HFR 3D but never distributed in HFR), his life in New Zealand, what’s he’s learned since he was 18 and more.

Jon Landau will deliver keynote at NAB Technology Summit; will cover “latest work on higher-frame-rate cinema”

Posted on by
Reply

nab2013Jon Landau is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at the NAB show’s Technology Summit on Cinema: Advances in Image and Sound on Sunday, April 7.  It’s very likely Landau’s talk will explore the high frame rate technology / pipeline that he and James Cameron will be using for the Avatar sequels.  Hopefully Landau will confirm that they will be making the sequels at 60 fps and that performance capture / shooting will begin soon.

Wendy Aylsworth, president of SMPTE, says of Landau:

“As one of the industry’s most successful producers and storytellers, Jon Landau is a hero to many within the NAB Show audience.  He is a champion of employing the capabilities of technology to improve the telling of a story and has inspired many to push the envelope in movie-making.” (via BroadcastEngineering.com)

Besides Landau’s talk, the following sessions will include discussion of high frame rate: (via  SMPTE’s press release):

1)  ”‘Advancing Cameras for Cinema’ will discuss developments such as higher resolution and frame rates, as well as greater sensitivity, dynamic range, and color gamut, and their potential impact both on acquisition techniques and on human perception of the on-screen images.

2) “Two subsequent sessions will take a closer look at high frame rate (HFR) motion pictures, recent research on the psychophysical audience response to HFR, and how industry producers and directors are using 48fps and 60fps content to achieve a desired emotional audience response.”

Nabshow.com describes the the Technology Summit as providing “an in-depth global view of the new wave of technology coming soon to your local multiplex, with an eye toward how it might later affect the broader media ecosystem.”

Topics Include:

  • The latest work on higher-frame-rate cinema
  • Perceptual requirements for higher quality image and sound
  • New technologies for exhibition
  • Advantages and pitfalls of 3D film conversion

The 2013 NAB Technology Summit on Cinema will be held from 8:30 am Saturday, April 6 to 6 pm Sunday, April 7 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, South Hall Conference Room S222.  The Summit is co-produced by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE).

Weta Digital’s Joe Letteri talks HFR 3D and Smaug

Posted on by
Reply

hobbit-desolation-smaugStudioDaily.com has an interview with WETA Digital head Joe Letteri where he explains how making The Hobbit in HFR 3D affected WETA’s VFX process:

Studio Daily: What was the impact of 48 fps on post-production?

Joe Letteri: In a way, it was as simple as twice as many frames, so we had to do more work. It did allow us more creativity with animation. When you have 48 frames for every second, you can handle quick changes of motion better. You can see that in Gollum. At 48, you can really define those micro expressions. At 24 fps, the expressions are softer. We capture at 60 frames per second, so we could use more of the motion-capture data.

That WETA is already using 60 fps capture adds to the likelihood that future blockbusters they work on will be made at 60 fps.  I expect announcements of more high frame rate movies soon.  If I were to bet, I’d guess that the next announced HFR movie (beyond what has already been 100% confirmed) will be X-Men: Days of Future Past.  Bryan Singer has been making a string of exciting casting and plot related announcements on his Twitter, and he previously said he had “frame rate envy” after seeing The Hobbit in HFR. So I definitely expect to see this mutant epic in HFR 3D.

Letteri mentions realism as representing the future of visual effects:

Studio Daily: Leaving the business trends aside, what trends do you see technically and artistically in visual effects?

Joe Letteri: Generally, I see more of this trend toward realism. In a way, that’s what we’ve always done. But now, there’s more acknowledging that it is what we do. There’s more of a focus on understanding and trying to apply realism. Even though it’s more complex, it gives you the ability to standardize around a known quantity. There is less guesswork when you measure the real world.

What are you excited about now?

Smaug. He’s our next big character. You just got a few glimpses of him in the first film. I love the Riddles in the Dark, and I love Smaug. Seeing what we can do with Smaug is the next thing.

