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Topic: Ang Lee Shooting 120fps

Martin McCaffery
Film God

Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-07-2016 02:08 PM

quote:
In an effort to make his Iraq War satire look more like GoPro footage of your nephew’s backyard birthday party, Ang Lee has shot his new film Billy Lynn’s Halftime Walk at a whopping 120 frames per second. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Lee will preview footage from the movie for the first time in its intended 4K, 3D, 120-fps format during his April 16 keynote speech at the NAB Show’s Future of Cinema Conference in Las Vegas.

The film, based on the 2012 book of same name, recounts the true story of Billy Lynn and the rest of his company as they survive a heated firefight in Iraq. A video of them goes viral, and they become so famous that the Bush administration brings them home for a two-week goodwill tour. Ultimately, the soldiers end up participating in a Thanksgiving halftime performance by Destiny’s Child at a Cowboys-Bears game.

Although the majority of films are shot at 24 fps, Peter Jackson shot The Hobbit in 48 fps, which a lot of people found jarring and akin to a cheesy, staged performance during non-spectacle scenes. It’s likely that 120 fps could compound that problem, but with set pieces that take place in the middle of a firefight and an NFL game, it’s sort of understandable why Lee would choose this film to experiment with the format. The cast includes Vin Diesel, Chris Tucker, Kristen Stewart, Garrett Hedlund, and Steve Martin. Sony plans to release the movie in November, which gives everyone enough time to either study up on how frame rate affects the viewing experience or relearn all the lyrics to “Bug A Boo.”

AV Club

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Jim Cassedy
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1661
From: San Francisco, CA
Registered: Dec 2006

posted 03-07-2016 02:27 PM

...and I hope they release it in 70mm at that frame rate.

That would be fun! [Eek!]

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 03-07-2016 03:09 PM

That would mean a changeover about every three minutes.

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Buck Wilson
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 894
From: St. Joseph MO, USA
Registered: Sep 2010

posted 03-09-2016 07:05 AM

What projectors can even do 4k 3D 120fps?

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Jim Cassedy
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1661
From: San Francisco, CA
Registered: Dec 2006

posted 03-09-2016 08:01 AM

Good question Buck.
But I think the 'bottleneck' would more be on the server
and the data transport link(s) between it and the projector.
Seems to me 4k/3D/120 would take a helluvalotta bandwidth.
I'm sure someone here on FT can quote the actual numbers.

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Carsten Kurz
Film God

Posts: 4340
From: Cologne, NRW, Germany
Registered: Aug 2009

posted 03-09-2016 08:12 AM

quote:
Vin Diesel, Chris Tucker, Kristen Stewart, Garrett Hedlund, and Steve Martin

Great cast!

We discussed the 4k/120Hz issues here:

http://www.film-tech.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=16;t=001947#000000

and here:

http://www.film-tech.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=16;t=001540#000000

Currently there is no DCI system available than can actually play 4k/120Hz, however, Christies Mirage (which shares a lot with the Christie 4k DCI DLPs) can do it. You still need a special (again non-DCI) server for playout.

This feature certainly is not intended to be played back at the capture rate at cinemas. It will probably come down to 2k/60Hz 3D releases.

IMAX Laser could play 4k/60fps 3D, though I am not sure wether their current gear is already capable of really doing it software wise.

- Carsten

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 03-10-2016 06:18 AM

I believe Barco's ICMP can handle 4K/3D/60fps. And that is the current best (in terms of format capability) the industry has.

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Marcel Birgelen
Film God

Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012

posted 03-10-2016 07:49 AM

The Barco Alchemy ICMP can do 4K/3D/60fps and 2K/3D/120fps. Officially, 4K/2D/120fps is not supported, but maybe it can be achieved using a software update. If so, you could probably also do 4K/3D/120fps using a dual-projector setup.

Not sure what the Christie based Dolby Cinema setup could do.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 03-10-2016 10:06 AM

Instead of upping the frame rate to levels no d-cinema system or consumer playback platform can support why not use all that extra bandwidth in shooting to up the color bit depth instead?

If a video camera's 4K footage had something like 20, 24 or even 32 bits per RGB color channel it would provide a huge amount of latitude for things like high dynamic range imagery or highly stylized color grading schemes all while doing more to eliminate the videotape look from the imagery. All of that is something that would be more visible in the end product across all platforms.

120fps content would only be able to work theoretically in just a few theaters. I'm not sure what the appeal would be in this. Are they wanting the look of the movie to be like the viewers think they're playing Call of Duty on a Playstation 4?

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 03-10-2016 02:23 PM

120fps for feature length...interesting.

Lots of HD space going to be needed for both LMS and server, and major ingest time.

Ang Lee must have Petabyte storage drives.

-Monte

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-12-2016 12:56 PM

Yawn.... Things looked like shit at 60 fps the last time this was done. When will people learn....?

Mark

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Harold Hallikainen
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 906
From: Denver, CO, USA
Registered: Aug 2009

posted 03-12-2016 01:14 PM

Is motion blur what makes something look "cinematic?" I've heard that high frame rate is either "like looking out a window" or "like watching television."

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 03-12-2016 03:26 PM

The film-look is not rooted in blur or the lack thereof. It's not all about shooting at 24 frames per second either. I've seen plenty of video camera sourced movies shot at 24fps where the look of soap operas and the six o'clock news still managed to bake itself into the imagery. 24fps judder alone does not equal cinema.

I think the cinematic look is all about the kinds of color and contrast present in the film stocks. High frame rate film, such as Showscan, can be confused for having a sort of video look. But I think the real issue is high frame rate formats like Showscan can deliver imagery that looks too much like we see things through our own eyes in real life.

Video cameras and color grading software have both made improvements over the past decade. However, I think we're still in a pretty crude place in terms of the technology. If the video cameras can record raw footage with about double the bit depth and the image sensors can get a good bit faster and more intelligent about handling low light then mimicking the film look convincingly and even maintaining the look at higher frame rates won't be quite so difficult. And maybe the technology will get good enough to where the cameras do more to imitate the look of human eyesight rather than pretentiously imitating film.

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Mark J. Marshall
Film God

Posts: 3188
From: New Castle, DE, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 04-01-2016 10:32 AM

quote: Bobby Henderson
If a video camera's 4K footage had something like 20, 24 or even 32 bits per RGB color channel it would provide a huge amount of latitude for things like high dynamic range imagery or highly stylized color grading schemes all while doing more to eliminate the videotape look from the imagery. All of that is something that would be more visible in the end product across all platforms.

Would the digital projectors be able to reproduce that expanded color space?

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 04-01-2016 04:15 PM

..prob, more like data speed to the projector..

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