Comments

farss wrote on 8/19/2003, 12:20 AM
Are you in NTSC or PAL land.

As far as I know if you're in PAL land basically don't bother, PAL is so close in fps it doesn't matter, everything else that contributes to the effect can only be achieved in the camera.

Film looks like film because it's film, its shot with an entirely differents set of imperatives, it'd probably be just as hard to make film look like video for that matter.

I know there's lots of tricks to make video look more film like but thats all it is, film like.

You can use a good progessive scan camera with very good optics as a starting point, film people use depth of field a lot, they pull focus, they have a different and much richer color space to work with. They have different artifact issues to deal with as well.
kleptes wrote on 8/19/2003, 4:18 AM
why don't u like the plugin from vegas? but if u wanna really good result, u have to film with progressiv-settings on your cam (if it supports this feature). on my panasonic nv-mx 300 it calls frame-modus. it records one full frame and not two interlaced half-frames
PeterWright wrote on 8/19/2003, 5:04 AM
There have been many threads on this topic - it's very rare for anyone to actually say what they mean by "the film look".

To me, it's a bit like "broadcast quailty" - someone says "film look", and everyone nods knowingly, as if they all know what it means.

What does the film look mean - is it the Frame look, the aspect ratio, the depth of field, the saturation levels, the increased range and subtlety of colours, the scratches, the jittery frame - something else?
farss wrote on 8/19/2003, 6:57 AM
Peter,
spot on, sort of what I was trying to say. Just try looking at a few films, I'd say there's as much difference between them as there is between film and video.
mvpvideos2007 wrote on 8/19/2003, 12:50 PM
I want the video to look more dry, not live.
dholt wrote on 8/19/2003, 12:55 PM
One trick you can try, instead of using a white object to white balance your camera use a light powder blue object instead. This will give your shots more of a warm film type look.
mark2929 wrote on 8/19/2003, 1:01 PM
Peter I personally like the look achieved by steven spielberg in indiana jones or some of the earlier star trek films or seven days and seven nights some breathtaking scenery there I like glossy color but is it the case that a new print would look the best and deteriotes over time ?
EPsymp wrote on 8/20/2003, 9:33 AM
A combination of effects can be added to make it look more "hollywood."
Color curve-Make into an S for more contrast
HSL Adjust-Desaturate a little
Then you can add some glow, film grain, blur, color correct to add maybe a tint.

Of course you can't beat a $10,000 camera, but this can compensate for it without spending anymore money
mark2929 wrote on 8/20/2003, 11:48 AM
I was looking at Magic bullet it seems like the answer perhaps a cheaper versian could be developed for sofo wouldent that be fantastic.
vitalforce2 wrote on 8/20/2003, 4:46 PM
Next project, rent a Panasonic DVX100 camcorder set at 24p with "Cine Gamma" enabled. In my experience, that'll get you 90% of the way to making people who watch the footage say, "wow, that looks just like film." Of the other 10%, just keep a light hand on the controls. Don't overdo curves, desaturate, glow, blur, color correction, etc.
mark2929 wrote on 8/20/2003, 5:09 PM
I think ultimately you just cant beat the look of real film you can make it look like film on the tv but this is no compensation for a new print properly projected at the cinema.
vitalforces wrote on 8/20/2003, 9:21 PM
I agree in principle. It's always a little disappointing to wrestle with the narrower exposure range of DV, etc. It's just that I can't find a 10-minute magazine of Kodak 35mm (or super 16) film, including costs of the developed negative, answer print and all future copies, for $10 (actually $10 buys me, in a DV cassette, six 10-minute "magazines")--nor do I have to send anything out to a post house which has the cutting equipment (and paid personnel) to assemble a master. I know that sounds a little flip, but seriously--in the time it would take me to put together enough money to complete my 80-minute feature on celluloid, I can complete about 5 feature projects and put them all in festivals.

Of course this also means people will not have an incentive to keep the aesthetic standards of properly lit and exposed film. They can cut corners that they shouldn't. The moral of the story is, in the digital age, there's a h*** of a lot more junk being submitted to festivals--but there's also a h*** of a lot more opportunity.
filmy wrote on 8/20/2003, 10:19 PM
As someone else said - lots of threads on the subject. just do a search.

I will add a few things to what I have said in other threads - i recently got the new DFT filters for AE - Digital Film Lab. Wow...it rocks. Ok, so maybe Magic Bullet is a bit better in some areas but that is a MAJOR render hog and DFT isn't really....depends on your RAM and what not. But it works like a charm and has "presets" if you don't want to play. Just get the frame sever plug that satish makes and serve it out of AE to VV or serve it from VV to AE. (or just serve it out of Premier to AE and than bring it into VV for the 24P render) Either way - it is an awesome plug in, like most of the plugs from this company are. (Here is a link for more info on a special 'bundle' - http://www.digitalanarchy.com/retimer_bundle.html)

Now the other thing I will also add is that I also have loved to use BigFX Film FX, but this has not been made available for VV yet. HOWEVER - over in the DMN forums there was a thread where I brought up BigFX FilmFX and here is what was posted (And I did ask Tim to post this here but he never did so I guess I will) :

"BigFX and FilmFX still exist for the platforms supported all along (Premiere, After Effects, etc.). The company Zenoté has acquired the FilmFX technology and will be releasing Vegas versions using their own business model, software company experience, licenseing, order fulfillment, etc. I am currently involved with both companies overseeing the code and technology that makes FilmFX go.

