Shon,

> Anyway my question is, if I go out and rent a film camera to do my shooting, and then import it into Vegas, will I get similar results as if I were to edit film in its traditional manner? <

The big problem here is importing your film into Vegas. There is no affordable way to do that. As BillyBoy said, " starting out with film isn't going to help since to get it into the computer it needs to be converted to a format that's useable and doing that is going to wipe out any benefit of what you have in mind."

If you want the film look, you are better off looking for digital effects that will produce the look. Users of Adobe After Effects, and After Effects compliant host applications such as Final Cut Pro, Avid, and Pinnacle Commotion, get good results with the "Grain Surgery" plugin from Visual Infinity. For more information on Grain Surgery, see:

http://www.visinf.com/gs/

http://www.visinf.com/gs/ae/

Although Grain Surgery is frequently used to remove grain produced either by chemical film or electronic CCDs, it can also be used to add grain and to match a sampled grain, and this can be used to add a realistic film texture to a DV or HD project. An example of adding film grain with Grain Surgery is shown at:

http://www.visinf.com/gs/samples/mgstill/laundbfly.shtml

As far as I know, Grain Surgery will not work with the present version of Vegas Video. Perhaps a future version of Vegas Video will support the Adobe After Effects plugin interface, or perhaps a future version of Grain Surgery will work with Vegas Video. At $399, Grain Surgery for Film and DV is relatively expensive.

In my opinion the film look is overrated, and film is on the way out. For a case in point, Star Wars Episode II, Attack of the Clones was shot with all-digital HD cameras, edited digital, and transferred to film only for showing in current theaters. In the not-too-distant future, movie theaters will project all-digital movies using all-digital equipment and film will be eliminated from the process. But if you do want that film look, there are several software tools to help you get it without renting a film camera and getting involved with the problems of transferring film to digital.

-- Burton --

we have been hearing about the death of film since the Betamax days. It won't happen soon, film offers a look that cannot be duplicated yet.

Dave T2

There is a tutorial on how to get film cadence and grain here:

ftp://ftp.sonicfoundry.com
user: dude
password: sweet
folder: Sample Projects/intercutting film and video

-or-

ftp://dude:sweet@ftp.sonicfoundry.com/Sample%20Projects/intercutting%20film%20and%20video/

I think you'll be amazed at the look.
///d@

My question is WHY would anyone want the "look" so to speak. <wink>

Frankly, I don't get it. People have flocked to digital cameras by the millions, SonicFoundy has focused (correctly) its efforts on getting better digital renderings, mostly I assume because the format offers SHARPER snf CRISPER detail.

So aside from nostalgia, why would anyone want to add grain or otherwise reduce the sharpness of their videos and make them look softer? What's the point of upcoming HDTV and the sharpeness of digital camera output if for "effect" you make it look like film which aside from some technical advances has remained basically unchanged from roughly a 100 years ago? Almost like a move to go back to horse and buggy in place of your SUV.

Film has a warmth that cannot be recreated in video. Part of the emphasis in HDTV is to retain that original film quality, not make it look like video.

Video can have a "cold" edge to it, which might work on some subjects. There is a reason that people like Ken Burns (documentaries) who do projects for primarily TV, use film instead of video. It has a comfort and warmth that video does not. And that is also the reason it hasn't changed for 100 years. It works.

Dave T2

Well, there is the fact that film does offer more resolution and contrast than video does. A standard 35mm movie film frame can resolve about 2500 lines as compared to video's 480 or so. Project video on an 8 meter screen and the pixels will be almost 10mm high. The grains in a movie film at that size will probably be less than 2mm. That's a big difference. Simulating grain in video ends up with grains that are MUCH larger than they would be in film.

Dave,

Film will probably be used by some people for quite some time, depending on availability of the film and processing facilities. Certainly it is still used widely today in professional and some semi-professional circles. That's why they call them "Film Festivals", although digital video is increasingly participating in film festivals. Digital video completely dominates the consumer and prosumer video market, as well as segments of the professional market like wedding videography.

But how does your "death of film" comment contribute to this thread? I would not advise anyone in this message thread to rent or purchase a film video camera for use with Vegas Video. Would you? My Bauer Super8 camera has been in disuse for many years. For me, film has been dead as a video medium for more than a decade. No one I know is still taking video on film. If you want to take your video on film, that is your privilege. But if you are recommending film in this message thread, you are giving bad advice.

-- Burton --

I think some are missing the meat of my question. True, film as its aalure, but and its a BIG but how does one take something shot on film, bring it into Vegas Video and make it have the same qualities of a film? Answer: you can't, not realistically anyway, which takes us full circle to the original poster's question which was basically asking how can I.