As I’ve been saying for a while now, I can’t wait to see Smaug.  His reveal at the end of An Unexpected Journey was perfect: from the thrush’s leisurely flight to the The Lonely Mountain, to it knocking the seed on the wall, then the camera taking us into the huge treasure chambers where we hear the amplified echoes of the thrush’s activity as we track over the hills of gold and treasure, leading into the final push-in on the dragon’s eye as we discover that Smaug had been sleeping under the gold coins all this time. I got chills.

Letteri’s love for Smaug and his excitement regarding Smaug as WETA’s “next big character” is very encouraging, as is the implicit promise of new techniques being used to bring Smaug and his environment to life.  We’ve never had a great talking dragon in the movies, not to mention a dragon whose belly is encrusted in dazzling golden coins and gems. Can’t wait to see how WETA plays with the lighting effects.

Even if An Unexpected Journey doesn’t win the best Visual Effects award tonight, I’d bet Smaug will win it for them in 2014.

Check out the StudioDaily.com interview for a lot more fascinating VFX-related discussion from Letteri.

Interview with author of InterFrame: the software that created those Avatar HFR videos!

Posted on by
1

Klaus Burton is the author of the InterFrame software which was used to create those 48 fps and 60 fps Avatar and Inception videos.  According to Klaus InterFrame is what most people use to convert regular framerate videos to HFR.

Klaus tells me that InterFrame is integrated into Universal Media Server (also programmed by Klaus) for realtime conversion and that there is a third-party GUI called InterFrameGUI, and that he wrote a conversion tutorial for those unfamiliar with how to use it.

In our email interview Klaus elaborates on his software, gives his thoughts on The Hobbit in 48 FPS,  contemplates the future of HFR tech adoption and shares his thoughts on how high frame rates should go before we reach the limits of the human eye:

1) Do you or InterFrame have an official website?

I publish all my software on spirton.com, the InterFrame section is http://www.spirton.com/interframe/

2) Where can I find the tutorial?

http://www.spirton.com/convert-videos-to-60fps/ It’s called “convert videos to 60fps” because I made InterFrame and the tutorial before The Hobbit was widely known (first release was around 2010)

3) Any other examples created with InterFrame that you would like me to link to?

The examples in the conversion tutorial are pretty good (http://www.spirton.com/uploads/InterFrame/20110618-Sample-Original.mkv and http://www.spirton.com/uploads/InterFrame/20110618-Sample-InterFrame.mkv)

4) Can InterFrame be used to create any frame rate? I.E. if you used it on source video that is already 48 fps (either native 48 fps or interpolated) could it output 96 fps?

Yes, any framerate. By default it will convert 25fps content to 50fps, and everything else to 59.94fps, since these are highly compatible with TVs, but you can specify any framerate by using NewNum and NewDen (standing for new numerator and new denominator)

5) How does InterFrame handle cuts in footage? For example, I would think you wouldn’t want to create an interpolated frame between the last frame of one shot and the first frame of a new shot (i.e shot one being a close up of a character’s face, and the second shot being a mountain or something).

InterFrame automatically estimates scene-changes. It occasionally makes a wrong guess that is unavoidable but in my testing it gets it right 99% of the time.

6) Is InterFrame being sold or licensed commercially? Do you see a market for post-converting regular frame rate movies, TV shows, or personal video into HFR?

It’s all free and semi-open source. InterFrame itself is all open, and we use some DLL files from another project SVP which is semi-closed source but still free.

7) What are your future plans for InterFrame?

In the near future I will continue to optimize our “tunings” and “presets”; presets control the speed of conversion at the cost of quality (useful for realtime conversion on slower computers) and tunings tell InterFrame what type of input you are feeding it so it can make better decisions with its interpolation, for example there is an “animation” tuning. I will also continue to improve quality and decrease artifacts.

8) What did you think of The Hobbit at 48 fps? What is your “ideal” frame rate for Hollywood movies? Is 60 fps enough, should it be even higher?

