Digital cameras have come a long way since the
first moving camera built in 1888 by Louis Le Prince. His revolutionary 16 lens camera made history with the first ever recorded moving image on paper film, entitled "Roundhay Garden Scene".
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Now the film industry is faced with concepts like 'HD', ‘Ultra HD’ and ‘4K’. 2012 provided us with higher frame rates when Peter Jackson released The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first feature film to be filmed in 48fps with a wide release. The idea behind 48fps is that because it's twice the average frame rate it should reduce motion blur and flicker found in films. However, Jackson received criticism for his decision, with people likening it to HD TV, or video games, arguing that the image was just too crisp, and therefore somehow less cinematic.
With higher frame rates, comes higher resolutions. 2014 seems to have been the year for just that, with '4K' becoming a major buzzword in the film industry. 4K refers to the amount of pixels within the image, 4096 x 2160 pixels to be exact, and is four times more detailed than current 1080p Full HD resolution, which is 1920 x 1080 pixels, the resolution of standard TVs in the UK. Toshiba predicts that 4K will become as mainstream as DVDs became mainstream.
It still has a way to go, but Toshiba reckons it will be by 2017 that we'll see the higher resolution on our TV screens, with Netflix already opened up the window for 4K online streaming earlier this year, offering a selected range of shows with the option to be streamed in the higher resolution, such as Breaking Bad and House of Cards (at an increased rate, mind you).
Higher resolutions means that the potential for the image quality is much greater for filmmakers. Low light means that detail in shadows can be lost and hard to get back or retain during post-production, however, with higher resolutions, shooting in low light can now become a viable option because of the greater detail that can be captured. Jeff Cronenworth, cinematographer for Gone Girl , demonstrated this by shooting the film on the Red Dragon at a higher resolution of 6K (6144 x 3160 pixels) with the Epic Dragon. This made the quality control in the colour correction phase much more flexible for filmmakers.
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High resolutions don't stop there - last year Astro Design announced at The NAB show (National Association of Broadcasters) that it had become the first company to produce a camera that was capable of capturing 8K Ultra HD resolution of up to 60fps, the 8K Camera Head AH-4800 developed by NHK Engineering System Inc.
Although 8K is far from becoming an everyday commodity (4K technology has not even become mainstream yet) a benefit of 8K resolution is to make 4K resolution better. This is because 4K images can be derived form 8K footage through a process called downsampling, meaning that the colour fidelity and resolution of full 8K to 4K would be phenomenal.
However, higher frame rates and larger resolutions aren't all good news for everyone in the film industry - it poses a great challenge for computer animators. Bruno Mahe, technical head at studio Illumination Mac Guff, whose studios were responsible for films like Despicable Me, Minions and The Lorax, warns that the time needed to generate the higher resolution images could hit production schedules.
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Current animated films are produced at 2K resolution and 24fps. However, computer-based animation is a lengthy process as it is, but now they have to create characters with greater detail, for twice as many frames. This means that the production schedule has to be extended. Directors are already having to make tough decisions about how to tell the story because they are limited in what images they can generate with the current playback requirements. And even though higher speed computers and networks have removed some of this pressure, the rendering of frames was still the main limiting factor in how quickly they can complete a film.
The main issue is memory, and memory costs money. Moving images back and forth between animators consumes large amounts of memory. In 2007, the total amount of memory used while Illumination worked on Dragon Hunters peaked at 12 terabytes. However this grew significantly by the time the studios made Despicable Me 2 where memory peaked at 680 terabytes.
When dealing with such large files, Ron Bianchini, head of Avere which helps firms build responsive networks, argued that Flash memory would be the most effective way in reducing production schedules as it's the fastest type of memory. However, using 600 TB of all flash memory would be "absolutely cost prohibitive", and that the industry must think more creatively about how to tackle this challenge.
It appears that other areas of the industry are struggling as a direct result of crispier images and higher frame rates, and until they find a way to cope with longer rendering times, the industry either has to find a way to accommodate this, or studios like Illumination Mac Guff are in danger of losing business to companies who find a way to cope faster sooner.
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