Douglas Trumbull knows a lot about special effects in film. From 2001: A Space Odyssey to Blade Runner to last year’s Tree of Life, he has helped create some of the most memorable and important effects in cinema. But he’s not happy with the state of today’s film technology.

People are watching TV. Kids don’t go to theaters. They’re streaming it, downloading it. They don’t see any difference between television and movies. So if you want to get people to go out to the movies, to pay a premium prive for some kind of premium experience, it better be damned premium. It better be extraordinary.

So what qualifies as extraordinary? How about 120 frames per second? That’s what Trumbull has created in his Hypercinema system. Normal film runs at 24 frames per second but with the advent of 3D, higher framerates have very seriously entered the conversation. When you think about it, it’s kind of strange that it’s even taken this long. Games have constantly been improving their framerates, it’s even become a bullet point of quality. If Trumbull is right, this tech might just be the way to convince people to come back to theatres and show them something really special.

– Adnan Agha

[via NYTimes]