For some reason it seems people don't like the fact that The Hobbit is filmed in 48 fps rather than 24 fps, and it would looks "less like a movie" and "more like a documentary". This coming from film critics.

What is their problem? Movie technology gets better, but they complain? Were film critics also complaining when movies got audio, or when they became color?

Or is this 48 fps thing different and does it really feel weird and less enjoyable to watch a movie at this framerate?

Film framerate is actually traditionally projected at "48 FPS" - the difference is that since film is stored in discrete frames, the time it takes to switch frames the shutter has to remain closed, meaning that you get 24 full frames + 24 black frames that are masked by the persistence of vision per second. It's pretty easy to catch this - just look for a really bright scene or keep your eyes on a bright area and you'll actually see the flicker. If everything is smooth, then you're looking at a digital projection.

Filming something at a higher framerate allows you to achieve smoother slow motion, but the final result still needs to be burnt down to a 24 FPS film copy if it's not distributed digitally (in which case, to me, there really is no difference what you do with the material or what framerate you capture it at - it's still going to look like video). The amount of smoothness that is gained from this high-framerate intermediary really depends on how the film is processed and further parameters that were used at capture (eg shutter speed).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0903624/technical

Believing IMDb, the Hobbit will be distributed on film for the 2D release (which is good news!), but was shot in digital (which is still pretty much always bad news).

If you have a fairly modern TV boasting some kind of motion compensation technology, you'll understand what the concern is. They usually have this on on demo tvs in stores. Most of these technologies insert frames to smooth out the picture. The result is typically something that looks both smoother and unnatural (hard to describe if you've never seen it).

It'll be interesting to see on the big screen if the effect is really the same. I'm also interested on how well this will translate to blu-ray, since most US hd tvs I've seen only support 24, 30 and 60 fps.

If you have a fairly modern TV boasting some kind of motion compensation technology, you'll understand what the concern is. They usually have this on on demo tvs in stores. Most of these technologies insert frames to smooth out the picture. The result is typically something that looks both smoother and unnatural (hard to describe if you've never seen it).

But afaik in this film there's no motion compensation, they're actually shooting at 48 fps?

[quote name='Rattrap' timestamp='1335788582' post='4936051']
If you have a fairly modern TV boasting some kind of motion compensation technology, you'll understand what the concern is. They usually have this on on demo tvs in stores. Most of these technologies insert frames to smooth out the picture. The result is typically something that looks both smoother and unnatural (hard to describe if you've never seen it).

But afaik in this film there's no motion compensation, they're actually shooting at 48 fps?
[/quote]

Yes they are shooting at 48fps, the main problem is that you get less motion blur, motion blur is something we're used to in our movies. (we even add quite alot of artificial motion blur to some videogames that run at 60 fps, almost always far more than what is realistic)

a movie shot at 48fps will look more realistic, that some people dislike this is quite expected. (There are probably just as many or maybe even more people who think its an improvement, people who like a change tend to stay quiet though)

It's the same reason that digital video took so long to catch on in films -- when digital film arrived on the scene, it brought higher frame-rates but had short-coming compared to film. This meant that movies largely stuck with real film, while cheaper TV productions migrated to new videotape technologies.
When watching footage from each technology, it has a distinct "feel" to it -- and the feel of high-frame-rate video recordings is now subconsciously associated with a cheap soapie, rather than a feature film.
To the critics, that high-frame-rate "feel" brings with it all the connotations of cheap video productions... the're subconsciously left feeling that you couldn't afford to "film it properly". Many will admit this is just a rut that the industry has fallen into, yet aren't ready to have their connotations/associations rearranged yet.

Personally, I think it's a great choice, 24hz is incredibly slow! So many action sequences in LOTR (or any action-filled movie) are just a blurry mess because of this.

I wouldn't rush into saying that. Shutter speed can seriously impact the type of imagery that is captured. For instance, watch Black Hawk Down - the action sequences are often shot with a very wide aperture and a correspondingly fast shutter speed, creating an incredibly crisp and distinct look, which does away with a lot of the motion blur and produces a very "alive" and immediate look you'd expect from digital photography. Nevertheless, the underlying 24 FPS capture creates enough solid feel for the film to not seem digitally shot. The fact that they're shooting at 48 FPS, to me, is an aesthetic choice and really does suggest a lot of control over framerate in post-production (slow motion), especially if they're opting to film release in 2D. Anyone remember Sucker Punch?

What is their problem? Movie technology gets better, but they complain? Were film critics also complaining when movies got audio, or when they became color?

Absolutely yes, and definitely yes.

Haters gonna hate.

Using film at 24 fps creates a certain look, digital at that frame rate manages to replicate that now. But using other frame rates looks different. Technically it's "better", but people are used to and associate the look of 24fps with high quality movies and 48fps just looks "wrong" somehow. So i think it's mostly a matter of people complaining about things that are different from what they expect, but not about it being objectively worse...

Like others have said, it's not that 48fps is technically "worse," it's just that we're so used to crappy 24fps that we expect everything to have the "feel and look" that 24fps film does. When you bump it up to 48fps, it's slightly different (visually), and despite the fact that it might be more accurate, it gives slight visual differences than 24fps, and we associate these differences with "wrong."

I've noticed it myself with some shows that are shown in digital. Technically, they're higher quality and more accurate, but there's a noticeable (albiet slight) visual difference from traditional films, and for this reason the digital shows just look wrong (it seems like it's more obvious to me that they're acting on a stage, for some reason).