24p and a film look? What does that mean?

Motion pictures were traditionally shot at 24fps, that is, 24 discrete images per second of film. This frame rate has a visually distinctive signature when played. Film transfered to video with pull down added still has 24 distinct images, but they have been A. divided into Upper and Lower Fields and B. those fields are then spread out over ~30 frames per second. Though the video is playing at 30fps, it is still only showing 24fps worth of image information.

good luck.
x

here ya go, some light reading http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp053.shtml

it's more than just about the framerate....

And some MORE light reading:

http://www.adamwilt.com/24p/

CaptM

Search is your friend:

Re: What Exactly Is Meant By "The Film Look"?

Particularly fond of my contribution to that thread... (which I'll repeat here)

I've been in this business for 15 years but long before that I wondered WHAT it was about video that made it look different than film. That made it look "cheaper" somehow.

Over the years I've learned a few things. Some of the difference has to do with "gamma" and exposure. Some has to do with the fact that film is almost always color corrected. Video is almost never. Good color correction makes the image look a lot better, but it still looks like video. Why?

Once when I was working on a music video shot on film we were transfering it to tape. We came to a section that was shot at 60fps for slow mo. The new Bosch telecine could run the film at 60 transfering a frame per field, and I asked the colorist to lay down a bit like that. As soon as she sped up the film to that speed, even though the exposure was beautiful, the colors vibrant, the footage INSTANTLY took on a video like feel. The temporal resolution was amazing, but it just didn't look good. I never used any of the footage layed down that way.

Why? Why would MORE information suddenly look like lower quality. A few years later I got some answers. Douglas Trumbull, the special effects wizard, had developed a process called ShowScan for a sort of virtual reality immersion experience. In his research he discovered that people basically perceive reality at 60fps. When I read this, something clicked. Video, while running at 30fps is interlaced - that is it is running at 60 half frames or fields per second. But each field is a separate exposure. Thus video to our eyes has the same movement quality as reality. This made sense to me. I'd always felt that soap operas shot on video looked more "real" than material that had been filmed.

So what's going on with film? I believe a major factor in "film look" is the frame rate. It has to do with how our brains focus our attention. We are automatically attracted to things and perceived patterns that are different. Its one of the fundamental jobs of our subconscious to notice and bring to our attention perceived differences.

When film is running at 24 fps we perceive it as motion, but our brains are automatically keyed in that SOMETHING IS DIFFERENT. THIS IS NOT NORMAL. In a way, it may instantly set us up for fiction or story telling. This is the major reason I believe that film is perceived differently than video.

Don't get me wrong. I have been predicting for at least 4 years now that Film would be dead as a capture medium within the next ten years. Largely driven by digital projection. If you think about it, the number of prints of major motion pictures done for distribution worldwide dwarfs any amount that is used in film cameras - motion and still combined. When the theatres shift to electronic distribution, I think the demand for film will drop thru the floor. So, it will become a highly niche market - probably double/triple the price. Even more incentive for film makers to go digital.

But you can bet it will be shot on 24P....

Patrick

Patrick... just a quick note to say thanks for taking the time to write that response. Some very valuable lessons in there!

ouch, that a painful thread. glad i stayed outta that one. i have no idea what's going on in the express forum.

Patrick-- do you suppose that Europeans see at 50 fps, or is pal just automatically film-look to them?

I'm having a deja-vu here.

I've always thought of the difference as being like sunlight vs moonlight: video is beamed right at your retinas, projected film is a reflection.

It's really all the lighting and gamma curves as far as I'm concerned.

You are correct that the main contributor to the "film look" is the color, grain, and gamma of film stock versus video. The 24 fps is a distant secondary factor. For example, viewing special 48fps film does not give it a "non-film" look. IMAX still looks like film despite high speed and 70mm stock. Personally, I am unimpressed by 24p HD. Magic Bullet's filters will give you more of a film look than simply reducing the frame rate.

I would have agreed with you Joseph, until I saw film at 60 fps.

Patrick

I agree. The direction to go is not lower frame rates, but higher, and pay attention to lighting and depth of field.

No no no... Higher frame rates look more like video... especially if you reach 60i...

Patrick