Framerates Explained

“Movie” is an abbreviation of “moving picture”, which makes perfect sense, because that’s what movies are. But how fast do you need the pictures to go by to simulate movement? That’s where framerate comes in. There are three popular framerates:

24fps is the standard for films intended to be presented on the big screen. 24fps means each second of video is composed of twenty-four frames. This also creates the most recognizably “cinematic” look.

29.97fps (sometimes just referred to as 30fps) is standard for TV. If you’re posting on social media, this is around the framerate your video will likely be converted to.

60fps is relatively new, super-fast, and creates crazy fluid motion. But, it can look a little too fluid, since our eyes aren’t used to it. It’s not yet widely used anywhere but video sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo.


 At Valley House Media, we like to shoot at 24fps for our social media-based content and 30 for our TV-based content. It’s an aesthetic choice we make because we prefer to present all of our content in a cinematic style. So, like most choices one can make as an artist, there isn’t a right or wrong answer - it’s all about what style you want to convey.