The Cinemacon footage

[Primula Baggins]

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Peter Jackson responds to complaints about 'The Hobbit' footage -- BREAKING

[eborr]

The subject of film set versus natural environments is an interesting one, to my mind on of the reasons that Fellowship is so much better as a film than the Return of the King is that so much of ROTK has a "filmset" feel to it,

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Another article in which Jackson talks about the controversy.

Peter Jackson Responds to 'Hobbit' Footage Critics, Explains 48-Frames Strategy

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And NPR weighs in.

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/30/151713708 ... frame-rate

[Elentári]

One of the key points in the Hollywood Reporter article seems to be this:

Jackson explained that his original The Lord of the Rings used various postproduction techniques to create a certain look for the movies, including "extensive" digital color grading, "added texture, and we took out highlights."
'We'll do the same with The Hobbit, to make it consistent and give it the feeling of "otherworldliness“ to get the mood, the tone, the feel of the different scenes,' he said. 'We are certainly going to experiment with different finishing techniques to give the 48 frames a look that is more organic. But that work isn't due to start until we wrap photography in July (both Hobbit films are being shot simultaneously)."

Which, (since I am ambivalent about the whole 24vs48fps debate, not having the technical understanding to form an opinion either way) is somewhat comforting...I think.

I haven't been reading the feedback in-depth, but I presume the unfinished footage shown at CinemaCon was done intentionally because the professional/industry delegates were supposed to be able to see past the rough edges. Are all the negative reviews simply from those who are unable to see the potential after it has been "cleaned up?" or are the professionals divided also?

[Dave_LF]

The idea of rabbits pulling a sled is consistent with the tone of the book, IMO. But why a sled? Is there snow? Are there historical examples of animal-powered sleds or sledges carrying a wizardweight across anything else? As a mode of transportation?

Those of you who read TORN too, forgive me for repeating myself. And whether you read TORN or not, forgive me for replying to myself.

I was bothered by the bunny-sled thing at first; not so much because of the bunny half (though that did grate a little), but because of the sled. Whatever kind of animal might be pulling it, a sled does not make sense as a mode of trasport through a forest. They work wonderfully in the snow, but The Hobbit does not take place during the winter.

But snow can be found year round in certain places. In certain northerly places that is, like, say, Angmar, where certain wraiths fought and unlived. So, since it explains two things at once, I am now of the opinion that the Nazgûl-tombs will be located in Angmar (or generically "in the north") rather than Dol Guldur, and that it will be snowy there.

If this is correct, it probably means that Gandalf cannot simply pop up there while the dwarves chill in the Trollshaws. Team Jackson's powers of geographical compression notwithstanding, I don't think an audience will buy it as a quick trip if we actually see the climate changing during its course. Unless they explain that he's gone for days or weeks while the company trudges across the lone-lands.

Edit: And this is a HoF exclusive. Carn Dum was located near Mount Gundabad, which does feature not only in the canon story, but in the films too according to del Toro.

[axordil]

The dwarves did take their sweet time getting from the Shire to the Trollshaws.

[Elentári]

On the subject of posts at TORn, Darkstone did a little research and discovered that some of the bunny-sled/bird poop ideas are not without precedent within Tolkien's beloved Norse mythology:

Norse mythology is full of silly and ridiculous draft animals. Freya rode into battle in a wagon pulled by two kitty cats. (Big kitty cats, but kitty cats nonetheless.) Thor drove into battle behind two goats. Frey rode a boar!

...

BTW, Thor had a few adventures while having a giant's metal weapon point broke off in the middle of his forehead.

Also, Odin went around with a couple of ravens, Huginn and Muninn (Thought and Memory), riding around on his shoulders. As a result, his shoulders were liberally splattered with "Mistletoe", literally "branch dung", aka, "bird poop". Keep that translation in mind next time someone asks you to close your eyes so they can kiss you under the mistletoe.

Finally, hares pulling sledges is mentioned in Tolkien's beloved Finnish myths.

Seems the team has done some homework after all, and I personally think GDT was the driving force behind these ideas - remember the "Thorn"/Thorin helmet controversy? He got that from the "Thorn" rune (Þ, þ) for "Th"

[Primula Baggins]

That's fascinating, Elen! Thanks for the link and the quote.

I don't know if this will be enough to reconcile me to the axe in the forehead, but it does make a difference if it wasn't something they thought up themselves because they thought it would be kewl or funny.

