Are you ready for a hyper-real Hobbit? Director Peter Jackson's new film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was released yesterday to much fanfare, but the starring role of this fantastical slice of cinema will be invisible to most.
Jackson's interpretation of J.R.R. Tolkien's fictional Middle Earth has already been glimpsed in his Lord of the Rings trilogy, but this time the dwarves and elves should look more real than ever, thanks to the pioneering director's use of new camera technology and a production process that means An Unexpected Journey contains twice the frames. It's technically two films in one.
For the first time, special high-frame-rate (HFR) Red Epic cameras have been used in a film.
It's a fantasy in more ways than one for Jackson, since he's also shot the movie in 3-D, but what difference is the new technology going to make?
So what? The more frames that are filmed, the less the camera's shutter is closed, and the more motion data is produced - with the human eye seeing a much smoother movement. In short, movies shot and projected using HFR cameras look more fluid and more involving. Film grain, judder and those awful panning shots are the hallmarks of movies through the ages - and some will miss them, no doubt - but in this ever more refined digital age, they're about to be replaced so that films look more like video.
Welcome to hyper-real films Purists might not like it, but HFR has more going for it than smoothness since it also brings picture quality up to date with modern filming techniques. Most film directors like to use moving camera shots to create suspense, intensity and a sense of motion, but the finished product can seem awkward on the big screen. Action sequences and panning shots, in particular, look much smoother using higher frame rates.