I was in Chicago over the weekend, and being in the bigger city, I took the opportunity to go see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in the new High Frame Rate 3D (HFR), the way that Peter Jackson intended us to view it, and in Dolby ATMOS, which is Dolby's brand spanking new sound technology. While Indianapolis did end up having one theater showing HFR, I opted to wait until I was in Chicago to experience this new technology. A giant shout out to the Kerasotes ICON Theater at the Roosevelt Collection, which is where I saw the movie. It is the nicest, cleanest movie theater I have been in very long time. In fact, it is the best since AMC bought out Kerasotes here in Indianapolis. I miss them!
A lot of you may not have heard of HFR before, but for us movie and Tolkien geeks, we've been aware of it from the production diaries that Peter Jackson has been kind enough to video for us. The basic information is that since the advent of sound films in the 20s films have been shot at 24 frames per second (fps), so that the sound can sync with the image. If it was faster or slower, the ear would pick up the change. As the technology improved over the course of the next 80 years, there have been attempts at raising the frame rate, but Peter Jackson's use of HFR 3D, which is shot at 48 fps, is by far the largest risk taken by Hollywood to change the format. Of course, the risk was mitigated because not every theater was capable of showing it, and even though the other two movies in the trilogy will be released in HFR and James Cameron has stated the sequels to Avatar will be to, there is no guarantee this technology will ever fully take off. The good news is that with a lot of movie theaters already going through the shift to digital projection over film it is really a matter of doing a software upgrade to the projector, but obviously, the theater companies would rather not have to pay for something that isn't going to be used, which puts us in a bit of a holding pattern.
When Jackson first showed some of the footage from the movie, there was a decidedly mixed reaction, and after seeing it, I can understand why. We are used to what movies "look" like, which means a certain amount of flicker from the film projector, which has been reproduced in digital forms, and a motion blur that just isn't present in real life. Filming in 48 fps changes this. Everything is brighter and more realistic, and brightness is very important to 3D, where you already have dark glasses on, which mute the colors. From the moment the movie began, I felt like I was in the scene. Never have seen such amazing use of 3D, and I am not talking about things popping out at you. Even though I had already seen the movie, I watched the first 12 minutes with my mouth open. It changed the experience for me so much, that the first hour, which I've already said drags a little like it does in the book, did not bother me in the least.
This is not to say the technology is perfected. It is not. There were times where the "realness" of the action took me out of movie a little, but this is only to be expected. Look how long it took to make CGI actually work well in films. Yeah, Slimer from Ghostbusters was cool but look at it now. I remember the scene in Titanic, when the ship first reaches the open ocean and the camera pans from stem to stern. Yes, the ship looked beautiful, but the CGI people on the deck sputtered around like they were drunk or their computer was dying trying to process everything. Even in The Fellowship of the Ring, when they are fleeing Moria across the Bridge, you see the moment it stops being human and becomes not quite human CGI movement, and this is amongst some of the best CGI work ever. So, I don't think anyone can expect perfection. I cannot wait to see how it advances over the course of the next two movies, and I will not see The Desolation of Smaug or There And Back Again any other way.
Before I close out, I do want to point out some things that worked and some that didn't:
- 3D in General - It is quite possible that the IMAX theater that I saw The Hobbit in originally doesn't do 3D well, because in the Kerasotes theater, even the trailers for Man of Steel, Oz: The Great and Powerful, and Jack the Giant Slayer, popped a lot more than they did at IMAX. I wasn't sold on Man of Steel needing to be 3D after the first time I saw the trailer, but seeing it here, I am all in.
- ATMOS - I am not an audiophile. I have a little bit of deafness in my left year. So, for me, quality audio just means I can hear everything. Dolby ATMOS, however, is amazing. In the Bag End scene, you could hear the separation so well, you could tell when a dwarf was speaking off screen either to the right or left of you. Star Trek Into Darkness and Pacific Rim are both being mastered in ATMOS. I would go to Chicago to see them for that alone.
- Eye Strain & Head Movement - One problem I have always had with 3D is that I move my head - a lot, and in traditional 3D, I felt like I needed to keep my head from moving, otherwise you started to see the separation of frames. I did quite a few test, even turning my head so that my eyes were perpendicular to the screen, and I am happy to say that I saw the 3D perfectly. When you throw in just how bright the image was, this was 3D perfected to me.
- Warg and Radagast Battle - Some of the places where the higher frame rate made the image suffer were in places where CGI interacted with real world elements. Nowhere was this more prevalent than during the chase of Radagast by Orcs on Wargs over the plain near Rivendell. I don't know why Jackson's folks have such a problem with the Wargs, large wolves are certainly not something that is way out there in the fantastical parts of the trilogy, but the Wargs kinda sucked in LOTR and they do here, too. In this chase, it was SO obvious that these elements were not part of the scene.
- Eye Adjustment to a No Blur World - We are so used to how movies look. We are accustomed to a high amount of blur when the action moves fast. This is really a part of what makes a movie a "movie" to people. So, I can totally understand why some people didn't like it. It became very, well, clear during the fights. Where you would normally see blurs of movement, you were able to see nearly every detail. Of course, this is a good and bad thing. It was much easier to keep track of the fight in HFR 3D, especially the Goblin fight at the end, but being able to see so much detail, meant you saw flaws that would normally be blurred over. Is it a big deal? No, I loved this, but I it may be a dealbreaker for some.
- Gollum and Eagles - I cannot get over how amazing both of these were in 3D.
Well, I have dragged this out long enough. To say the least, I was impressed. I hope this experiment was successful enough to keep going with it. It really was that eye opening.
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