Faking a Film Look

CVM wrote on 2/22/2006, 2:06 PM

I really thought I had it this time! Taking 60i crystal clear SD video and making it look like I shot on film (or, at least, on a Panasonic 100A on 24p setting). It looked great on my preview monitor and my external monitor... but bit the big one when I made a DVD and played it on my consumer set.

How I did it... I took the video clip and imported it into a new project with the 24-fps setting. I then adjusted the clip (under Switches) to smooth things out a bit (my apologies, but I'm not at my workstation as I write this).

I really thought I found the magic bullet (pardon the film-look pun). But, alas. No good.

I also tried reducing the velocity of the clip (video only), rendering to a new file, then speeding up the clip to match original speed. This give a great film look (slow-mo video automatically gives the look), but it too was choppy.

Does anyone know how to get that film look using only Vegas 5.0? No Magic Bullet, no AE CineLook, no nothing?? My GL-2 on 'Frame' setting is just too choppy on pans and fast moving video. Plus, when I slow it down, the choppiness is just that much worse.

Thanks!

Comments

David Jimerson wrote on 2/22/2006, 2:35 PM

"My GL-2 on 'Frame' setting is just too choppy on pans and fast moving video. Plus, when I slow it down, the choppiness is just that much worse. "

Don't shoot Frame mode if you want to convert to 24p. You want to shoot 60i. The quasi-30p of Frame mode gives you a tougher time.

As for the choppiness on fast-moving video, it's not because of a bad conversion; it's because you just can't pan quickly or have fast camera movements if you expect to be in 24p. Things which look fine in 60i are going to look choppy when you convert to 24p, because you're tossing out 60% of the temporal information when you make the conversion. When move the camera, move it SLOWLY. Move it like you would if you were actually shooting 24p, which gets "choppy" or "stuttery" in fast movement. This is as true of film as it is of native 24p.

Also, because you have 60% less temporal information, you have a lot less to work with when you go to slomo.

And here's also why you don't want to shoot Frame mode -- you tossed out half your temporal information at the get-go. Again, shoot 60i, and if you want slo-mo, slow it down to 40% on a 24p timeline BEFORE you do the conversion.

corug7 wrote on 2/22/2006, 3:15 PM

Here's my favorite recipe.

Brightness a few clicks down, Contrast a few clicks up, to taste.

DJPadre wrote on 2/22/2006, 6:04 PM

dont forget the shutter settings when shooting progressive/frame mode..

choppiness comes from shutter speeds running faster than the frame rate... however for static camera shots, u SHOULD theoretically get cleaner sharper images of motion if your shutter is a little faster.. anythign between 1/125 1/250 (for that Gladiator look)

dont forget film look isnt all about motion, its about composition and frame DoF as well.. moreso DoF than anything..

GlennChan wrote on 2/22/2006, 9:10 PM

You can try using color curves to emulate film's gamma response.

See
http://www.glennchan.info/Proofs/dvinfo/color-curves.veg
(veg file)
The fifth clip on the bottom track contains the preset you want. It makes the colors pop a little.

johnmeyer wrote on 2/22/2006, 9:23 PM

Borrow someone's Super8 film camera and shoot a 3-minute cartridge of film. When you project it, you will get a whole new perspective on what you're trying to do. Depth of field, lighting, contrast, and most important, that camera movement thing. You just cannot pan (well, you can, but with lots of restrictions).

farss wrote on 2/23/2006, 1:44 AM

8mm at 16fps is really bad for movement , most of the cameras though will let you run at 24 or 25 fps. 8mm though has a DOF pretty close to a 1/3" CCD video camera.
But film sure has some 'mojo' to it. I'm just in the process of making DVDs from 35mm slides and neg and even though I've scanned them at some way over the top resolution I've yet to have any problem with line twitter like you get with a DSC. This probably has something to do with the optics in the older 35mm cameras and perhaps the lack of edge enhancement, I really don't know what it is.
The other remarkable thing about film is the latitude, even parts of the film that look totally black can have useful data in them, punch enough light in there and you get useable detail and that's something you just cannot do with video.
Bob.

Guy S. wrote on 2/23/2006, 12:08 PM

Here's what I did for my last project:

I took my regular 480i DV timeline, used the Secondary Color Corrector to slightly reduce the gamma, and rendered to MPEG2 with the MPEG2 24P preset (I believe I used 3-2 pulldown rather than 3-2-2-3).

I authored and burned the DVD in DVDA.

I did some comparison surveys of the 480i vs. the 480 24p DVDs. So far, everyone has preferred the 480p version. The video image looks smoother and sharper -- fewer jaggies on diagonal lines. I shoot virtually everything hand-held, and on one or two of the shots the camera motion looked a bit jerky in the progressive scanned version. Overall, however, I'm very happy with the result.

FYI, I viewed the video on a Sony SD broadcast monitor, an 18 y/o Sony consumer TV, and a Sharp 45" 1080 x 1920 HD LCD, using 3 different consumer-level DVD players, 2 of which are 4+ years old.

In Vegas 5 I messed with 24p project settings but didn't get what I was looking for (though it may be possible). When we upgraded to Veg 6, we also got DVDA and the MPEG encoder, which made the process very easy -- I got what i was looking for on the first try.

David Jimerson wrote on 2/23/2006, 12:41 PM

In Vegas 5, disable resample and set deinterlace method either to "blend fields" (if there's not a lot of motion) or to "interpolate fields" (if there's a lot of motion).

mvpvideos2007 wrote on 2/23/2006, 8:49 PM

Here is a fast, easy and great way to get a more film look. Right click on the avi. got to properties, under video event, select Reduce interlace flicker. It gives your clip that so called dry look, compared to video, which I can the wet look.