Moviegoers should try to see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey at a cinema equipped to screen it in 3D at the faster film speed of 48 frames a second in which it was filmed, director Peter Jackson said Wednesday.
It would appear in a crisp format that he compared to hearing music on a CD for the first time after listening to the scratching of
a needle on an old gramophone playing a vinyl disc, he said before Wednesday's world premiere of the first of a trilogy based on JRR Tolkien's book The Hobbit.
But there is a snag. About 1,000 of the 25,000 cinemas worldwide that are scheduled to screen the movie are able to do so in the
48-frames-a-second format, Jackson said.
The slower 24-frames-a-second format has been the industry norm since 1927, but Jackson said, "I have a responsibility to look at the technology that's available to us now and to think of ways that technology can be used to enhance the cinema-going experience.
"We're just dipping our toe in the water," he said. "You have to make the cinema-going experience more magical and more spectacular and get people coming back to the movies again."
