– Why are most movies released at 24fps?
In: Other
Silent movies would be shown at pretty much a random frame rate, because they were literally done by someone turning a crank on a projector and it was almost impossible to get the frame rate consistent. When “talkies” came along, though, the sound was recorded alongside the film and had to be played back at the right speed or else it wouldn’t sound right, so a standard frame rate was needed. AFAIK it was Warner Bros with their “Vitaphone” system who chose 24 fps–it was picked because it was fast enough for smooth animation, but didn’t use enormous amounts of film stock (which was very expensive at the time). 24 is also easily divisible, so it’s easy when editing a film to know that a third of a second is 8 frames, for instance–important when you’re having to physically cut out frames and stick them back together!
24 frames per second is the slowest that you can film without introducing noticeable flicker. Film stock is expensive and so movie makers want to use as little of it as possible. If they could get away with it they probably would have filmed even slower.
In these days of digital recording you can much more easily and cheaply record at higher frame rates but people have become used to 24 fps and see anything faster as “off”. For example, TV shows recorded on tape are at about 30 fps and people associate this frame rate with cheap production values. It’s called the soap opera effect.
Latest Answers