10 Movie Dreams That Died In 2019
8. Ang Lee's Dream Of Making High Frame Rate A Thing
High Frame Rate (HFR) is exactly what it sounds like, referring to a movie that is viewed at a higher frame rate than the traditional 24 frames-per-second that 99% of films and TV shows use.
Over the last few years though, HFR has started to creep into more and more projects, with director Ang Lee being one of the biggest backers of the technology. He most recently implemented HFR into Gemini Man, but his obsession with the format didn't start there: it began with his 2016 film, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk.
That movie was shot at a staggering 120 fps, five times the standard amount. Unfortunately for Lee though, nobody really cared for the experience, with many critics docking the film points because the HFR took them out of the experience. It made the picture look too clear, allowing the viewer to pick out faults that would normally go unnoticed, giving everything an overly-distracting glossy sheen.
Lee tried the whole HFR thing once more with Gemini Man, but again, it didn't work out, proving more a distracting gimmick than an engaging storytelling device. When you combine the bad reaction that HFR has received with the fact that very few cinemas are even equipped to play films in this format, it simply means that the technology is an expensive waste of time, and Lee will almost certainly never make it "a thing".