A Defense of 24 FPS and Why It's Here to Stay for Cinema

In this #IQBiTS video, John responds to 7 myths that are commonly brought up by folks on our Frame Rate Video who hate 24 FPS. He further give 2 concrete objective arguments on why 24 FPS is here to stay.

#FrameRate

[FilmmakerIQ]

Please enjoy this news segment on the revolution of HFR from 1984:

No need to explain interframe compression. That particular portion I was talking about interframe and I was sloppy with the words. That doesn't diminish the point though.

As you peruse the negative comments that I engage with (oh the therapy bills will be excessive this month), notice a good majority of them recycle Myth #2: Modern Advancements in Tech have made 24 Obsolete (3:04). No one recognizes that TV has been in the public eye for 70 years and streaming images at 60i.

Been getting a lot of comments confused about refresh rate and frames per second. Remind yourself that hertz is NOT quite the same as frames per second. Even film was flashed on the screen more times than the actual frame rate.

Folks saying they can see 144 fps are missing the point of my argument... but what's new?

Next I'll have to defend the use of shallow depth of field because games don't have depth of field!

One day I will expand on this 144 hz. Only three sentences in this one triggered a ton of people, it needs a whole video on its own to infuriate them even more.

Oh well... I've neglected my responsibilities in trying to answer as many comments as I can. I will still be around but at this point it really feels like I'm just repeating myself - plus, I kinda made a 22 minute video saying what I wanted to say and most of my responses are just rehashing what I said in the video. I'll be around... Keep debating, keep it civil!

[mewyattt]

When I was a kid and found a Playboy magazine it produced a high physiological effect on me. I think the frame rate was around 1 page per 5 minutes

[cavalrycome]

12:30 "24 fps is objectively less than 60 fps. Therefore it is cheaper in every way..."

That's true, but it's not really a complete argument. All of what you say here about needing increased storage, card data rates, bandwidth, editing hardware performance, and so on, apply equally to the introduction of 4K video, but 4K is happening because the industry and audiences think the extra investment is ultimately worth it. That's the part that is missing from the HFR argument.

[arnewei]

As a Gaffer, when it comes to the technical aspects, the first three questions I ask a DoP are: What camera are you shooting on? What standard / max ISO are you going for? What standard / max FPS do you want to use?

The reference setting used for digital film is usually 800 ISO @ 24fps.
So let's say we shoot on an Arri Alexa with 800 ISO but we want to do the whole movie in 48 or 50 fps.
Since double the frame rate means half the time the sensor has to expose a frame, we need twice as much light than with 24fps. So a 2, 000W Tungsten lamp now has to be a 5, 000W lamp, since there is no regular 4, 000W Tungsten fixture. A 1, 800W HMI now becomes a 4, 000W HMI. Not only are the lamps itself more expensive than the low power ones, we'll need a high power supply and distribution.
At 100fps, our 2, 000W Tungsten is now a 10, 000W lamp. The HMI now has 9, 000W instead of 1, 800W. We'll need a even bigger power supply, different distribution and, the most expensive part, more people to do all the work.
That's the moment the producer likes to tell you that the budget is tight and the schedule even more so.

So the financial problems of higher frame rates is not so much storage or post-production workflow but the equipment and the personnel you need on set.

This is written from a european point of view (mains power 230V / 16A) so you may have different lamps with different power ratings available. The problems stay the same.

[FAKEtrailers]

im waiting for the 1024fps standard in 200 years

[ThatFalseHat]

I watched this vid on x2 speed to get rock solid 60 fps! jk

[asicerik]

Not sure if this has been covered elsewhere, but you are a little off on the compression side. Video compression uses spatial and temporal compression. Temporal compression is compressing the differences in time between frames. Thus, as the frame rate increases, the changes per frame are less. This means the compression becomes more efficient. So, 60fps is not going to be 2.5X more than 24 unless you have ridiculously fast motion. This does not change the conclusion, it will still be more bits, just not that much more. Great video.

[DrGH]

Agree, disagree, or don’t care, THIS was a well-articulated and rational explanation of an argument. Honestly one of the best I’ve seen in this medium.

[arddel]

Personally, I find 60p better conveys the reality of what is shot. The problem is, most movies are not supposed to convey that reality. Fantasy is you are onboard the Star Trek Enterprise, wizzing through space with your vulcan science officer. Reality is you are on a cheap plywood set with an actor wearing plastic ears. The Hobbit, shot in both 24p and 48p, clearly demostrated that effect to me.

[sagredsv]

Only thing I dislike about 24 FPS in movies is that panning shots are often pretty nauseating. Lord of the Rings has a lot of beautiful panning shots but to me it always feels like the camera is teleporting between frames instead of moving smoothly.