I love 48fps compared with 24fps, I thought it was amazing and a lot of my friends said the same; the common feedback I’ve seen is that it looked weird for the first 10 minutes but then they adjusted and it was better than 24fps. However there was still judder compared to the 60fps content I’m used to. I think the best goal at first is 60fps because of compatibility; all TVs can already display 60fps, whereas they can’t display 48fps without conversion (nor do blu-rays currently allow for that framerate), so I think that was an unfortunate choice by Peter Jackson. Most sports are already broadcast at progressive 60fps and they look great, so it shows the infrastructure is already there with TV stations as well.
In the future I think the highest we will want to go is probably 240fps. I think the average user can tell the difference between 48 and 60, but probably can’t tell the difference between 60 and 240.  However for people who have trained their eyes to notice these things I think 200fps or more is the way to go, and 240 is nicely divisible with most common framerates so it seems like a good candidate for the far-future. It is possible that we will eventually want to go beyond 240fps but I think by the time there is demand for that there may be video recording techniques that no longer use framerates.

I think the process will be like going from VHS to blu-ray; right now we’re in the VHS stage of framerates and 48fps is like VCD (an improvement but destined to be short-lived), with 60fps being like the DVD which will reign supreme for a long time.

9) Do you think HFR in Hollywood will catch on?

Absolutely. The response to 48fps from critics has been terrible, but film critics are famously slow to adapt to change and have never had much influence on the vast majority of the public, and it is the general public who generate the income for movies. A quick look at the user reviews of The Hobbit on IMDB reveals overwhelmingly positive response to the higher framerate. That response coupled with upcoming movies like X-Men and Avatar at HFR will solidify public demand for HFR film. I think it will come to be seen as the mark of a modern film in the same way 3D is becoming – already if a Hollywood film isn’t released in 3D it’s a bit weird; in the near future I think people will think that if a film isn’t released in 3D and HFR then it clearly isn’t a high-end production.

I think Peter Jackson will go down in history as a pioneer of film. He was already going to be famous for LotR but that type of fame is fleeting in history, but he has initiated a process that will change film forever which really solidifies his name in history.

Thanks to Klaus Burton for his time, and for enabling the creation of those cool Avatar and Inception trailer videos!

Sample Avatar clips at 48 fps and 60 fps

Posted on by
7

Thanks to Ilya Vaisman for alerting me to the following Russian forum which has sample clips of Avatar at 48 and 60 fps along with the Inception trailer at 48 fps. Of course these clips are interpolated and not native HFR. Check out this Avatar-forums.com thread for an additional HFR Avatar clip as well as links to documentation on how to produce your own interpolated HFR videos.

(right click to download):

Avatar sample at 48 fps: http://hfrmovies.com/Avatar_48_fps_Sample.mkv

Avatar sample at 60 fps: http://hfrmovies.com/avatar_60.mkv

Inception trailer at 48 fps:

http://www.gigashare.in/15cfd

Inception trailer at 60 fps:
http://hfrmovies.com/Inception_TRLR3_720.mp4

Although Avatar looks spectacular in these HFR clips, the sequels (even moreso than The Hobbit) will be the true flagship demonstration of the potential of HFR 3D.  Keep in mind that these interpolated clips, although they do reduce strobing and judder due to the increased number of fames, still contain motion blur.  Only native HFR shot with an adequately short shutter angle can eliminate motion blur.

WETA head Joe Letteri talks reactions to HFR…and what frame rate will the industry settle on?

Posted on by
1

Director of WETA Digital Joe Letteri spoke with Movieline.com about HFR 3D, comparing those decrying HFR 3D with the people who lashed out at color films when color technology first arrived:

If you grew up seeing films in black and white and suddenly start seeing films in color, some people are going to have the reaction ‘Wow, that’s great!’ and other people are going to have the reaction, ‘That’s not moviemaking! Films should be made in black and white! You’re losing the mystery of how to deal with tonality, you’re sacrificing that to deal with color!’ But if you grew up with only seeing color, you don’t know that. Just talking to the people that have seen [HFR 3D] so far, and obviously that’s been a very limited audience, the younger ones that I’ve spoken with don’t really have an issue with it because they’re not so ingrained with what 24 frames mean. To them they’re just watching a movie.

