Den of Geek’s letter to the movie editors – implications for Mobile

Den of Geek is a great website for movies, media, and suchlike – their newsletter is always a great read too, and that’s what got me started here.

I thought I was (a) getting old, and (b) the only person with this particular thought, until Simon Brew wrote an article about too-fast motion within films. I thought it was just me that couldn’t really see anything going on in Transformers, but no, Simon is there too – he couldn’t make out what was going on in any of the action sequences either!

Thing is, it’s not just Transformers that had that issue – there are ALOT of films that have exactly this same issue, with such clippety editing that you really can’t make out the action – it’s sometimes like the camera is zoomed in too much, others like there is just so much angle-switching, your brain can’t process it. Well my brain can’t…

I checked it wasn’t me by playing Burnout with some of the faster cars on turbo – that game has framerates that can peel your eyes – but it was fine, the reason being there is coherency in what you are seeing. But with movies, you are a passenger to what the editors want you to see – and I just can’t process the end results of their efforts.

Now, it matters for mobile, because mobile devices are less capable with video – particularly with framerate, bitrate, and in terms of resolution – so bad decisions made at source are amplified on a small screen. I use the equation crap in = crap out as a general rule.

So check out Simon’s article here, and let us know if you agree. Or perhaps I’m just an old giffer now and all you young folk can see these films fine….

Ben