The first studio film shot entirely in 120 frames-per-second (FPS) opens Thursday, November 10, at the ArcLight Cinerama Dome in Hollywood for one week only.
“Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” by director Ang Lee (“Life of Pi,” “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon”) has a limited release of only two theaters in the United States, one in Los Angeles and one at AMC Lincoln Square in New York City, and only three other locations in the world: Taipei, Beijing, and Shanghai.
A Q&A with Ang Lee will take place Friday evening at the ArcLight.
Most films are shot in 24 FPS, a standard that has lasted for 90 years. A few features have been shot at 48 FPS, such as Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit film series.
But Ang Lee apparently planned to set a new record. He also shot the entire movie with two digital cameras, creating an original 3D film with 4K resolution, along with the 120 FPS. It’s a new, data-heavy, complex way to shoot a movie, which Lee humorously started calling “the whole shebang.”
This required new high-tech projectors to be set up at ArcLight for the screening. The film will be played with dual cameras and a giant laser light system, creating 28 foot-lamberts of light per eye for the viewer. Regular 3D movies project around 4 foot-lamberts of light.
This format also creates 2.2 billion pixels per second on screen, versus 53 million pixels for a regular 2K movie in 2D.
“No other system in the world has this capability,” said Susie Beiersdorf, vice president of sales at Christie Digital, inside ArcLight on Wednesday.
When asked how much money was invested at the theater just to play Lee’s new movie, Beiersdorf would only say “a lot.”
Some critics have complained that higher frame rates make films look overly realistic, allowing viewers to see too much detail, such as obvious makeup or imperfect background actors, interfering with the audience’s suspension of disbelief.