Letteri emphasizes the significant benefits high frame rates bestow upon stereoscopic 3D movies:

I think it’s beneficial with stereo. One of the artifacts of stereo — for example, if you look at something that’s out of focus, maybe an over the shoulder shot, this is where stereo differs from the real world. In the real world, wherever your eye focuses that object snaps to focus. So if you’re looking at a big screen and your eye wanders to something that is out of focus, your eye expects it to go into focus. It can’t. So you’re sitting there focusing on an out of focus object. That’s one of the things that causes your brain [to fritz]. The same thing also happens temporally. If you’ve got an object moving across the screen in the real world your eye wants to be able to track that and your eye wants to see it in focus. But because you’ve already photographed that with this motion blur, your eye cannot focus on something in space that’s blurry. Again, in the real world you never see that. It’s one of those other things that in 3-D your brain says something’s not right here. Well, if you go to high frame right, it is in focus. Your eye can focus on these fast moving objects or even slow moving ones and the detail’s always there. So your brain can make sense of it.

His point regarding the ability of HFR to mimic the eye’s tendency/ability to track and bring into focus fast-moving objects is interesting…not only does HFR result in smooth motion during action sequences (especially helping with the choppy motion found in 24 fps 3D movies), but it also reduces eye strain by allowing the eye to do what it would do during real-life fast movement: track objects on the screen. The primary cause of eyestrain in stereoscopic 3D is the eye’s inability to bring blurred objects into focus. While HFR 3D doesn’t solve the issue of the inability to focus on background objects during a shallow focus shot of, say, a character’s face, it does allow the viewer to focus on fast moving objects. And if the viewer chooses not to focus his/her eyes on, for example, an arrow flying across the screen, the brain will create its own motion blur just like it does in real life.

I think 48 fps still isn’t quite high enough to 100% fix the issue of blur during movement. Douglass Trumbull, Letteri and others seem to have reached a consensus that at 60 fps+ (especially 64 fps+) movements on screen are interpreted by the brain as real:

Jim [Cameron] is considering 60 fps [for Avatar 2]. That’s closer to where persistence of vision almost disappears. In fact, these discussions came out of when we noticed the effect of that in Avatar. And we were brainstorming with Jim on how to fix it — well, this is inherent in the photography and the only thing you can do is go shorter shutter, but that introduces strobing, or you can go higher frame rate. We started experimenting with higher frame rate [from a standpoint of] how do we solve the problem? It looks like something happening live.

I really want to know the exact number the industry will settle upon for HFR. Will it be 60 fps, which is perhaps a few frames per second shy of the point where increases in frame rate become unnoticeable by most? Will it be 72 fps or 96, which are multiples of 24, thus allowing for accurate downconversion to 24 fps? Or will it be 120 (a multiple of both 24 and 60), allowing for easy downconversion to both 60 fps (for TVs) and 24 fps (for film projection)? I don’t see it going higher than 120 fps per eye any time in the next decade. At that high of a frame rate even the most hardcore videophiles would be very unlikely to notice further increases.

In any case I think it will benefit the future of high frame rates as a format if a standard is chosen relatively soon.

James Cameron gives Avatar sequels progress report

Posted on by
1

James Cameron walked the red carpet at the premiere of The Hobbit and expressed his desire to make the Avatar sequels at a high frame rate. Via The West Australian:

“If there is acceptance of 48, then that will pave the way for Avatar to take advantage of it,” Cameron told reporters.  ”We charged out ahead on 3D with Avatar, now Peter’s doing it with the Hobbit. It takes that kind of bold move to make change.”

Some have taken this quote to mean that Cameron has decided on 48 fps instead of 60 fps for the Avatar sequels.  But it’s more likely that he was referring to taking advantage of HFR 3D tech in general and not 48 fps in particular. Recent quotes from Cameron have indicated that he wants to make Avatar 2 & 3 at 60 fps, which would follow his tendency of introducing new technologies with each of his films. Hopefully someone will ask him whether this is still the plan.

