Video game frame rates???

[Rev. Rye]

Honestly, unless you're specifically going for a sort of "shot on an old video" aesthetic, 24 fps is plenty. I don't really do video games, but I am a huge cinephile, so I have this to say:

I once saw a copy of Oklahoma, mastered from an old 70mm master. Normally, this is a good thing, since it was designed to be high-definition before high-definition was even a thing. However, since Oklahoma was the first film in its process (not counting a few obscure films in the 1930s that toyed with it during the brief span of time when talkies were becoming popular, but before the Great Depression, only two of which survive), there were some bugs to be worked out. The most glaring was that the original frame rate for the process was 30 fps. Due to the need to show this film of an exceptionally popular musical in venues that aren't specially made, there were two versions: a 35mm anamorphic version shot at the standard frame rate and a 70mm version at 30 fps.

I can't find any scenes of the 70mm version on Youtube (certainly none marked as such), but the way everyone moves is just uncanny. It's kind of strange to watch, and Oklahoma shouldn't be this odd to watch. I mean, maybe if they acted out that fanfic I wrote where Jud and Curly get stuck in a time vortex with a bunch of musical characters, get into melee fights and fuck bears while Laurie, Ado Annie, and that one girl in the chorus who may or may not be a lesbian engage in a bizarre love triangle, yeah, but they're not doing that.

The 70mm version is on Disc 2 of the DVD  version, and Disc 1 of the Blu-Ray. Apparently, the 70mm version looks better on the Blu-Ray (at least in terms of actual image quality, if the Blu-Ray.com review is any indication.) I haven't seen the BR version, but I suspect the problems I had with it on the DVD were more related to stuff in the frame rate than print degradation.

While I didn't find a video of an HFR version of Oklahoma side-by-side with the 24fps, I did find something similar with, of all things, Snakes on a Plane. See for yourself:





I don't know how they got it to 60 fps, but the results jibe with what I've always seen in HFR.