Film Look from digital sources

[tygrus2000]

Just spent some time over in the sonic foundry forums and came across a couple products people might want to know about. I am always striving for film look from cheaper digital sources and on those forums they talk about Magic Bullet Suite for Aftereffects as a good one. The second is called FilmFX which may be good as well.

Enjoy.

Tygrus

[vhelp]

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I'm curious about you post. What exactly do you mean, "film look" ??

-vhelp 2042

[tygrus2000]

Digital sources often appear flat and lack proper color representation and image depth compared to film. Film uses grains so its resolution is limited only by chemistry. CCD chips are limted by equipment contraints and thats why a digital camera hasn't been made to match film yet.

Consider the difference in resolution digital vs film:

digital cameras right now have a top quality of maybe 12 mega pixels

35 mm film which has been around forever ranges from 25-50 mega pixels. 4x5 format film has over 100 mega pixel quality and large format cameras have over 500 megapixels of information! Digital is severely lacking and the trained eye can see it.

Same goes for DV versus motion film. Commercial DVDs are rendered down from huge original transfers from film and they look very good. Load up some DV footage and a hollywood DVD and you can see. Yes there is hollywood post production at work there, but mostly its a quality difference you see too.

Some of these new filters use effects to give the illusion of more depth, color and an overall film look. Its what most amateur DV enthusiasts dream about.

[vhelp]

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yeah, the one thing I realize w/ DV footage is the lower virtial (ht) resolution
of 240. It's one thing when you Interlace two fields (2 * 240) to get 480
and another, when you are comparing sharpness (of which you can't truely
get when frames are Interlaced, though it may look sharp, but only when
it is displayed on TV and during play)

I was noticing this when I looked closer at some diagnals (straight lines) of
objects and things and I could notice the saw-tooth'ness of those frames (I
mean) fields.

But, regarding your above post, I agree w/ you. There is some level of
"eye"ing to notice this "film look". I thought you were talking about something
else

My next cam will be "full frame" and hopefully progressive and 24 fps, give
or take, cause I'm not there yet. But, until I'm come to that bridge, I'll
continue to tinker and tweak what I can get out of my DV footage.

Thanks for responding back to my question

-vhelp 2043

[CaseyComb]

Panasonic DVX1000, shoots 24p go buy it already, I've used it the footage looks great

[vhelp]

Panasonic DVX1000, shoots 24p go buy it already, I've used it the footage looks great

Yeah, but after I've gotten some use of my $700+ TRV22 and price comes
down on that model perhaps. I don't even know the price of that one you
posted

-vhelp

[tygrus2000]

You can go to the following link for more about the program Magic Bullet.

I see many of the pros talking a lot about that app as being the best thing since sliced bread. There is even a sample of DV footage before the effect and after, although they added black bars to the edited file which I don't particularly like, but it does look more like film. Runs in After Effects only I think.

Tygrus


http://www.creativecow.net/articles/munkittrick_michael/magic_bullet_review/

[adam]

I use FilmFX. Its pretty cool, but there are no presets and the range of possibilities is just so broad that its a little daunting. I always feel like I may be messing up my video more than I'm fixing/tweaking it. I mostly use it for extreme effects, like when I want it to look like very old and damaged footage.

[vhelp]

hi tygrus2000,

I just visited that link you posted, and it reminded me visisting there once
before, some time back. I was re-searching widescreen and others such
fun stuff for my DV footage

Yeah, I already do my footage in 2.35:1 because of the added quality it
brings to my film look

But, I'm d/l'ing the clip (I don't recall them from before) and I'll have a
looksee's at them. Just curious of this guys quality

Thanks,
-vhelp

[FulciLives]

Panasonic DVX1000, shoots 24p go buy it already, I've used it the footage looks great

I went and looked at the PANASONIC website and I found what they call the AG-DVX100 which is a 24P DV professional series camcorder.

It is capable of 480P at 24fps (the real reason to use it) as well as 480P 30fps and 480i/60 (standard NTSC DV).

