Peter Jackson's frame-rate on The Hobbit could lead to major change

Will Peter Jackson's innovative decision to shoot The Hobbit at a higher speed than usual herald a new dawn in filmmaking or prove as successful as smell-o-vision?

A scene from Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring.

Peter Jackson has already carved himself a niche as a game-changing director - after all, with Lord Of The Rings he was responsible for an epic wizarding trilogy that was brilliantly watchable rather than insufferably geeky. And last week, his blog about his new Tolkein adaptation, The Hobbit, broke fresh ground. Judging by Jackson's track record, it wouldn't have been a surprise to learn of a whizzy new motion-capture technique for Gollum, or to find him excitedly talking about the possibilities inherent in 3D moviemaking. But he had his eyes on a bigger prize: the chance to change the template for the way in which films are made.

Frame rates might sound like the kind of conversation-starter that only real cineastes could possibly get excited about, but the news that Jackson is shooting The Hobbit in 48 frames per second resulted in shockwaves throughout the film industry. Currently, films are shot in 24 frames per second, and have been since the 1920s. But the advent of 3D has made the slower rate a problem - we've all watched films in which the image has appeared to judder or strain the eyes. Jackson wrote on his blog that 48fps is "more lifelike and much easier to watch… the image has hugely enhanced clarity and smoothness." He likened it to the "moment when vinyl records were supplanted by digital CDs".

There is a slight issue with 48fps though - someone has to pay for it.

Shooting at 48fps is expensive - and it has to be screened at the same speed, too. Jackson's remark that most cinemas would simply need to download some firmware for their digital projectors (if indeed they have them) was somewhat throwaway. Even he admitted, "while it's predicted that there may be over 10,000 screens capable of projecting The Hobbit at 48 fps by our release date in December 2012, we don't yet know what the reality will be. It is a situation we will all be monitoring carefully."

As will everyone else, because, where cinema is concerned, making predictions is always notoriously difficult.

Take 3D itself. James Cameron's Avatar wasn't a spectacular success because of the emotional connection fostered with the put-upon Na'vi people. Fans went to see it again and again because of the way it looked in three dimensions. When the acclaimed German indie director Wim Wenders admits that he saw Avatar four times (which encouraged him to use 3D in his latest documentary, on choreographer Pina Bausch), you can probably conclude that 3D is no longer a gimmick. And yet the technology still leaves a lot to be desired. As soon as the specs go on, the image is darkened - sometimes fatally so. The colourful Toy Story 3 is far better in 2D than 3D for this very reason. Ticket sales for 3D movies are down this year.

Still, despite what the purists might think, 3D has a foothold. Which is more than can be said for Smell-O-Vision. It sounds like an urban myth, but back in the 1960s, Mike Todd Jr did indeed secure the widespread release of his film Scent Of Mystery, in which smells such as tobacco or baked bread were released into the cinema at the suitable moments in the plot. Except, unfortunately, they were accompanied by a hissing sound and took too long to reach the noses of the audience… by which time the action had moved on. As had the film industry.

Smell-O-Vision became the butt of many jokes - the famous line from comedian Henny Youngman, was: "I didn't understand the picture. I had a cold." Nevertheless, it did at least gain some notoriety. In 2000 it was named as one of Time magazine's 100 worst ideas of the previous century.

One of the best cinematic ideas since, well, the invention of "talkies" with The Jazz Singer in 1927 (and even then some doubted whether the technology would overtake silent movies) is undoubtedly IMAX cinema. Here is the massive, immersive experience we all want from the movies. With IMAX, 3D films often look incredible. And yet, there are only 445 screens in the world. The prohibitive cost of filming movies specifically for IMAX - not discounting the expense of constructing the buildings to house these giant screens - has resulted in it becoming something of an evolutionary dead end for cinema.

So it'll be interesting to see if Jackson's move to 48fps will be a 3D or a Smell-O-Vision moment for cinema.

What's crucial, though, is that such gimmicks don't distract the director from producing a good, coherent story. Because, in the end, that's what we go to the cinema for - not a seat that vibrates during an exciting scene. And yes, they've tried that one, too.