Zenoté will also be selling plugins, scripts, etc. from other people as well for Vegas. My understanding is there will be forums and the like eventually. I think the goal is to make Zenoté a hub for if not for Vegas activity, for Vegas 3rd party activity."

I should also add that this plug-in "could be released right around tax time (Aug. 15)". So we are now August 20/21 and still no sign of it.
mark2929 wrote on 8/20/2003, 11:34 PM
Thanks Filmy Thats great information its because of the cost of real film that I want to achieve a film look
mark2929 wrote on 8/21/2003, 2:35 AM
What does a better job though the DVX100 or Magic Bullet or digital anarchy and how much better ? I have the GL2 and use frame mode could I use that and perhaps alter the gamma to achieve better blacks and then add a small amount of noise if so would this be on a level with any of the other methods or would I better to film without frame mode and use digital anarchy or magic bullet I would like a no compromise solution ideally to achieve the best effect at the lowest cost...
mark2929 wrote on 8/21/2003, 3:37 AM
I had a look at Digital anarchy and realise you have to have adobe after fx discreet combustion or apple final cut and frameserve it out to vegas and as I dont have these programs I cant use digital anarchy or bigfoot I did a search for zenote and couldent find that either want I as a vegas user only," really want" is a program that matches what adobe, apple, and final combustion, can do to achieve a film look why are the developers of these plugins not adapting them to sofo and could satish save the day!! although I suppose even satish has limits but Im sure a lot of people would pay for a plugin as good as digital anarchys or dare I say Magic Bullet
filmy wrote on 8/21/2003, 11:16 AM
>>> I did a search for zenote and couldent find that either...<<<

http://www.zenote.com/ is the URL - nothing there yet.
Jay Gladwell wrote on 8/21/2003, 9:18 PM
Seven Hints from (lengthy) article by DVcreators:

#7 Secret of Shooting Video to Look like Film: Fog
#6 Secret of Shooting Video to Look like Film:
Shoot with Frame Mode (30 fps non-interlaced)
#5 Secret of Shooting Video to Look like Film:
Add depth with smooth moving camera shots
#4 Secret of Shooting Video to Look like Film:
Use Shallow Depth of Field
#3 Secret of Shooting Video to Look like Film:
Shoot with a diffusion filter
#2 Secret of Shooting Video to Look like Film:
Use a professional light kit (when feasible)
#1 Secret of Shooting Video to Look like Film:
Sharpen your Cinematography Skills

If you're interested in reading the entire article, write me and I'll forward a copy to you.
jay[at]gooddogproductions[dot]com
Barry_Green wrote on 8/21/2003, 10:32 PM
"As far as I know if you're in PAL land basically don't bother, PAL is so close in fps it doesn't matter"

If you're shooting interlaced PAL, then it definitely needs as much work as NTSC does. PAL is 50 fields per second, which looks much more like NTSC video than it does like 24P film.
filmy wrote on 12/3/2003, 6:47 PM
http://www.zenote.com/products.asp

* Glow - for the Pro Mist look in post (and so much more)
* Grain - add realistic film grain
* Letterbox - easily format for today's output needs
* Random - easily create organic temporal effects
* Blur - blur each channel individually

Demos available. I am testing them out now now. (well not as I type this - but soon after)

- My tests -

Tried the glow, letterbox and grain for start.

First thing is the Demo has the website URI and name smack in the middle, which is ok - except the also have this really really annoying slanted lines that look like television static or something. I tried the Glow first and my first thought was "This is the crappiest image I can imagine" - and than I relized it was the watermarking - these lines.

Glow - I like the built in Vegas Glow better. But this has one kind of cool pre-set called "Darken" that deepens everything, but because it is glow it adds this smear...and actually this is what bothers me. The smearing factor.

Letterbox - I don't get it really. For example I added the letterbox plug and than also croped a 4:3 image to 16:9. In doing this the plug-in seems pretty pointless and redundant. For a "normal" 4:3 image adding this plug seems to be more of an easy way to add the black bars. And the exact same can be said for anamorphic footage. You can do this in vegas so please just explain to me why you would bneed this plug?

Grain - if you need to add grain this is probably a great plug to have. Overall it can be really subtle and this is a good thing.

The other two plugs I have not tested/tried yet - 'Blur' and 'Random'.

Just my opionion - I think whatever this line part of the watermark is will hurt peoples perpesctive of how good or bad the plugs are. It is really just very annoying and actually makes it look like the plug-in is degrading the image a lot. On the other hand maybe using these plugs do degrade the image. The interface is also a bit strange - the sliders. They work, but they are - different. Not a good thing or a bad thing - just a thing.