Film Noir

[Steve Roberts]

Apply curves and make the curve look slightly “S”-like.

Lighting is everything. The DP should use fresnels. Make sure the Director has a good DP and isn’t shooting “normally”, depending on you to get “the look” without doing tests. If they’re shooting video, do tests to make sure you can get rich shadows without noise. They might have to light for brighter shadows and for highlights with detail, then you’d have to create the higher contrast in post.

Keep in mind that the softness was generally only used on the women.

But yes, doubling layers with screen mode can sometimes look good.

Buy the “Visions of Light” DVD.

[Darby Edelen]

[Steve Roberts] “But yes, doubling layers with screen mode can sometimes look good.”

Doubling up Soft Light (or Overlay/Hard Light for more drastic effects) can give you good contrast without crushing any part of your range, as well.

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Malcolm Desoto]

cool. Good adice guys. I’l l be doing some tests today.

Oh and this is pretty much a one mna show. I’m lighting, shoting, editing it. So, if the DP screws up, I’ll know who to go to =P

[Scott Roberts]

Depending on the look you’re after of course, try desaturating your clip 100%, duplicate the clip and set the mode to Overlay. Adjust the opacity from there to get the look you want. You can also blur that layer for a softer look for certain scenes. Also try creating a vignette. Just some ideas. Let us know what you come up with.

[Darby Edelen]

[Little Black Bird] “try desaturating your clip 100%”

I thought I should mention that you should not use Hue/Saturation to desaturate your footage. For illustrative purposes, here are the standard SMPTE bars:

Here are the standard SMPTE bars with saturation set to -100 in Hue/Saturation:

And here they are with the default Tint effect applied:

Any questions? =)

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Mark]

If you shoot in video, you may want to look at something like Halide from Amber Visual (google search) or Magic Bullet to get you to 24p for film look. Both packages also do great back and white film looks. Halide renders way faster and is faster for me to work with on the timeline.

[Malcolm Desoto]

oh, thanks for that tip Darby! I probably would have just desaturated it using hue and saturation.

So what exactly is the difference between the tint effect and just desaturating it?

[Darby Edelen]

Humans tend to perceive yellow as ‘brighter’ than blue, even while the brightness values may not be any different. While desaturating using Hue/Saturation is mathematically correct, Tint is more perceptually correct for human vision.

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Malcolm Desoto]

Ahhhhhhhh, I see (no pun intended). Good to know.

[Alexander Gao]

There is tons of hard lighting, creating hard shadows. Almost to the point where it looks like someone’s just shining a flashlight on the actor (of course they’re not though!). Costumes will also contribute to the overall look.

Thanks,
Alexander Gao

“When the revolution happens, I’ll be leading it.”