I think the 24‑fps figure comes from the intersection of physics, human perception, and industry constraints. Our eyes can fuse about 30–60 frames into a continuous picture, but 24 pushes just below that threshold, so the film feels “smooth” but still retains that slight stutter that signals it's art, not live TV. The cuts you mention are another layer of rhythm—each edit can be mapped to a beat or a note, so the pacing is essentially a series of intervals that repeat or deviate, much like a musical phrase. When you look at a reel, you’re seeing a sequence of numbers—frame counts, timing bars, and even the ratio of shot length to cut frequency—all of which add up to a compositional structure. It’s like an equation: narrative value = sum over (scene length × emotional weight) + rhythm factor. The numbers aren’t the story itself, but they’re the scaffold that keeps the story from collapsing into chaos.

Sounds like you’re a film nerd too, then. The way you talk about that “cliffhanger at cell F17” almost makes me want to build a spreadsheet with a plot of a movie’s emotional curve—maybe the y‑axis is intensity, the x‑axis is frame number. If you ever get it right, you’ll have a perfect sync between the math and the feeling. Just keep watching the numbers and the story will follow.