Adding Grain Using Composite Mode – overlay confusion

[Bret Williams]

Drop the grain in FCP over the clip. Then right click on the grain clip and try the composite modes like screen and multiply. But you can try others like hard light or anything you like. To adjust the amount/intensity, I generally just play with the opacity of the grain clip.

[Alex Elkins]

This is a bit of a strange way to add grain in my opinion. This should have been done during the grade. Failing that, I’d recommend bringing the entire film into After Effects and adding a grain filter to it.

It’ll take a very long time to render from After Effects but you’ll have more control and the results will be much better. I would consider the method of overlaying the grain in FCP a bit of a ‘bodge’ as essentially all you’re doing is adding some animated noise onto the image. That’s not really the same as grain.

Alex Elkins
Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.PostBlue.tv
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[Andrew Smith]

I already know this.

[Alex Elkins]

[andrew smith] ” I already know this.”

So what do you want to know???

Alex Elkins
Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.postblue.tv
View Post Blue showreel
Shot on RED @ 100fps, Post on FCP/Color: Capoeira Film
My Vimeo Pro page

[Andrew Smith]

In DaVinci I can use composite nodes as well to use my AE rendered grain and adjust with contrast accordingly – otherwise grain is not built into Resolve or FCP.

ultimately I was hoping to take away from this whether or not my AE settings for grain were correct and then my application of it in other apps…

[Alex Elkins]

[andrew smith] “I was hoping to take away from this whether or not my AE settings for grain were correct and then my application of it in other apps”

See my previous post. The way you’re adding grain is flawed – you’re not adding grain if all you’re doing is overlaying an animation of some noise on top of your video. If you don’t want to bring the completed video into After Effects to add grain there, I’d suggest simply adding a monochrome ‘Add Noise’ filter to it in FCP. This is essentially what you’re doing anyway by compositing a noise layer on top of the video, only you’ll have more control and slightly better results with the FCP filter.

Alex Elkins
Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.postblue.tv
View Post Blue showreel
Shot on RED @ 100fps, Post on FCP/Color: Capoeira Film
My Vimeo Pro page

[Andrew Smith]

ok so if i add it in AE what advice on settings and how to can you provide as its a long render and I just want to get it right the first time – maybe I’ll just set a 2 minute in/out to try some variations to test.

Any advice on how best to bring it the footage and apply grain would be awesome since fcp seems to not be the ideal workflow.

thank you!

[Alex Elkins]

[andrew smith] “what advice on settings and how to can you provide”

I’d start with the presets and tweak from there. There’s not a right or wrong way to do it, just whatever works for what you’re trying to achieve.

If you want some inspiration I’d recommend looking at some music video websites (e.g. https://www.promonews.tv) – music videos can be a great source of inspiration for digital grading as they’re often heavily stylised and more often than not are shot digitally, so many of them have had grain added in post. See what kind of looks might suit your project and try to emulate it.

Alex Elkins
Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.postblue.tv
View Post Blue showreel
Shot on RED @ 100fps, Post on FCP/Color: Capoeira Film
My Vimeo Pro page

[Bret Williams]

Ditto. So the grain is making your footage darker or something. Ok, now add some color correction to brighten it up. Or did you already know that? Is that too obvious for you?

[Andrew Smith]

thanks chet?

My point is that my grades from DaVinci were getting affected too heavily and i did not want to have that happen when applying grain…i know there will be some change but i was not happy with what was happening which is why i thought maybe io was doing something wrong.

thanks