Michael LaRocco The “Film Look” as Semiotic Decoy: Slow Frame Rate as Cinematic Code Abstract This paper investigates the epistemological effects of frame rate in fiction film and television through an analysis of contemporary video camera technology. HD video has widely overtaken film as the dominant motion picture shooting format over the start of the 21st century, but despite the new format’s ability to render images at much faster frame rates, video camera manufacturers have largely opted to recreate the motion rendering of 35mm film by preserving its comparatively slow 24 frame- per-second frame rate – achieving what the filmmaking trade press calls “the film look.” The development of video technology represents a unique example in technological evolution, as it has been driven by a logic of emulation rather than a more common logic of obsolescence, in which the “new and improved” replaces the old and stale. I argue that the emulation of film in video camera technology reveals the extent to which frame rate functions as a visual code in narrative cinema, serving as both an indicator of high production value and also a means for coding images as fictional. Even before its critical and commercial success, release of 28 Days Later: “Video has long held a Danny Boyle’s horror film 28 Days Later (2002) stigma in the feature film world that’s been a barrier was making waves in the independent filmmaking to distribution. If an independent feature was shot community. Boyle and his cinematographer, on video, it was considered an amateur production Anthony Dod Mantle, had challenged aesthetic that was relegated to cable access or maybe late and industrial conventions by shooting the movie night broadcast TV. If an independent feature was on digital video instead of film – and not the shot on film, it was admitted to the next level and tremendously expensive high definition digital considered for distribution.”1 28 Days Later served video of the era, as was the case with Star Wars: as an example of how a movie shot on video did Attack of the Clones, released that same year. Boyle indeed have a chance to not only achieve critical and Dod Mantle shot on MiniDV, the same video acclaim, as did the Dogme 95 films of the same era, format most low budget, amateur, and independent but also widespread release and success amongst its filmmakers were using. It was also the same Hollywood-born celluloid peers. format used to film most children’s soccer games, Despite being shot in the same medium, 28 weddings, and bar mitzvahs. Shot on the Canon Days Later looks significantly different from the XL-1, a workhorse camera ubiquitous in the video video of a children’s soccer game (even aside from production world of the early 2000s, the release the absence of flesh eating zombies). Its video and success of 28 Days Later was noteworthy – image had been electronically stripped of its “video even inspirational – to independent filmmakers look” – a phrase commonly used within the video who had long dreaded shooting and releasing their production trade press to refer to the smooth projects on video. Filmmakers Dale Newton and rendering of motion associated with 30 frame-per- John Gaspard summarize this dread in their guide second (fps) interlaced video. While 28 Days Later to digital filmmaking, published shortly before the may have offered independent filmmakers a long- 58 Technologies of Knowing Sonia Misra and Maria Zalewska, editors, Spectator 36:1 (Spring 2016): 58-66. LaROCCO awaited validation of video as a format, validation rendering of 35mm film. As a counter example, take came in the form of a backhanded compliment – Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, a movie shot on video could succeed aesthetically released 10 years later. The movie was shot on top- and financially as long as it didn’t look like video. of-the-line high definition video that effectively Boyle was not alone in his choice to give his movie matched the resolution, dynamic range, and color an appearance more in line with the traditionally rendering of film. In image quality, it was virtually cinematic motion of 24 fps film – a so-called indistinguishable from film, though it rendered “film look.” The early 2000s saw a focused effort motion quite differently. Jackson had elected to buck on the part of filmmakers, camera manufacturers, the nearly century-long trend of shooting cinema at and software developers to bring the look of the 24 fps and doubled it, feeling that 48 fps allowed for video image closer to that of the film image. The smoother motion, heightened realism, and an image development of video technology represents a that was easier on the eyes of 3D audiences.3 That unique example in technological evolution, as it one divergence in frame rate led to a slew of negative has been driven by a logic of emulation rather than press at the movie’s release, as many critics found a more common logic of obsolescence, in which the that the hyperreal, ultrasmooth motion rendering “new and improved” replaces the old and stale. resulted in an uncanny, unpleasant image, looking The emulation of film in video camera technology more like consumer grade video or a daytime soap reveals the extent to which frame rate functions as opera than cinema.4 Film scholar Julie Turnock a visual code in narrative cinema, serving as both commented, “I imagine that the [48 fps] Hobbit is an indicator of high production value and also a somewhat disconcerting because it looks like what means for coding images as fictional. This essay digital cinematography would look like if it were not will investigate this particular masquerade of image forced to imitate the ‘photochemical’ look.”5 Even formats and the extent to which the cinematic with an image that was filmic in nearly all respects, form and a “video look” were incompatible in the the increased frame rate was enough to send many minds of independent filmmakers and, as they likely critics into a filmophilic tizzy. presumed, their audiences. The pursuit of the “film The case of The Hobbit, taken alongside the look” was an attempt to re-code the video image as case of 28 Days Later, suggests the “video look” – one of aesthetic legitimacy and illusion through the and its stigmatization – are largely related to the use of legitimate illusory aesthetics. relationship between frame rate and motion. It is The Characteristics of the “Video Look” not surprising, then, that many trade press articles and videos offering tutorials on “How to Create a “If it walks like a duck and flies like a Film Look with Video” begin with the notion: “The 2 largest, most important thing you can do to get the duck, it must be a duck.” 6 - Decoying Your Video to film-like look … is to slow the frame rate down.” Look Like Film The myriad characteristics of video as a medium and its inherent ontological separation from film are 28 Days Later is a unique case study in medium far beyond the transformative capabilities of eager specificity because it was shot on video, but does videomakers and their equipment, just as they are not exhibit the characteristic “video look.” To far beyond the scope of this essay. The semiotic re- avoid slippage in terminology, the phrase “video coding of video is not alchemy; it is a careful balance look” needs a stricter definition, as 28 Days Later of science and sleight-of-hand. While trade press still maintained many of the characteristics of video writers are quick to caution that video will never “be” and lacked many of those of film. Its images were film, altering the way that video renders motion is low resolution, colors were muted and bled together, the key to turning one’s video into what Videomaker the dynamic range between light and dark sections columnist Michael Reff calls a “decoy.”7 of the frame was quite limited, electronic gain was As a semiotic system, a motion picture image visible on screen, etc. The one and only significant works as a traditional mimetic system: a film image change was in the movie’s frame rate, which was of a house, for example, serves as an indexical digitally altered to more closely recreate the motion signifier for the real-world house being filmed. The TECHNOLOGIES OF KNOWING 59 THE “FILM LOOK” AS Semiotic DecoY mechanical act of filming is, in itself, an objective That is, each of the 30 individual frames is split into recording of reality. In the words of Roland Barthes: a series of 486 horizontal lines. When a television displays each frame, it first displays a field of its From the object to its image there is odd-numbered lines, and then displays the field of of course a reduction – in proportion, even-numbered lines. Thus, while NTSC plays at perspective, color – but at no time is this 30 frames per second, it actually displays 60 fields per reduction a transformation … certainly second, with each field representing half a frame. the image is not the reality but at least Because of persistence of vision in the human it is its perfect analogon and it is exactly eye, 30 fps interlaced video effectively retains the this analogical perfection which, to qualities of an image projected at 60 fps (hence common sense, defines the photograph. the comparisons between digital video and Peter Thus can be seen the special status of Jackson’s high frame rate videography). The reasons the photographic image: it is a message for this interlacing method are twofold.