Can Ang Lee's 120-fps "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" recreate the myth of "Avatar"?

Do you remember the grand occasion when the movie "Avatar" was released in the country in early 2010?

Due to the limitations of the cinema conditions at the time, not everyone had the opportunity to experience the IMAX-3D version. Standing tickets were arranged in the aisles of the cinema. Regardless of the plot of "Avatar", the 3D effect deeply shocked the audience. At that time, many people even asked, how should movies be made in the post-"Avatar" era? The sudden appearance of "Avatar" seemed to be insurmountable.

But the reality is not that cruel. The technology in the film industry is advancing at an astonishing speed. It only took a moment for 2D to enter the 3D era.

Six years later, a landmark film that is likely to become the next "Avatar" is about to be released. This is Ang Lee's 4K, 3D, 120-frame "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk."

What is 120 frames?

Simply speaking, 4K, 3D, and 120 frames are just a list of numbers. The concepts of 4K and 3D have been basically popularized in the market, so what is the concept of 120 frames?

When shooting a movie, each frame is a still image. Displaying the frames quickly and continuously creates the illusion of motion. Therefore, the higher the frame rate, the smoother and more realistic the animation. Currently, the international film industry generally uses 24 frames per second for shooting, and this standard is also used for projection. The human visual persistence phenomenon just meets the standard of receiving 24 frames per second, and the interruption of the picture will not be noticed. Considering physiological, technical, cost, playback conditions and other factors, the 24-frame shooting and playback standard has been continued for nearly a hundred years.

What Ang Lee is challenging this time is not 48 or 60 frames, but a big leap to 120 frames, that is, playing 120 images per second on the basis of 4K and 3D. Currently, this technology is also called "immersive digital technology."

When asked why he chose to challenge the unprecedented technological pinnacle of 120 frames, Ang Lee said, "Digital movies should be 3D, which matches the way the human eye processes information. 120 frames makes the picture smooth, 4K makes the picture clearer, and with 3D, you will feel very close to the character. This is what movies of the future should be like."

What kind of viewing experience will 4K, 3D, and 120 frames create? That is, viewers can see every detail in the movie, including the actors' sweat hairs and pores, and the smoothness is so great that people may forget that it is a movie. The sense of experience and immersion will be multiplied. If there was a screen between us and the movie before, "immersive digital technology" will make this screen disappear, and you will be able to watch every detail up close at the scene of the story.

For this reason, Ang Lee even forbade the actors to wear makeup during performances, because the picture was too clear and the audience would see any artificial modification, thus losing their sense of immersion and thinking it was a performance.

Of course, due to the gap between shooting technology and playback technology, just like "Avatar" back then, not all movie fans will have the opportunity to see the 4K, 3D, and 120 frame versions.

Currently, only five theaters in New York, Los Angeles, Beijing, Shanghai and Taipei will invest in new equipment to play the highest-spec version of "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk". It is very difficult to show the original 120-frame movie. To achieve a rate of 120 frames per second, the camera and dual-projector must be specially customized, and the screen and sound system must also be the most advanced. A set of special color grading software costs $500,000.

Therefore, when the high-end version of "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" is released, tickets will likely be hard to come by.

"3D, 2D, 4K, 2K, 60 frames per second, 24 frames per second, each mixed version is my re-creation, and I spend a lot of time to make it have its own look. Because the images are captured during shooting with high specifications, even if the specifications are lowered, there will be good image effects. This should be a very flexible business." Considering the promotion of the film, Ang Lee said that the film will still release more "low-profile" versions.

Why did you choose "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk"?

But no matter how advanced the technology is, excellent directors will always abide by one fact: even the best technology must serve the story.

So what kind of story does "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" tell?

The script is based on Ben Fontaine's novel and is considered the Iraq War version of "Catch-22". The protagonist of the story is a 19-year-old Texas boy named Billy Lynn, who was sent to the Iraq battlefield after joining the US infantry. In 2005, he and his colleagues survived a firefight and escaped. In order to show the results of the Iraq War, the Bush administration called them back to the country and let them perform on the same stage with entertainment stars such as Beyonce during the halftime of the Dallas Cowboys football game on Thanksgiving Day, and awarded them the Medal of Honor. However, after that, Billy Lynn and other veterans were sent back to the Iraq battlefield by the Bush administration.

According to Ang Lee, the reason for choosing the war theme was that he hoped to use the most advanced filming technology to capture the real battlefield scenes and let the audience experience the war firsthand, because only a few people have experienced war in peacetime.

