Processing video for a "film" look

(I didn't bother to search for this.)

 

Is there an economical way to process digital video for a "film"

look - i.e., lower contrast, higher saturation, etc.

Most ways to get the film look arent economical, because they require the use of things like an AVID Composer or some other digital video editing program, like Final Cut Pro,to tweak the black levels and stretch the midtones, and also dropping fields within each video frame to get the flicker.I shoot some interviews and some B roll for the "film look" The best way to start would be in lighting, light the shot dramaticaly like it was .....film, I use a bunch of soft lights, for the diffussed soft look and have deeper shadows than normal, to get the contrast crunched to give it the look, you can also use a shutter speed of 30 or 60th to get the flicker effect, if you have a Canon LX-1 it has a shutter speed and menu adjustments for the film look.

Beerbrain,

 

Thanks for that response to John's question. I had always assumed that the "rich" video look was all in the lighting, and I'm sure much of it is.

 

There is a signficant difference is what I call the "production values" of the local news broadcasts in my area. One network affiliate is top-of-the-line and the other three are playing catchup.

 

It seems that the high quality broadcast has a slight soft-focus effect. Is diffusion common to jobs that are shot for the "film" look?

Soft lighting is a key element in good video and also the film look, which to me is neither, it doesnt look like film and it doesnt look like video, it is kinda part of each.Chimera light banks are big in video lighting now, the quality of the soft light that the Chimeras produce is very good on video.Part of the diffusion/softer not so electronic hard edge look on higher end production is also due do the better digital cameras , like a digi Beta where you can go into the camera menus and electronicaly take the detail out of a certain tones ,(frequency) you have the ability to tweak the scene in the camera,you can diffuse/less detail ,,just a certain part of the shot, like skin tone, or also adjust the color.The softer the light the better for me, I even put diffusion(peach cosmetic) gel over the soft light , to get it softer.

Most professional systems that give video a film look (Charisma, Kaleidoscope, and Carousel are three) do so by DEGRADING the picture; usually this involves removing, or fiddling about with every third field (to give it a flicker). This is fine till you have bright verticals that instantly give the game away.

 

I recently shot some soldiers wearing red uniforms on DV -- overexposed them, put a blue filter on, and then turned it black and white; the blue filter darkened the red; and the overexposure burnt out the sky and gave the faces a charcoaly look -- that looked filmy by the time I had finished -- but I did have an Avid to help it on its way.

SIGH:

There is more than the 24fps rate of film that makes it look the way it does. Film is NOT a "degraded" video image. Just because you make something look burnt out or overexposed does not mean it looks like film. . .it looks like someone's romantic notion of old, beat-up newsreels. Film oustrips the best digital or video image in terms of resolution, color and contrast by MANY orders of magnitude. The problem is, you can't see alot of it on a television screen. That apparently "sharper" look of video that you see on TV? It comes from low resolution and the fact that tonal and color transitions in video are very abrupt, not at all reflective of the way the world really looks.

Here's a URL withsome more opinions:

 

http://www.bealecorner.com/trv900/filmlook.html

Moost of the above info is reasonably accurate, I've worked with 'film looking' video several times professionally and here's some tips that most people overlook:

 

Flim is softer than video. - So, shoot with you aperature wide open or near to it when shooting video (you almost never see scenes with everything in focus when looking at a movie do you?) To do that you may need to invest in some ND filters. Also, if you use a filter like a 1/4 black pro-mist you will soften it slightly and give it a less sharp look.

 

Use a fill light: Motion picture film these days has almost 10 stops of latidude, while your video camera has about 4-5 on a very good day. So, use a fill light to decrease the contrast of what you're shooting.

 

Film is at 24, video is at 30 (well 29.97 but ...) to convert film to video they repeat every third field in what's called 3:2 pulldown. this makes film motion when transfered to video appear to 'judder' many film-look programs attempt to drop and repeat video fields to get a similar effect.

 

When we used to send stuff to a professional video house like the CBC, their film - look machines basically blurred every other field in order to mak it look film-like.

 

There are about a thousand reasons that video will never look exactly like film, but you should make your video look good through good lighting and shooting practices.

 

Cheers,

-ben

Thank You Josh