{"id":11462,"date":"2011-04-04T23:58:17","date_gmt":"2011-04-04T22:58:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=11462"},"modified":"2011-11-21T05:36:43","modified_gmt":"2011-11-21T05:36:43","slug":"the-future-or-the-end-of-cinema-higher-frame-rates-theatrical-window","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2011\/04\/04\/the-future-or-the-end-of-cinema-higher-frame-rates-theatrical-window\/","title":{"rendered":"The End of the Cinema Experience?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Last week some major questions about the cinema experience were raised at Cinema Con<\/a><\/strong>, the annual convention of American theater owners in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

Previously known as ShoWest, the convention has been relaunched and gathers the National Association of Theatre Owners<\/a>, who represent over 30,000 movie screens in the US and additional cinema chains from around the world.<\/p>\n

Studios go there to preview their big summer blockbusters and get exhibitors excited for upcoming titles like Super 8<\/a> and Real Steel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is an important place to spot industry trends this year two of the big ones were: higher frame rates and a controversial video on demand scheme backed by four of the major studios.<\/p>\n

HIGHER FRAME-RATES<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the fundamentals of cinema is that films are shown at 24 frames per second<\/a>, as light is projected through a print on to a screen.<\/p>\n

Even with the rise of digital projection systems<\/a>, this has essentially stayed the same as audiences have got used to this particular look.<\/p>\n

One major panel at Cinema Con saw James Cameron<\/a>, George Lucas<\/a> and Jeffrey Katzenberg<\/a> discuss higher framerates for how films are projected.<\/p>\n

Cameron was advocating that films in cinemas should be projected at 48 fps or 60fps and that the current generation of digital projectors could easily adopt this with a software upgrade.<\/p>\n

But what would films screened at higher frame rates actually look like?<\/p>\n

Visual effects maestro Douglas Trumbull<\/a> has long been advocating higher frame rates with his Showscan cinematic process<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After his pioneering work on films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/a> (1968), Close Encounters of the Third Kind<\/a> (1977) and Blade Runner<\/a> (1982), Trumbull came up with the idea for projecting higher quality images at 60fps on bigger cinema screens.<\/p>\n

This NBC news clip in 1984 shows Trumbull promoting Showscan:<\/p>\n