But Ang Lee also emphasized, "Some people now think that I made an anti-war film, but this was not my original intention. I wanted to tell the story of soldiers. Soldiers as a group are unfamiliar to most people. What people imagine soldiers do is different from what they actually do." Talking about the role of soldiers in the film, Ang Lee also has his own explanation: "Soldiers are told how to survive on the battlefield, but not how to survive after the war. I think soldiers have a sense of destiny, just like making movies is also a kind of destiny for me."

Judging from the subject matter, even if "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" does not use 4K, 3D, or 120 frames, it will still be a good feature film.

This also leads to a problem. Not all movies are suitable for high-tech shooting techniques. For example, after "Avatar", many film companies followed suit and chose to shoot movies in 3D. The phenomenon of following suit is particularly serious in mainland China, and even unreasonable situations such as 2D to 3D conversion and mainland-only 3D versions have appeared.

Previously, The Hobbit also tried a 48-fps version, but it was criticized for being too smooth, and the audience was watching the process of actors making a movie, not a movie. There are rumors that James Cameron, who originally planned to shoot Avatar 2 at 60 fps, switched back to 48 fps because of the failure of The Hobbit.

For the clarity and smoothness of 120 frames, the content of the movie is extremely critical, and documentaries and crime-solving themes may be more suitable.

Being a technology pioneer is very Ang Lee

When it comes to technical experts in the film industry, people usually think of directors like Spielberg, James Cameron, and Robert Zemeckis. But Ang Lee always gives people the impression of being gentle and steady, and he is better at exploring human nature in the plot.

If "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" can be successful, Ang Lee will immediately be pushed to the position of a pioneer in the film industry's leading image technology innovation.

Ang Lee once revealed that the idea of ​​shooting a higher frame rate movie was brewing when he was shooting Life of Pi. "When I was shooting Life of Pi, I first encountered 3D and digital movies. After shooting, I felt that 24 frames was not good, and it was unwatchable. When my fellow directors watched 24-frame 3D, they all felt something was wrong." 24 frames is just the most conservative and cost-effective choice, but 24 frames cannot be regarded as an eternal law.

Being the first to try it, it was very difficult to shoot at 120 frames. "There was no one to ask for advice, and I suffered a lot. Problems kept coming. Each shot had to be shot several times, and I could only shoot a few shots a day. In the post-production, everyone was very pitiful, like holding hands to feed a lion. This went on for about a year." He also said, "Now, for me, I am not interested in making difficult movies. I am only interested in making impossible movies. Making movies requires hard work. If you don't work hard, it seems that making movies is meaningless."

We cannot agree that those who try to innovate technology are necessarily good, but there must be someone to promote the development of this matter. At present, the pictures of some high-level games can reach 60 frames, so the 48 frames of "The Hobbit" can only be regarded as an attempt, and cannot be called innovation.
"If you don't like this movie, you can scold me, but you shouldn't scold 3D or 120 frames. Technology is innocent." Ang Lee's words are enough for us to pay tribute to this director because he did not blame the immature technology.

Looking back at Ang Lee's works, he tried "Sense and Sensibility" after his father's trilogy, and then "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" broke the ice for Chinese-language films in Hollywood. However, he also experienced the failure of "The Hulk", a film with a huge span, and then challenged 3D movie special effects in "Life of Pi". He has been breaking through his existing space. "The Wedding Banquet", "Eat Drink Man Woman", "Brokeback Mountain", "Lust, Caution", "The Hulk", "Life of Pi" and so on. Putting the films shot by Ang Lee together, you can strongly feel how many challenges Ang Lee has completed in the past 30 years.

So shooting "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" at 120 frames is very Ang Lee. He himself said, "Although it is difficult to change people's habits and culture, I am too curious. I am no longer young and I don't want to wait."

Of course, if "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" had not been successful, or the box office figures were not good, there would definitely be people who would complain about Ang Lee and accuse him of sensationalism. But we cannot stop seeking technological breakthroughs just because 120 frames cannot be widely popularized. Back then, "Avatar" came out first and then theaters introduced 3D projection equipment in large numbers. Perhaps the arrival of 120 frames will allow theater hardware to be upgraded on a large scale again.

In the mainland release poster of "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk", we did not see the film company focusing on promoting the technology. They just put a description like "a work that challenges the limits of movie-watching" in an inconspicuous place. So no matter what, technology is just a tool, and what can really touch people's hearts is the movie itself.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.