What causes the soap opera effect?

[tellyworth]

As mentioned in this thread, when a movie is shown at frame rates higher than 24fps, it stops looking like a movie and starts looking like actors on a cheap set.

The usual explanation for this is that it's just convention: there's nothing special about 24fps, it's just that we're so used to cinema at 24fps that anything else doesn't look cinematic.

There is no shortage of opinions, but have there been any studies to test this hypothesis? For example, do people who haven't been exposed to cheap TV shows at 30fps experience the same effect?

[Ximenean]

It's an interesting question, but I would just add that I think you need to go higher than 30fps to get the "live TV" effect. TV is 50 or (approximately) 60 interlaced fields per second.

[GuanoLad]

It's just what we're used to. There's nothing inherently wrong with increased frame rates, it's just that in the early 70s and 80s, sitcoms and soap operas used very cheap video cameras, and there was a floaty smooth appearance to the image. Panning the camera would cause lights to smear, or there'd be a subtle after-image.

The interpolated frames you get on HDTVs have the same look, as it's sort of a kludgey way to achieve it - automatically creating intermediate frames using mystical sorcery. But increased frame rates on film theoretically would not, as it's not a kludge but actual recording of more frames at the source, but it is reminiscent enough of that floaty feel to be off-putting.

Apparently if you increase the frame rate even higher, to something like 60-75fps, there's some kind of perfect equilibrium that produces an amazing image quality that nobody would accuse of being the soap opera effect. Unfortunately, none of the digital projectors so recently installed in cinemas can reach that rate, so it's a long way off from happening. The Hobbit is the first mainstream attempt to head that way.

[aerodave]

This thread I remembered participating in from several months ago may prove somewhat useful.

[md2000]

I always thought the "soap opera effect" came from bad lighting. While a movie typically spends thousands of dollars to stage each scene, including dramatic contrasted lighting and camera angles, soap operas and especially sitcoms shot in front of an audience don't have the luxury to play around with these details. The lighting is very flat and uniform, the staging is very simple, and camera framing is typically with limited close-ups and fewer cuts, less editing. This sounds simplistic, but the impression it leaves is obvious. Similarly, less effort is put into sound production too.

(A good example of this is to watch early BBC fare, like the original Monty Python TV series, where production values are even less than Hollywood level. If there's one thing Hollywood is good at, for film or TV, is polishing turds to a fine shine...)