Yes the included FX filters can mimic to some extent, and the demo I just downloaded that Dennis pointed to are nice, but is it worth all the effort to in effect add noise to a video? I don't think so.

Would you go to some ophthalmologist for an eye exam and the doctor says I can correct your vision to 20/20 and you say, no thanks I prefer the softer 20/30? I don't think so. So until such time that digital video approaches the resolution possible with film I rather keep the sharpness and not take away detail in some attempt to get some "look" which really isn't possible anyway... not yet anyhow if you're working in digital video which is what this forum is about.

BB,

I agree with what you are saying. It isn't affordable to convert film video to digital video for processing in Vegas Video. And if the video was taken in the real world, it already has plenty of real world imperfections, so why add more? I have LightWave, and it generates artificially pure scenery, which does need some added "noise" and "dirt" to give it a realistic look. But that applies to synthetically generated imagery, and not to anything that was taken with an actual camera, digital or film.

-- Burton --

BB,

In regard to your comment, "I [would] rather keep the sharpness and not take away detail in some attempt to get some "look" which really isn't possible anyway...", I think there are some situations in which you might want to lose a little of your digital detail. I saw the suggestion by a Sonic Foundry person in another thread in this forum that you might want to apply a small amount of Gaussian Blur to improve the MPEG2 encoding of a video. Also, I think it is possible that you can make some progress in obtaining the "film" look in Vegas Video, following the references given earlier in this thread. Of course, if you don't want the "film look", then you wouldn't try to do that. But some people may really want a film look, for whatever reason.

-- Burton --

Dave,

> Film has a warmth that cannot be recreated in video. <

It is very risky to say that something "cannot" be done.

> Part of the emphasis in HDTV is to retain that original film quality, not make it look like video. <

I don't agree that the objective of HDTV was or is to look like original film quality. I think the objective was and is to improve on and exceed original film quality. I saw the movie, "Star Wars Episode II, Attack of the Clones", which was shot and edited entirely in HDTV, and in my opinion the HDTV did indeed exceed the quality of film. And there were plenty of scenes, including some gorgeous sunset shots, that were plenty warm.

-- Burton --

Folks,

Isn't film vs. video essentially an aesthetic issue, and therefore difficult to argue about? Some people prefer the look of film, others like video. Some like both but see different uses for them.

Of course the aesthetics are separate from discussions of the future of film in a digital world. But I suspect that it may end up like the situation over in the audio world, where many people record/edit/mix mostly digitally but try to inject some analogue "warmth" somewhere in the process, with analogue boards or plug-ins or whatever (like me).

My 2 cents.

G

"Video" people are often amazed at "Film" people's need to keep the "Film" look in productions.

There are plenty of reasons to use film in some situations, and plenty of reasons NOT to use film in others.

Several independent studies have shown that people who view "Film" images can recall more details of the image, and that the image is remembered for a longer period of time than an identical "Video" image - even "film" images which have been transferred to and shown on video! This is why so many high-end advertising agencies insist on shooting on film.

So far as I can tell, nobody knows exactly why this is so. One theory suggests that at 24/25 frames per second, our eyes/brains percieve individual frames, which we then assemble in our minds which then assemble into scenes -- all this requires more personal involvement to create the brain "processing power" needed to interpret the sequentuel "still" images as having motion. This is why you can often leave the movie theater exhausted after an effective movie.

Another theory states that we have been "conditioned" to accept the jittery "Film" images as "polished fiction" and the more fluid "video" image as raw news, with a more immediate quality -- so that something on film should be regarded as "meaningful" and something on video is "factual".

Besides the frame rate, film compresses the monochrome and color information in a way that we intrepret as more pleasing, even though it might be less accurate than video.

Some have suggested that we actually prefer the less realistic quality of film because we want to be removed from reality so that we feel safe when we watch a video image.

A few years (okay, a decade) back, I got into a raging debate with a couple of Sony sales engineers. My position was that, in order for HD to be successful as a cinematic device, it would need to capture images at the same frame rate, and with the same shutter characteristics as 35mm film movie cameras. Back then they couldn't see why that would be necessary or helpful. Today, all the new HD cameras have 24 fps capture.

Travis
Travis Voice Services
www.announcing.biz

Dave,

> There is a reason that people like Ken Burns (documentaries) who do projects for primarily TV, use film instead of video. It has a comfort and warmth that video does not. <

There may be some holdout documentary makers who still use film, but they are just that, "holdouts". I recently saw an interesting TV documentary on the making of another TV documentary on rock climbing, and they showed that compact MiniDV camcorders were used for most of the work, with less compact DV camcorders used for the establishing shots where compactness was not a necessity. Bulky film cameras are a distinct disadvantage for most kinds of field work. Film video is not the "darling" of today's documentary "film" makers. Instead, compact and easy-to-carry digital video equipment has made documentary projects feasible that were prohibitive with film equipment.

