48 fps showcased on "Video Game High School"
By Ryan Nakashima, Business Writer
BURBANK, Calif. (AP) --Movie fans who were intrigued by director Peter Jackson’s use of high frame rates in “The Hobbit” are now getting a chance to see the super-clear format online.
The second season of the YouTube Web series “Video Game High School” is being released online at 48 frames per second (fps), double the 24 fps that has been standard in movie theaters for the past century. The season’s second episode debuts Thursday after the premiere episode attracted nearly 2 million viewers.
Online video programming is growing fast as major networks and small upstarts go after young audiences who increasingly watch shows on laptops, tablet computers and mobile phones. Laying claim to the high-frame-rate niche could help “Video Game High School” stand out in a crowded field.
By capturing moving objects on camera at higher frame rates, filmmakers are able to cut down on blurriness because the camera’s shutter opens and closes much faster. That reduces the amount of time that an object moves across an open lens and gives each image, or frame, more clarity.
The experiment is partly a way to explore how to use high frame rates creatively while pioneering a new business model online.
Seeing the format online requires a special video player that exists only on RocketJump.com, which is owned by the show’s creators. Pulling viewers onto their own site improves their cut of advertising revenue compared to views on YouTube. For now, YouTube has no plans to introduce a high frame rate player of its own.
“There’ll be a reason to come to our site,” says Freddie Wong, 27, one of the owners of Rocket Jump and the co-creator of “VGHS.” ”What 48 (frames per second) brings is a gritty realism to it. It feels hyper-real.”
So far, the plan seems to be working. Within three days of the first episode’s debut, about 300,000 viewers had seen it on RocketJump.com compared with 1 million who saw it on YouTube. That’s about the same split as for the first season premiere, but last season’s episodes were released on RocketJump.com a week early. The fact that the split remains suggests that the special format is attracting a unique crowd.
“The idea is that both versions exist to serve a certain kind of audience,” Wong says.
“VGHS” uses 48 fps for scenes that are depicted in the video game world, since many video games are displayed at high frame rates anyway. For “real life” scenes, “VGHS” uses 24 fps footage by showing two identical frames in a row.
The format has some quirks.
Some movie critics who saw “The Hobbit” said the format revealed too many details, exposing the fakery of costumes, makeup and props.
Actors can appear to move at high speed unintentionally in what co-creator Matt Arnold calls the “Benny Hill” effect, referring to the sped-up scenes common to the British comedy TV show.
To address these issues, the creators of “VGHS” added back some blurriness that high frame rate recording had eliminated in some scenes. “VGHS” actors also wore less makeup than actors in “The Hobbit,” so there’s less chance that the format’s extra detail will be distracting, Arnold says.
Still, viewers who choose to watch the series at high frame rates will need excellent Internet connection speeds and computers with powerful graphics capabilities to play the video without delays. The format isn’t available on mobile devices.
Reza Izad, chief executive of project partner Collective Digital Studio, said using high frame rates was more of a creative decision than a financial one. Sponsors such as Dodge, whose cars are integral to racing scenes in the show’s second season, will benefit from the exposure no matter where the video is played. And still, YouTube is expected to generate the lion’s share of views.
“There needs to be a lot more adoption of it as a format before it takes hold,” he says. “This is just a really unique way to display this content and it’s in line with the vision of Freddie and Matt.”
Review: Director Morgan Neville’s “Piece by Piece”
A movie documentary that uses only Lego pieces might seem an unconventional choice. When that documentary is about renowned musician-producer Pharrell Williams, it's actually sort of on-brand.
"Piece by Piece" is a bright, clever song-filled biopic that pretends it's a behind-the-scenes documentary using small plastic bricks, angles and curves to celebrate an artist known for his quirky soul. It is deep and surreal and often adorable. Is it high concept or low? Like Williams, it's a bit of both.
Director Morgan Neville — who has gotten more and more experimental exploring other celebrity lives like Fred Rogers in "Won't You Be My Neighbor?,""Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain" and "Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in Two Pieces" — this time uses real interviews but masks them under little Lego figurines with animated faces. Call this one a documentary in a million pieces.
The filmmakers try to explain their device — "What if nothing is real? What if life is like a Lego set?" Williams says at the beginning — but it's very tenuous. Just submit and enjoy the ride of a poor kid from Virginia Beach, Virginia, who rose to dominate music and become a creative director at Louis Vuitton.
Williams, by his own admission, is a little detached, a little odd. Music triggers colors in his brain — he has synesthesia, beautifully portrayed here — and it's his forward-looking musical brain that will make him a star, first as part of the producing team The Neptunes and then as an in-demand solo producer and songwriter.
There are highs and lows and then highs again. A verse Williams wrote for "Rump Shaker" by Wreckx-N-Effect when he was making a living selling beats would lead to superstars demanding to work with him and partner... Read More