Sounds really nice and impressive until you get a wife of the price

MSRP is $3,795.00 and that is just the camera. There are 2 other packages that come with extra gizmos with the most expensive package being MSRP $5000.00

Looked it up on PRICEGRABBER.COM and the cheapest price (which I think is just the camcorder without the extra gizmos) is still a whopping $2769.99 (that was the cheapest).

Nice.

But at my salary it's a NO GO

In fact I can't imagine too many people being able to afford this unless they videotape events as a living (or side income).

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[vhelp]

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But at my salary it's a NO GO

In fact I can't imagine too many people being able to afford this unless they videotape events as a living (or side income).

Yeah, me too. I almost went broke just reading about (from FulciLives) hehe

That price is just too steep for me too. Mabe a used one for a thou will do
mabe. Well, thanks anyways

Well, I'm working on my own so call film look hehe :P So, let me get
back to the fun stuff, guys.

-vhelp 2046

[lordsmurf]

I have a film filter in Adobe Premiere. Since my last OS reinstall, I didn't put it back yet, but FilmFX sounds familiar. I only used it twice, but it was very cool and did exactly what I wanted.

[BubbaJones]

IF you want the "Film Look" shoot with a Film camera, it's that simple. All these fake methods of creating the film look are a waste of time, I have yet to see one that actually looks like film, they usually look really fake.

[tygrus2000]

Unfortunately, the costs associated with film are prohibitive. Imagine how much it would cost to have every film picture you take put to digital format, and I am not talking about scans with a cheap scanner. True quality photo scans are 20 bucks a piece! 35 mm cameras are cheap, but 4x5 and large format ones are 10,000 bucks!

Same goes for film movie cameras. The actual film is wildly expensive, then you have to invest much more money and hundreds of hours to get it over to a digital format.

See why an app that can simulate this look is so sought after?

Tygrus

[vhelp]

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Well, here's my film look, fwiw see link below.

* VHELP's Samples...

-vhelp 2047

[lordsmurf]

IF you want the "Film Look" shoot with a Film camera, it's that simple. All these fake methods of creating the film look are a waste of time, I have yet to see one that actually looks like film, they usually look really fake.

Unless you're offering to pay for this, this is the best most of us can deal with.

[tygrus2000]

Vhelp, I looked at your new "film look" DV footage and it looks good.

I am interested in a couple things:

1. What did the original look like? Maybe you could post it for reference.
2. What specific program did you use to achive the look and what settings.

I played around with a few of those film FX progs last night and was blown away by how many settings each has.

thx.

Tygrus

[DVO]

Here are some more material on the subject for the interested.

http://www.dvdoctor.net/cgi-bin/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000422.html

There are some links for more info in that forum and a suggested technique:

I tried this:

Put 2 same tracks on timeline. Higher track set to: Opacity about 50%, Fast Blur about 10%, also add some higher contrast.

On lower track just apply noise plug-in and try to render. A also recommend deinterlace desired video material before proceeding.

Rendering time was about 3 frames per sec.!
And result was just fantastic!

Try to experiment with it.

[housepig]

flipping around the net, I found this guide for getting video to look more like film.

the guy is pretty Final Cut Pro - centric, but I don't think there's anything there that can't be done with Adobe, Vegas or even Virtualdub.

I have an AE plugin called Cinelook from Digieffects, I've always liked the results from that.

but I'm also into the really deteriorated, 8mm-in-a-damp-cellar-for-30-years style, so I tend to use it to blow the footage to bits... haven't used it for more subtle effects.

[BJ_M]

see these very good links

http://www.creativecow.net/forum/read_post.php?postid=105373354550882&forumid=24&hi ghlight=film%2Clook&archive=_2003|7|6

http://www.creativecow.net/forum/read_post.php?postid=105964066346313&forumid=24&ar chive=_2003|5|4

http://www.creativecow.net/forum/read_post.php?postid=105068837777870&forumid=24&ar chive=_2003|9|8

[vhelp]

Hi Tygrus,

Vhelp, I looked at your new "film look" DV footage and it looks good.

Thanks :P

I am interested in a couple things:

1. What did the original look like? Maybe you could post it for reference.
2. What specific program did you use to achive the look and what settings.

