There and Back Again: A Hobbit's Thread

[RickZarber]

That video made me giddy as a schoolgirl. Takes me back to 1999, excitedly scouring the web for those first production photos of LotR...


As for the frame rate: in any case, The Hobbit will only be projected at 48fps digitally, so any theater still without digital projectors is not going to be showing it at that frame rate. (Current digital projectors should be able to project 48fps with a firmware update.) The big question is whether they'll have a 2:1 pull-down 24fps actual-film version for theaters that are not digitally equipped. On the one had, I imagine they'd have to hate money not to, on the other, there's the question of whether the film will still look presentable at a standard frame rate. (It'll look off either way, what with lacking the motion blur that our brains usually connote with cinema, but there could be additional jitter.) So we'll see. (The DVD release won't be as much a problem, as converting 24p to 30i and 48p to 30i only requires a mathematical change in the pull-down. The bigger question is the eventual Blu-ray release. I have no idea if BD players and HD HT sets are equipped for 48p...)

All that said, PJ did mention that the faster frame rate did reduce eye strain when viewing 3D video, so as a guy who gets headaches from 3D, I'm all for that. Maybe by the time the Ultimate Collector's Edition Blu-rays come out in 2014 or whenever, autostereoscopic televisions will have become standard...

Originally Posted by Mauve Mage

Beorn damn well better be in this!!

Beorn is being played by Swedish actor Mikael Persbrandt!

RE: Christopher Walken as Tom Bombadil,
Yes. Man, I want to try to record an impression of that, but it's late, and I don't have all my drivers installed yet. Maybe later...

[Amake]

Originally Posted by Mauve Mage

Legolases (Legoli?)

I think it should be Legolice.

As to the 48 frames issue, I think I should be able to take a movie and change its frame rate and playing speed in Windows Movie Maker, not to mention someone who knows anything about video editing. In worst case I imagine you'd have to play the film at its original, high speed while recording it with an entirely different, regular speed video capture program. Shouldn't be any problem with the resources this movie has.

Soo are they still going to call the sequel "The Hobbit 2"?

Originally Posted by RickZarber

Beorn is being played by Swedish actor Mikael Persbrandt!

Ooh, interesting choice. Here is a sample of his regular character Gunwald, a cop whose name means "War unbound". Even for those of you who don't understand a word he says, you will notice he's frequently looking and sounding like he's exploding. I can easily imagine him pulling off a Beorn that makes you worried he might tear your face off if you look at him wrong. Which may or may not a constant worry with Beorn in the book.

[Archbio]

The Hobbit 2: the Herebbit.
The Hobbit 2: 2 Fat 2 Furry-ous (feet)
The Hobbits
Back and Here Again

[RickZarber]

BTW, there are versions of the video blog up on Youtube now, if anyone can't watch the original Facebook posting for whatever reason.

Originally Posted by Invisible Queen

Soo are they still going to call the sequel "The Hobbit 2"?

Well, there's not really going to be a Hobbit sequel any more. It'll be The Hobbit Parts One and Two, similar to how they're doing the final Harry Potter movie (rather than one Hobbit movie and one Hobbit/LotR "bridge" movie, as originally announced).

No idea if these'll end up being used, but New Line Cinemas did register the titles "The Hobbit: (An/The) Unexpected Journey" and "The Hobbit: There and Back Again" a month or so ago.

[Magus]

Yeah, I figured there were ways to convert it to a different frame-rate. So it might not look as nice as the 48 fps version but they will do something to make it playable in older theaters.

The lack of motion blur is somewhat odd, though. I always disliked how "fake" video looked (paradoxically?) so if this is what's happening...but on the other hand it's going to be clearer and more defined. I dunno how it'll look.

[Aerozord]

people like their fake, its why they digitally add in lens flare despite that being corrected decades ago

[RickZarber]

Peter Jackson has been blogging quite a bit over the holiday. Today he took the time to answer concerns about the 48fps issue:

Originally Posted by PJ on Facebook

The news about us filming The Hobbit at 48 frames per second generated a lot of comments. Of course, it's impossible to show you what 48 fps actually looks like outside of a movie cinema, but there were several interesting and insightful questions raised.

We will be completing a "normal" 24 frames per second version—in both digital and 35mm film prints. If we are able to get the Hobbit projected at 48 fps in selected cinemas, there will still be normal-looking 24 fps versions available in cinemas everywhere.

Converting a film shot at 48 fps down to 24 fps is not a hugely difficult process, but it requires testing to achieve the best results. Some of this involves digital processes during post-production. We are also shooting the film a slightly different way, which is a question several of you asked. Normally you shoot a movie with a 180-degree shutter angle. Changing the shutter angle affects the amount of motion blur captured during movement. Reducing the shutter angle gives you the stroby (or jerky) "Saving Private Ryan" look.

However, we're going the other way, shooting at 48 fps with a 270 degree shutter angle. This gives the 48 fps a lovely silky look, and creates a very pleasing look at 24 fps as well. In fact, our DP, Andrew Lesnie, and I prefer the look of 24 fps when it comes from a 48 fps master.

I'm still curious as to which master they'll use for the eventual blu-ray release, but I guess that's not an issue they have to worry about for another few years...

There's also been some good and bad news over the holiday: First, he confirmed that Ian Holm will be returning to play Older Bilbo. And Sunday it was announced that Rob Kazinsky, who was to play the role of Fili, had to leave the film for personal reasons. (Kazinsky cited health issues on his Twitter.) So now they are one Dwarf short. Luckily, they hadn't shot any footage with the Dwarves yet, so they don't need to do any reshoots, and they're still filming Bilbo-only scenes, so they have time to recast. (PJ must be used to this by now. Both Viggo Mortensen on LOTR and Mark Wahlberg on Lovely Bones were replacement castings that occurred at the last minute.)

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Speaking as an art student with zero familiarity with film, scaling down from 48 fps to 24 doesn't seem too different in concept than scaling from a larger image size to a smaller with the same ratio (like a 1024x1024 image going down to 512x512). It's not a perfect analogy, but it's the first way my brain could process the thought.

I'm guessing Blu-ray might just use the 48 fps master, since it's the nicer looking of the two and since it sounds like the frame rate issue is mostly limited to issues with physical movie projectors. Since Blu-ray's all digital to begin with, it doesn't have a problem.

[rpgdemon]

And there's no reason that the Bluray couldn't be both, really. I'd imagine there's enough space on the disc for it, considering that it would literally be the same frames again.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

This is like Metropolis all over again which is a pain in the ass to watch these days without it seeming weirdly paced/music disjointed. Though that one is a case of we don't even know what frame rate it is supposed to be at.