With all the controversy around Peter Jackson's choice of using 48 frames per second in his adaption of The Hobbit, I can sympathize with viewers that complain. It feels like just another gimmick, like the "return" of 3D with Avatar.
The problem with 3D movies was that, for the longest time, it sucked. To some extent, it still sucks with many 3D movies, but for high budgeted ones it is now passable. It's difficult to explain why there were so many problems: You night far more brightness (and cinemas were cheap with lightbulbs), a higher frame rate, avoid 2D to 3D conversion, have high quality active or passive glasses, and so on. In the end, the 3D version of Tron Legacy was the best example of 3D: too subtle to notice most of the time, so much so that it wasn't worth it.
One of the issue I skipped mentioning with 3D is the nauseating motion sickness camera movements can introduce. See, with low frame rate, the artificial motion blur introduced by cameras tell our brains that the image isn't real, so if the camera turns our brains don't panic adapting to the motion. With 3D though, motion blur tend to be eliminated, and the field of 3D vision is so limited that adapting to left-right movements can subconsciously confuse viewers and induce motion sickness.
The same effect can happen in higher frame rates like 48 fps. The motion is "too smooth", eliminating motion blur. Even without any 3D, the motion sickness remains, though to a lesser extent.
Both 3D and 48 fps would make more sense in "virtual reality" headsets or with 360° panoramas, since the head movement of the viewer remains in control of the camera. But as a storytelling element, camera movement remains important, so those artificial moves must take into account the visceral reaction of the brain when the vision sees movement but the body can't feel it. Otherwise, the movie industry may end up ostracizing a large portion of their audience for what amounts to little in terms of storytelling.
Published on December 17, 2012 at 21:27 EST
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