Cameron is currently bunkering down on his recently purchased farm in New Zealand working on the scripts for Avatar 2 & 3, telling reporters that hopes to finish writing by February and to start filming by the end of 2013:

“I want to get these scripts nailed down, I don’t want to be writing the movie in post production. We kind of did that on the first picture, I ended up cutting out a lot of scenes and so on and I don’t want to do that again.”

I can’t wait for Avatar sequels that expand the mythology of the series and show us herertofore unseen parts of Pandora and the Alpha Centauri / Polyphemus system. And I expect to be blown away by the visuals once again, especially considering the advances in performance capture, CG, and animation that have come about since 2009.  Nothing has come close to matching Avatar in terms of grand escapism and world building in the years since it released: Cameron really does seem to be the only filmmaker shooting for the stars in terms of spectacle.

Jon Landau talks high frame rates; gives Avatar sequels update

Posted on by
Reply

Collider scored an exclusive interview with Titanic and Avatar producer Jon Landau in advance of Titanic’s blu-ray debut.  It’s focused primarily on Titanic, but Landau shares his thoughts on 48 fps and 60 fps, The Hobbit‘s limited HFR release, as well as the status of Avatar 2 and 3:

What are your thoughts on 48 frames per second and 60 frames per second? Do you think that is the future of projection?

LANDAU: I think it’s a great way to go. I don’t think we have to choose 48 or 60. I think filmmakers should be able to choose. The technology is there. The projectors can play either one. I think filmmakers need to drive this. We’ll get rid of strobing, we’ll have brighter light levels, and we’ll see it evolve, down the road. But, I think it’s an evolutionary step, not a revolutionary step. So, I don’t think it’s going to happen overnight, but I think it’s something that will happen over time.

What are your thoughts on Warner Bros. seeming to have pulled back a bit from 48fps on The Hobbit, after the reaction from critics wasn’t as enthusiastic as they would have liked it to be?

LANDAU: I think that’s a misconception. I think what they are doing is managing expectations. If they come out there and say, “Hey, it’s at high frame rates,” but the theater in Des Moines, Iowa doesn’t have higher frame rates, people will say, “Wait, they promised it to me.” I think what they’re saying is, “Look, in this first initial pass, it’s going to be in selected theaters.” It can’t be everywhere, so I think they’re handling it very smartly.

The release dates for the second and third Avatar movies seem to be in flux a bit. Do you have a current status for the release dates and how far along those scripts are now?

LANDAU: The scripts are pretty far along. We have a team of people already working on the film at Manhattan Beach Studios. We’ve been working with WETA Digital on technologies. You know, Titanic was supposed to be a summer movie and it was a Christmas movie. We’re going to make the best possible version of these movies, and they will come out when they are exactly that.

I’m excited that a team is already working on what I’m guessing is prep work relating to the motion capture element of Avatar 2 and 3…on the first Avatar lots of early work was done simply figuring stuff out, i.e. how to mo-cap the banshee. I’d guess nothing (or at least not much) with the principal actors has happened yet.  I think that would qualify as big news / the official start of production, and there’d likely be a press release from Fox / Lightstorm.

As to The Hobbit’s limited release, I think Landau is correct that it’s a good move for WB to manage expectations if HFR-enabled projectors aren’t going to be widespread by December. 48 fps screen count estimates over the past months have been very high, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the projector companies were simply too optimistic with their numbers, especially since required software upgrades for many projectors weren’t scheduled to become available until sometime in September.

Head on over to Collider for the full talk with Landau, including his thoughts on Titanic and details of the blu-ray release, other recent advances in technology he wishes to incorporate into future movies, and more.

 

Jackson talks 48 fps; Trailer coming in September; New diary vid soon!

Posted on by
Reply

Hall H: not the ideal conditions to showcase 48 fps 3D

Peter Jackson posted a new update to his Facebook page this morning, and it looks like we’ll have to wait until September for the new Hobbit trailer.  It’s a curious decision not to attach it to The Dark Knight Rises…maybe WB wants all the focus to be on the first Man of Steel trailer?  Or, more likely, Jackson simply needs more time to prepare the trailer that he has in mind. The trailers for the Lord of the Rings films were pieces of art in and of themselves, so it wouldn’t surprise me if he just wants the extra time to make a trailer for the ages.