[eborr]

Del Toro tends to be quite thorough with his research, so it would not surprise me if having found reference to giant rabbits is the finnish tales he would appropriate them

[Elentári]

Very interesting interview in Entertainment Weekly with Douglas Trumbull ('2001: A Space Odyssey' tech pioneer) entitled 'Hobbit' footage: 'A fabulous and brave step in the right direction' in which he discusses the application of higher frame-rates in "The Hobbit"

Believe me, there’s a lot of people racing around implementing servers that will go 48 frames for The Hobbit. By the time Jim Cameron has Avatar 2 out, I can be pretty confident there will be a lot of servers that can go 60 frames. But I’ve also worked out another invention to counteract this weird soap-opera kind of feeling that people are complaining about with The Hobbit, for example. You can conceivably shoot a movie like The Hobbit or virtually any movie at 120 frames, and you can embed any high-frame rate you want within a 24-frame version of the movie. If there’s hockey puck, or a fist, or an exploding car, or some action on the screen that’s moving too fast and it’s blurring and looking crummy, you can ramp that part of it up to 30 frames, 48 frames, 60 frames, or 120 frames, only as needed. Just for the moment of that action. And for the sequences that people — I mean, I haven’t seen Peter’s thing yet — but for instance, people said the helicopter shots flying over the countryside are fabulous because they’re crisp and sharp and vivid, and that’s great. It’s only when you have close-ups of Gollum or something that it looks creepy. Well, I think it’s possible now to give the director complete control over exactly what frame rate the movie is at any moment in time, virtually on any object in the screen. This is one of the revolutionary new opportunities that are being unleashed by digital technology because you can break the picture down one pixel at a time.

So it’s theoretical that Peter Jackson could emerge from last week, go back into his laboratory and lower the frame-rates of the more placid scenes with Gollum while preserving the action scenes that are most enhanced by the quicker film speed?

He could. With the stroke of a key. He could change film rates all through the film. That’s technology that he probably has. See, he’s shooting with a special shutter so that if he deletes every other frame to get down to 24 frames, it will have enough blur to make his 24-frame version look okay. I would assume that most of the release of The Hobbit will ultimately be in 24 frames, particularly because Blu-ray players don’t run at 48 yet. But I’ve designed the technology with a very clever idea — that I’ve applied for patent on — that you can use a digital camera and shoot at 120 frames a second, but if you want to get back to 24 frames, you blend three adjacent frames together to recover the blur that you need for 24 frames — and then you delete the next two frames to get back to 24, because it’s a five-to-one ratio. So I can make a version of my movie that looks like every other 24-frame movie ever made in history. It’s exactly the same, exactly just as good, and completely compatible.

Is part of the reaction to The Hobbit footage just a reflection of our comfort level with the way movies are supposed to look and feel? Might we get over this in time?

I think over time, people will get used to it. You know, many new TVs have frame multiplies built in to them. It’s something you can turn on or off. Some people like it, some people don’t. But it can seem really awkward when you look at some movies that what you thought was a beautiful movie like The King’s Speech or something, and it suddenly looks like The King’s Speech on BBC TV. It’s different. That’s fine to offer that choice, but I’m trying to bring to it some control so you can actually modulate it over time, just like you don’t want every shot to be bright or loud.

[Alatar]

I think its hilarious that people keep referring to stuff as being like "BBC TV" as if that were a derogatory term. BBC TV was pretty much the champion of quality TV before HBO came along, and still is in many ways!

[yovargas]

That's an interesting point. Does that "BBC TV" aesthetic look good to UK eyes? Cuz here in the US it looks cheap. As I said earlier, I've been very curious for some while about why that is and if it really is just about what you're used to.

[Primula Baggins]

I was assuming they were talking about the BBC's long habit of shooting all interiors on videotape (and often shooting "exteriors" on tape in a studio with a painted backdrop). The effect was like American soap operas, which had the same constraints.

I don't think they were talking about the quality of the shows that were shot that way, which includes all the BBC adaptations of classic literature, and all of Doctor Who before its recent revival. Much brilliant, brilliant stuff.

[Alatar]

Well, can someone give me an idea of what they consider "Cheap BBC TV". I look at Sherlock and think its pretty damn awesome!

[Primula Baggins]

So do I. Production values are way better than a decade or two ago.

[yovargas]

I'm pretty sure it's some of the stuff that's a bit older. Sherlock certainly doesn't have "the look". I'll try to remember some examples later when I'm home.

[Lalaith]

Maybe they mean something like the BBC production of Narnia?

(I don't really know. I like BBC stuff. Those adaptations are old and probably fine for their time when it comes to special effects.)

[Old_Tom_Bombadil]

The Hobbit, to make it consistent and give it the feeling of "otherworldliness“

Otherworldliness? Don't these guys know that the events depicted in Tolkien's mythology take place on our own planet?