The twenty-fifth frame was born in the summer of 1957 in New Jersey. His father, a certain James Wykeri, is a researcher of subconscious factors in the semantics of words. He conducted the following experiment. A second projection apparatus was installed in the theater, which showed the film Picnic, one of the thrillers of that era. Many passages in the film included the words "If you are hungry, eat popcorn and drink Coca-Cola."
The words were projected within 0.0033 seconds (1/300), and could not be consciously noticed due to such a short time interval. Nevertheless, the sale of popcorn increased by 50% in those sessions where the second projection apparatus was used, and Coca-Cola by 16%. Viewers' polls showed that no one saw anything on the screen, and the purchase of Coca-Cola and popcorn was explained by the fact that they “just want to” and so on. And even if the audience was warned about the experience, the results were still the same. And nobody saw anything. This is the same method used by one producer - to enhance the effect of his horror films, he inserted snapshots of the skull and the word "blood" into these films.
The following conclusions can be drawn:
1. 25th frame is a dangerous thing, because you can show not only "Eat popcorn", but also "go kill".
2. Apparently the order, "Eat popcorn", works more than just the name of the drink, "Coca-Cola".
3. Let's use it (effect 25) for teaching.
Subsequently, information about these experiments leaked to newspapers and these attempts to influence the minds of people without their knowledge caused a flurry of indignation and panic. People were afraid (and are afraid) that someone from the outside could influence their behavior and actions. The journalist Norman Cousinis, in his 1957 article, "The Tainted Subconscious," reflected on the 25 frame effect and its impact and significance in human life.
He also made an assumption about the possibilities of 25 frames to influence not only such trifles as the decision to buy a soft drink, but also more important decisions, such as riot, political propaganda, etc.
Promotional video:
James Vicary - American businessman, founder and researcher of the 25th frame theory. Photo: Hank Walker / Time & Life Pictures (Jan 01, 1958).
A little later, publicist Brian Key joined Kazinis in his concern with his series of books on the possible use of sublittoral methods - this is the list of 25 frames. He also said that the psychological effect of 25 frames can be used not only in films. Key also said that certain sexual messages could be embedded in drawings and photographs in print media. Quote: "These techniques are widely used by the media, advertising and public relations agencies, industry and trade corporations, and often by the federal government itself."
Naturally, such a wave attracted advertisers, government, scientists and special structures. They suggested repeating and reinforcing the experiment. But to the surprise of many, the newly organized experiments did not bring the proverbial effect. This was due to several reasons: technical problems that postponed the experiment, zero audience without an unjustified urge to execute sublittoral commands, etc. As a result, the Advertising Research Foundation demanded an official report on the experiments carried out by Vykeri, but he refused, although he said that there were several thousand participants in the experiments and these experiments lasted more than 6 weeks.
Name
The name of the twenty-fifth frame is rather arbitrary. In an ordinary movie, 24 frames per second are shown, and if you paste another one, it will be 25. At the beginning, the movie was shown at 18 frames per second. This was clearly not enough, since flickering was visible, the image "jumped", everything twitched, there was no smoothness, etc. If an advertisement were pasted there, there would be the nineteenth frame, but it would be noticeable. The problem was solved by increasing the number of frames to 24. Television systems use a mechanism called interlaced scanning - even lines are shown in the first half of the frame, and odd lines in the second (or vice versa).
To display the entire frame, you need to display two half frames. The frequency of such full frames for SECAM and PAL systems (common in Europe) is 25 frames per second, for the NTSC system (USA) - 30 frames per second. Therefore, one frame is shown in 1/25 or 1/30 of a second. Monitors have different frame rates, interlaced scanning is extremely rare. You can see in the settings how many frames per second the monitor you are looking at is outputting. This is usually between 60 and 160 Hz (frames per second). One of these frames can be made "twenty-fifth". That is, I want to say that, the twenty-fifth frame, this is just the generally accepted name for this phenomenon, one should not take it literally.
Inertia of vision
The eye remembers the seen image and continues to see it after it disappears. This phenomenon is called "vision inertia". The movie projector is arranged like this. A propeller with blades rotates between the lens and the film. 24 times a second, he closes the lens, so that at this moment, you can stretch the film one frame, further. Then the blade opens the lens, the frame is displayed on the screen. and so on … At the moment when the lens is closed, we continue to see the previous frame. The inertia of vision is different for different people. This is for purely medical reasons.
With the "breed" of man. In some, the retina of the eye can maintain an excited state for a long time, while in others it can quickly "drop" the image. For most people, 24 frames are enough to avoid screen flickering. But there are people who see flicker even at this frequency. As for monitors and TVs, they have one feature. A beam runs along the back of the electron tube, from left to right, and from top to bottom. The back of the tube is covered with a special substance (phosphor). It glows when the beam hits it. And we, for our part, see a luminous point on the screen. When the beam leaves, the phosphor does not instantly stop glowing, but slowly goes out. This effect is called “persistence”. Therefore, it is impossible to see a completely black screen between frames.
And yet, what happened?
One of the students in New York (Stuart Rogers) devoted his essay to the work of Wykeri. He conducted his own investigation and found out that the same cinema in the same town could not pass so many spectators through itself in 6 weeks. Moreover, the director of the cinema said that he had never heard of any experiments with 25 frames.
A little later, several experiments were carried out in order to confirm all the same the initial results. For example, in one of the episodes of the popular Sunday program "Close-up", the phrase "Call now!" Was broadcast several hundred times, but the number of calls did not increase. Although people did not deny that they wanted to eat and drink during the broadcast - as a consequence of the legends about the first experiment.
Later, the founder of the 25th frame himself admitted that he did not conduct any experiments, except for those that were needed to register an advertising patent. Those. he officially admitted to fraud. But it was too late - rumors about the terrible 25 frame had already spread across the planet.
Despite the fact that no scientific research has proven the psychological effect of 25 frames, advertising using 25 frames is still prohibited in many countries.
Moreover, now they are shooting films with 48 frames per second, for example the Hobbit. If movies start shooting at 48 fps, doubling the number of frames shown every second (95 fps - 192 fps) will completely get rid of the flickering visible to the human eye.
The 60 fps shooting speed gives movie theater goers an ultra-smooth 240 fps image. This allows 3D movies to be brighter, as fewer times are needed to show each frame at an actual shooting speed of 48 fps or 60 fps.
When shooting in HFR at 60 fps, the camera sensor captures two and a half times more detail in dynamic scenes, which is simply lost at 24 fps. This happens because the shutter is open for less time per frame (2.5 times, to be precise). For clarity, watch the movement of the spacecraft in the video. At 24 fps, you can clearly see how the ship is moving intermittently, and how its wings are blurred (exposure 1/24 s). At 60 fps, the picture looks much cleaner, sharper and sharper (shutter speed 1/60 s).