But he consoles us with the announcement that a new production diary video featuring some of the Comic-Con reel is coming very soon!

Jackson also expands on the decision to not show tomorrow’s footage at 48 fps.  As I suspected, private screenings of 48 fps Hobbit footage, in optimal conditions (which Comic-Con doesn’t have with its many small screens hanging from the ceiling), have been making great impressions:

Lastly, let me give you more detail about my decision to screen the Hobbit Reel at Comic Con in 2-D and 24 fps. My LA Times quotes are brief and the topic deserves a little more detail than that.  We have conducted many private screenings of Hobbit footage in the US and several international territories, running the same reel twice – once at 24fps, and secondly at 48fps. This has allowed distributors and exhibitors direct comparison of the two formats. The response has been universally strong for the higher frame rate of 48fps.

When we screened only the 48fps reel at CinemaCon a few months ago, some bloggers focussed stories, not on the content, but on their negative reaction to 10 mins of high frame rate footage. This reaction convinced me that the only fair way to experience 48fps, is to sit down and watch a complete feature length movie, with a narrative, not quick trailer cuts. Do I want the ComicCon Hobbit stories to be all about 48 fps? Of course I don’t. I want to present footage from a movie we’re all proud of, with terrific performances and I’m looking forward to seeing what you think.

I’ve always been happy to bet on myself, and for me the experience of watching the full Hobbit movie in 3-D and 48 fps is something really special. Fully immersive, like stepping into Middle-earth. The screen disappears, and you enter the world of the movie in a vivid way. I love it.

The subject of high frame rates has serious film industry implications, and it’s important that it’s judged in the fairest possible context. I’m afraid that a presentation of a short clip reel in a huge convention center is simply not the way to do it. I’m sorry if people attending Comic Con were hoping to see a glimpse of 48 fps, but let me say that in December,  if you choose to see the Hobbit in a great cinema, projecting the higher frame rate, you will be in the best place to make up your own mind.  And you will have the choice – there will be plenty of cinemas screening both versions.

Here’s my prediction: this time next year, there will be several movies shooting at 48 fps. As an industry, we have to push the current technology to provide more spectacular and immersive experience in the cinema, on a nice huge screen.

Next year we might very well have several movies shooting at 60 fps as well, especially if James Cameron, who seems to be currently leaning towards shooting the Avatar sequels at 60 fps, sticks to his guns.  We should be hearing more about a potential start date for 2, 3 and (4?) soon.

A blog focused on High Frame Rate movies

Posted on by
Reply

Hey everyone!

I hope to make this site a catch-all resource for news, opinion pieces, and information on high frame rate cinema . For now, that means movies shot at, and, this is key- projected at- 48 frames per second.

The world will get its first look at a 48 fps movie once The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey hits theaters worldwide this December.

After that there is The Hobbit: There and Back Again, scheduled for December 2013.  And, of course, 2 (or maybe 3, according to recent rumors) Avatar sequels from James Cameron will hit starting December 2015.  Cameron is reportedly planning on shooting these at 60 frames per second.

Unless you’ve been to CinemaCon to see early Hobbit footage, or seen Cameron’s test footage showing 24 vs 48 vs 60 fps, you’ve never seen anything like this. Keep in mind that any proclaimed 48fps+ footage you watch on your computer will not look the same as what you’ll see at a 48 fps Hobbit showing due to the inherent pulldown artifacting of computer monitors.  And Youtube currently can’t show anything over 30 fps, so don’t trust Youtube videos claiming to show high frame rates. Not to mention the lack of 3D, which I’m expecting will blow us all away come December.

Feel free to voice any opinions on the topic of frame rates in the comments.  Have you seen any of the above-mentioned demonstrations?  Are you looking forward to seeing The Hobbit at 48 frames per second?

Welcome, and stay tuned for news, impressions, and samples of the next revolution in cinema technology!