If I were a longtime documentary film maker and I had a lot of money tied up in film equipment, I would also dread having to scrap it, and I would not be an "early adopter" of digital video equipment. I might be a holdout for purely financial reasons. And I might even justify my actions by using such terms as "warmth" and "comfort" to describe film video. But, conveniently, "warmth" and "comfort" don't have any precise definitions, so you can't be "pinned down" on any claims you might make about their benefits.

> And that is also the reason it hasn't changed for 100 years. <

Film video has changed a lot in the last 100 years. Film video technology hasn't changed much in the last decade, except to vanish from the marketplace. The 16mm, 8mm, and Super8 video cameras are no longer in the stores. New models of film video cameras used to be introduced every year, but that doesn't happen any more. Magazines devoted to film video have vanished or evolved to digital. Movie film is now very hard to find in drugstores, and even in specialty photo stores. I used to drop off and pick up my Super8 rolls at any local drug store. I don't and can't do that any more. Thank goodness. Those Super8 rolls only held about 5 minutes. Just covering a little league game could cost a fortune, and take a bushel of film cartridges and a pocketful of batteries.

-- Burton --

Travis,

> Today, all the new HD cameras have 24 fps capture. <

That is because they are going to be transferred to film. Incidentally, that was an interesting post.

-- Burton --

Ummm. Are any of you guys aware that Star Wars Episode 2 was not shot on film? Are you saying that Episode 2 doesn't have "the film look"? I thought it looked very nice.

Perhaps "the film look" isn't caused by what you guys are thinking. You should define what you are calling "the film look" in order to figure out how to attain it.

JBJones

Greg,

> Isn't film vs. video essentially an aesthetic issue, and therefore difficult to argue about? Some people prefer the look of film, others like video. Some like both but see different uses for them. <

The "look" is certainly an aesthetic issue, but cost, availability, size, weight, and other real world issues are involved. Getting back to the original question in this thread, asked by Sr_C (Shon), "my question is, if I go out and rent a film camera to do my shooting, and then import it into Vegas, will I get similar results as if I were to edit film in its traditional manner?", how would you answer that?

In particular, suppose you did rent a film camera and film your project and now you have big spools of developed 35mm or 16mm movie film (the rental company didn't have a 70mm camera.) What next? How do you get the film footage into Vegas Video? Remember, you have already spent a lot of money getting these spools of film. Aesthetics are not the only thing involved here. There is no such thing as a capture card for film. We are now faced with the problem of digitizing the spools of film a frame at a time and then assembling them into a video format. And we haven't even discussed the sound on the film.

-- Burton --

OK, I got a little interested in the how-to part. Still researching, so far found this site:

"How Film Is Transferred to Video":
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~leopold/Ld/FilmToVideo/

In the process I stumbled unto a site that offers a Digital to Film conversion service. Accepts NTSC/PAL other formats 3 minute minimum at the cost of $225-500+ per MINUTE!

I'll have to agree with the look of the new Star Wars movie. I finally saw it recently and i would never have guessed it was video. There was absolutely nothing i saw that would have indicated to me it wasn't film. Dang. Now i'm gonna have to go see it again and see if i can notice any tell-tale signs.

Looking back on what i do remember, i guess the only thing that jumps out at me right now is that i did think the colors were much more saturated than what i'm used to seeing. At the time it just struck me as a stylistic thing as i have occasionally seen that in film movies before.

BB,

> In the process I stumbled unto a site that offers a Digital to Film conversion service. Accepts NTSC/PAL other formats 3 minute minimum at the cost of $225-500+ per MINUTE! <

That's too rich for my blood. But it does require some high-priced equipment. The still photographers have the same sort of thing. If you scan a slide or photo and work on it in Photoshop and then want to make a 35mm slide, you go to a service bureau that has a film recorder to have the slide made. You don't use your own film recorder to make the slide yourself, because film recorders cost maybe $15,000 each. A digital-to-film conversion is like the same sort of thing, but for video there are lots of individual frames involved, and a bigger roll of film.

-- Burton --

BillyBoy:

Only part of the tutorial was on grain matching, the other major part was 24p simulation that has much to do with the "Film Look". A lot of what you watch on TV was shot on film (24p) and transfered (telecined with 3-2 pulldown), and has a very different look than soap operas shot on video (30i). While video can't match film's resolution and dynamic range, if you get the lighting right, you can shoot stuff that is indistinguishable from film whenn presented on a TV.

You can't really see the difference between 24p and 30i on your computer's progressive monitor -- print the final result of that tutorial to your camcorder and play it on a TV, and you'll see a huge difference between the "before" and "after", the latter comparing favorably to an actual scene from the bit shot on film, and the former looking like a soap.

///d@