[bighuge]

A personal observation: I watched the first Hobbit movie in HFR and 24P in the theater and 24P creates a buffer that distances the viewer from reality and make what the audience is watching seem like it's existing in its own reality. When I saw the same movie with the high frame rate, what previously was a Hobbit and Dwarves in Middle Earth became actors in makeup on a set. That hyper-reality erases that buffer and makes everything on the screen seem to exist in our own reality. I once saw this with a friend's television set where the movie she was watching on Turner Classic Movies lose its depth and look like something shot on video.

[dangerouslytalented]

I think it is completely aesthetic : if you want it to look like a sports game or a computer game, shoot in 60. If you want it to look mainstream, shoot in 24. If you want it to look ancient, shoot in 18 or 11 or something. Temporal resolution is no longer technologically restrained

[benjaminvlz]

I'm so used to seeing movies at 24 FPS that anything higher just looks off-putting to me. A movie at 60 FPS looks too realistic to me, like a live sporting event or reality show. There's just something about the look of movies at 24 FPS that gives them a "cinematic" feel.

[JoshSJoshingWithYa]

I'm a traditional animator, and I'm just sitting here like, "You want me to draw 24 frames per second?! Richard Williams tried that and had The Thief and the Cobbler taken away from him after decades of work! I'll stick with animating on twos, thank you! ...Wait, 60?!"

[cavalrycome]

6:39 "MYTH 3: But... Motion Blur..."

Just to expand on what John said, the motion blur that you see when you pause a video is not strictly-speaking due to the frame rate. It's due to the shutter speed (i.e., the length of time each frame is exposed). Film shot at 24 fps is generally shot with a shutter speed of 1/48 of a second (the 180 degree shutter rule) because that has just the right amount of motion blur to make the motion look fluid. If you expose each frame for a shorter period than this, each individual frame will look less blurry, but in motion, the film starts to look choppy. This can be a desired effect if you want the disorientation that goes along with it, which is why Spielberg shot the beach landing scene of Saving Private Ryan with a higher shutter speed, but in general, motion blur is a feature not a bug because it adheres each frame to the next.

It is still desirable to have some motion blur even in HFR video, but each frame will necessarily have less of it because the maximum length of time that each frame can be exposed will be shorter. Among other things, this means that a film shot at 60 fps will have the wrong amount of motion blur when played back at lower frame rates like 24, 25, or 30 fps, giving it a choppy feel.

[Monafide]

As someone who plays countless hours of high framerate games I'd be lying if I said I don't prefer 60 on anything I watch, but this video was super helpful in understanding the purpose and appeal of 24 fps for most video. I don't feel like a lower framerate does much for me in terms of aesthetic, but it's completely understandable as a cost cutting measure.

[snortymcgout]

24 fps omits enough information from your brain so that the absurd fantasy can look believable, 60fps gives your brain enough info that you can easily tell it's bullshit and that isn't good for movies.

[alexgrebench]

The only thing I dislike about 24fps is pan stutter - whenever the camera pans it seems like the entire screen is shaking uncontrollably. Beyond that I don’t care

[jangxx]

I agree on all points. One slight correction: The part about compression (15:10 onwards) is a bit incorrect. Modern compression (like h264 and h265) do not scale linearly with higher framerates. If the motion is sampled at a higher rate, the P- and B-Frames get smaller, so you can save storage space. Simple example: A video where the whole screen is just one color and the color changes every second. With 24 frames you just store every 24th frame and 23 "change nothing" frames behind it, while at 60 fps you store every 60th frame with 59 "change nothing" frames behind it. These "change nothing" frames are a lot smaller when compressed and therefore the 60fps video is not 2.5 times larger. Obviously, real video is not that simple, but the same principle applies. Otherwise great video though!

[AZREDFERN]

I personally perfer 24 FPS for a majority of media I watch, mainly because of the “soap opera effect”, and it creates a more natural buttery smooth motion. There’s also this thing in all forms of art called obscurity, not every detail has to be there, and art is generally more captivating if there’s some gaps left for your imagination to work. But when it comes to high movement or action scenes, 60fps looks more pleasing, and can help convey the mood of action to the viewer, making them excited or nervous. When it comes to the production team’s perspective, I perfer 24 FPS a majority of the time again for a stack of very minor reasons. When you’re on a budget and dealing with cheaper equipment, it’s 1.5 stops more exposure to work with. When dealing with an average computer and storage budget, 24 is a lower bitrate and file size, making production faster and storage cheaper. Lastly, you don’t have to be nearly as perfect with 24, because of that obscurity. All very minor advantages that you wouldn’t care about individually, but they all add up to one major advantage in most senerios.