Comment by mrob | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mrob | Hacker News Reader

Low frame rate is the reason I can't take film seriously as an art form. It seems to me utterly bizarre that people would choose a frame rate that can't show realistic action scenes. Fight scenes have annoying foley sound effects partly to compensate for the frame rate making fast movement invisible. And camera work is severely limited - fast pans are near unwatchable. I've seen 60fps Showscan film and it's such a huge improvement I can't understand how people could still argue for 24fps. It can only be "baby duck effect", where people like something only because they grew up with it. Imagine if music wasn't considered musical unless you listened to it from a wax cylinder. Technology has moved on and we can do much better.

I realize that cost was an issue, but with digital production that's no longer the case. And yes, it's true that higher frame rate exposes flaws in sets and props, but that's no excuse to stick with low frame rate. The correct solution is to improve those sets/props. 60fps should be considered the bare minimum.

Art isn't about the technology. That you can't take it seriously says nothing about the artists. Only that you don't understand it.

Deliberate limitations can facilitate art. The demoscene proves that. But what if the entire demoscene collectively refused to use modern hardware? Or insisted that only 1K demos are acceptable? Deliberate limitations are only one tool an artist can use. The film industry has collectively decided to do something equivalent to specializing in 1K demos and then denying that any other types could be any good. This does not look like a carefully considered artistic choice.

It's been tried. There's not just the "demoscene". There's Dogma.[1] There's a Fisher-Price PixelVision film-making cult. They're all dead or tiny niches. Probably the most limiting technique with a mainstream following is stop-motion animation.

[1] http://www.economist.com/node/328590

I find it bizarre that you classify the art of film by the action genre.

If you're shooting nothing but talking with static cameras then 24fps is adequate. There are some great films (eg. 12 Angry Men) that have no major frame rate problems. But this style is not a good demonstration of film, because it would work just as well as a stage play. I mentioned action genre because it's a better demonstration of the potential of film and it suffers tremendously because of the low frame rate.

you don't understand film at all

Is smearing charcoal across canvas art?

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