24 Frames Per Second Is Not Enough for the Illusion of Motion

A quick way to test the quality of your lighting is by waving your hand in front of your face, real fast.

Under incandescents, the sun, or good lighting, you'll see a smooth motion trail. But under PWM light (like fluorescents or cheap LEDs) you'll instead see what looks like frames, because the lights are simply strobing at a frequency (say 50hz or 60hz).

Movies are locked to a measly 24fps, which is actually pretty bad. This causes what I call the fluorescent lighting effect, where everything flickers. It destroys the visual identity of so many beautiful things. Have you ever seen a campfire? Filmmaking tradition is just completely incapable of capturing the beauty of the campfire, since flames move too fast to be properly captured.

I first noticed that flicker in a flame - shapes flashing in and out of existence, rather than the smooth transition in real life - when I was six or seven years old. And I've seen it everywhere my whole life. One of the most important scenes in Pluribus - a wide, 360 degree panning shot - is ruined because you can't see shit. There's math you have to do for a panning shot to remain visually sensible: You're speed limited by your focal length (or "field-of-view" for the gamers out there) and your frame rate.

If you increase your frame rate, you have better shots!

There are a number of technical and logistical reasons filmmakers stick to the 24fps rate. But most importantly are the Film Nerds, who worship 24fps as the only frame rate movies should ever be. They say 48fps "looks fake". The 24fps-diehards are proudly appealing to tradition (24fps is fascist?) while declaring that film will only advance over their dead bodies.

I'm staking my claim in the ground: Movies should be high frame rate and they should also be 3D.

The problem? Like 3D Movies, almost all high frame rate movies suck. Avatar is an exception for being at least okay.

I like movies people hate and vice versa

Before we proceed, it's important to note that I genuinely liked The Room, I think Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was a step forward for cinema, and I think Shrek 1 and 2 were great feminist works. I think I have good tastes.

Meanwhile, I hate Star Wars. It's unwatchable shit, to me. I can't get through a single piece of Star Wars media and I feel very very worried that socialists and anarchists often find themselves quoting Disney's Andor.

Avatar and Star Wars both exist as mass-appeal sci-fi space epics, and while I understand the criticisms of Avatar, I really think its biggest sin in the public discourse is in depicting evils of colonization to an audience of the descendants of colonizers.

Hype Moments and Aura

I went to see Avatar 3 in IMAX 3D earlier today, in one of the last airings.

It was preceded by six or seven masturbatory advertisements for a new Star Wars spinoff movie featuring Boba Fett and Baby Yoda with the speakers cranked up to maximum volume, stressing that "This Is The Way". It was all "hype moments and aura". I already hate Star Wars and yet it turned me off so much.

A problem with "hype moments" or "aura" is that it's a caricature of reality that contends with the goal of a grounded movie. The only way aura can exist in a grounded movie is to have the characters react, in-universe, react to the moments. (After all, if a character is trying to look cool, that's embarrassing and everyone sees it. If a character is cool by accident, that's also worth reacting to).

This is why Marvel Studios has so many "Marvel Moments" (you know, "Well, this is awkward" ass writing), which took pains to ground outlandish superheroes in a cohesive universe, is characterized by characters reacting to the universe as it happens.

Of the many things I like about the Avatar movies, it's that they have no hype moments or aura. There are no memorable lines. There's nothing particularly interesting in the narrative structure or the dialogue. It's simply a vehicle for the best VFX and worldbuilding you'll see in your life (until the next Avatar movie).

This is kind of brave to do! When you're a small child with a knife at your neck, you beg for your life, instead of having some cool line prepared.

It's more immersive to simply not have hype moments or aura

Avatar 2 and 3, in high frame rates*

Avatar 2 and 3 both use high frame rate to good effect. Most notably are in the gun fights: A full-auto weapon firing at a rapid pace hits a visual Nyquist at 12 rounds per second in traditional cinema. The 48fps scenes benefit here.

But there's a problem:

The movie keeps jumping back and forth between 24fps and 48fps. Like Avatar 2, Avatar 3 is in 48fps inconsistently.

It's a mind-boggling decision. It's the worst of both worlds. The 48fps looks weird at first, when you cut from 24fps trailers to the 48fps film, but then it keeps jumping back and forth. Sometimes from shot to shot!

tldr

i genuinely do like 3d movies and high frame rate movies. i also like avatar a lil bit