Why Blending Frame Rates is a New Artistic Tool

IBC

Ang Lee's latest feature Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is garnering Oscar buzz even ahead of its November release because of its unprecedented blend of visual formats.

http://www.ibc.org/hot-news/why-blending-frame-rates-is-a-new-artistic-tool

The film is shot and produced in 3D 4K and 120 frames a second (for both of the 3D views) and it is the speed of the show which is most remarkable.

While visual effects pioneer and director Douglas Trumbull wowed IBC in 2014 with a screening of his short film UFOTOG which was produced in 3D 4K and 60fps (both eye views), no mainsteam feature has ever been released in the format.

Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in 2012 was shot at 48 fps, and James Cameron has also publicly stated he is considering higher-speed cinematography for the Avatar sequels.

There are many technically challenging aspects to Lee's production such as the management of 40 times more data than a conventional movie and the challenge to outfit exhibitors with the projection equipment possible to play it back at 3D 4K 120 but the most intriguing artistic aspect is the experiment with selecting different frame rates for scenes within his final master.

Shooting at 120 fps unlocks the ability for fine control in post over ‘the look’ of the material because the camera’s shutter angle is no longer 'baked in' to the rushes. This same synthetic shuttering technique can tailor the look for all deliverables up to and including the maximum of 120 fps.

“Creatively this means you have the ability to make some sections more normal and other seem more heightened, so scenes in Iraq might be more heightened than scenes when Billy is with his family,” explains the film's editor, Tim Squyres ACE.

He describes how frames can be blended together to provide different looks for how we perceive movement and motion blur.

“When you move between frame rates you are trading off strobing with motion blur,” he says. “By using a 360 shutter you can pretty much eliminate strobing but if you move to 60 there will be some strobing and going down to 48 there is even more. The straightforward means to move down frame rates is to throw frames away – so from 120 to 60 you could just throw away every other frame, but by using software we could blend the before and after frames, or just a portion of them, or combine two frames together, all designed to smooth the strobing and hard-edged look you get in 3D.”

While such extreme rates are entirely new, it's worth noting that variable frame rates for different scenes (usually between 18 and 23 fps) were the norm in the silent film era with film reels often delivered with instructions as to how fast or slow each scene should be shown.

One of the founding fathers of cinema, Thomas Edison, preached that 46fps should be the  optimum speed at which film is shown, a factor limited by the need to manually crank films through a projector. When the talkies arrived in 1926, a 24 speed was chosen by the studios because it was the slowest frame rate possible for producing intelligible sound.

High time then, nearly a century on, to bring back frame rates as an aesthetic rather than a technical or economic decision.

“120 is a different way of seeing things entirely,” enthuses Squyres. “It has an immediacy and an intimacy that is not what we are used to seeing. 24fps is arbitrary, and it comes with limitations, but talented filmmakers have been doing beautiful work in 24fps for a long time, and that’s the look that audiences have grown to love. This film may begin to change their perception.”
IBC delegates can experience this too courtesy of a unique installation of two Christie Mirage projectors and a special preview of clips from the film presented by Ang Lee. Together, these projectors are able to achieve 120 fps, 3D, 4K, employ 6P laser illumination and spectral filtering 3D by Dolby. In addition, the system has the ability to playback content in high dynamic range and Dolby Atmos.
IBC will be holding a deep-dive session with Tim Squyres and the film's digital production supervisor Ben Gervais following Ang Lee's keynote on Monday to examine these new concepts and what set of delivery formats Sony will be opting for.
In addition, there's a session on Saturday examining the synthetic shuttering technique with an explanation of the Tessive software used on Billy Lynn's to blend frames together and how this helps optimise the creative vision across all formats.
Earlier in the day there is a startling demonstrating of Light Field featuring speakers from Lytro and Fraunhofer IIS. This technology, which is in experimental phase, is a new paradigm in optical capture promising not just fine control of shutter speed but every other cinematographic tool like lens choice to be made after the event.

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