I played around with a few of those film FX progs last night and was blown away by how many settings each has.

thx.

Tygrus

The orginal looks pretty much the same (well, close) but Pure Interlace.
I encoded the DV footage w/ Interlace on under TMPG as an experiment.
I'm trying to eliminate the strobing when a Pure Interlace is de-Interlaced.
It's not really that bad to look at, but for me, an experienced video buff,
I can't stand it at times. I do see strobing on TV, when I watch my satellite,
but that's different, because you are at the mercy of the broadcaster, and
this is an assumed position.. if that made any sense. But, for me, as the
director I want the maximum possible.
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Yes, when DV footage is encoded w/ Interace tacked on, it's much better,
but I tend to share some of my work in divX form, and post for others (on
another forum - don't ask) and for some at work, here and their. I also,
post here on this forum, but when I do, I continue the analigy w/ MPEG-2
as my focal point. Made sense ?? Anyways.., and because I'm heading to
wards DVD ( yeah ) I'm feeling the waves hehe.. ok, anyways...

As far as Programs. . .
I used vdub and TMPG. I have a gazillion versions of my private de-interlace
algorithems floating around my hd, and they tend to get messy and confusing
So, I coded them w/ numbers, but I still get confused if I forget to record
those code numbers during the filename in TMPG Too many codes.
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Anyways, what I used was a combination of vdub/tmpg filters ie, resize; deinterlace, swap fields, 411Luma (for dv color problems) yeah, I'm basically
NOT de-interlacing my source.. if that makes any sense (mathimatically speaking)
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I also use (thanks to mod adam in another post, whom as a result,
caused me to rethink my understanding, and my tweaking around some
more, w/ respect to TMPG's [x] Output YUV data... - - an issue that
took place in another post - - can't remember thread, as I'm )
Anyways.., and I Enable this box, and enocde as such, w/ some mod's to
the color to closely match that of vdub's RGB dispaly. Ok, it's a bit confusing,
and cookoo, but works for me. Sorry, you were probably after some script,
but I did not use any in this sample clip :P

Hay, did you burn it on a CDR ??
I haven't ben able to burn anything for a few months because both my burners
are dead or something, and I'm relying on others to respond back w/ results
Yeah, also, did you try and play it under powerdvd yet ??
Remember to read the note on my sample thread. Very Important!!
Anything else played in, and your video is either squished or fatted
But, under powerdvd, it properly stretches it's window in "window" view, and
in fullscreen view, if also properly stretches the source. You should be seeing
more boarders, than if played in windvd becuase windvd only stretches to
a 1.777 aspect ratio - sorry. That's why all the emphisus on powerdvd and
it's setup :P Again, it's a 2.35:1 ratio.. not 1.777

I've also used other techniques w/ my DV cam while I was shooting that
game. I got over an hours worth, before I frooze up and couldn't move my
hands and fingers. I had help in packing equipment back in bag by some
stranger
Yeah, I had only a short sleeve t-shirt on that night
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I tell you, I can't wait to finish my tripod project. I really need to have
smooth footage during panning. My bitrate goes down when there are no
sudden jerks or sticky tripoding around etc. Anywasy..

Sorry for the long post here

-vhelp 2052

[tygrus2000]

Housepig, I looked at that guys website and he is basically saying that simple deinterlacing is the secret since movies aren't. In fact he says movies are just a sequence of stills.

I have deinterlaced my productions before and I am still not convinced that is all there is to making a film realistic production. Some of the other techniques mess around with gamma, soft glow etc etc to achieve a result. This is much more tricky in my opinion.

I'm sure these plug-ins and techniques will be refined in the coming months since it seems videophiles want that film look on a budget. I know I do.

Tygrus

[housepig]

Housepig, I looked at that guys website and he is basically saying that simple deinterlacing is the secret since movies aren't. In fact he says movies are just a sequence of stills.

well, I would say there's more to it than that - he's also doing color correction and level adjustment, plus desaturation on the footage. (although he does spend quite a bit of the page going on about deinterlacing).

ah, well - if it doesn't work for you, it might produce some results for someone else...