How to achieve this look?

[Laco Gaal]

What if you download this video, export stills from it, and bring them as a reference into Davinci?
I’m sure that you will be able to match it, if not, check the vectorscope/waveform/parade.

[Eric Hansen]

it looks like it was shot on 16mm with zoom lenses (like Angeniuex 12-120) to achieve the snap zooms, and a Angenieux 5.9 or Kinoptik 5.7 for the primes. the daytime stuff is possibly Ektachrome reversal stock, but most likely Vision2 or Vision3 negative. The night stuff is probably 500T negative.

there’s definitely a de-sat, lifted black, almost metallic thing going on. some of the look is most likely from the telecine (keeping things flat) and then tweaked a bit in correction. it looks like ungraded telecine because there’s a general cast to the shots (some daytime stuff is brown, night stuff is green or blue, no contrast) it wouldn’t be that tough to achieve this look if you shot film.

if you shot it on RED, it would be a different story because a lot of the look comes from the size of 16mm and the lenses.

i would lift the blacks and then use the shadows control (and a bit of the midtones) to change the whole look of the image. this achieves the “ungraded film” look. at least that has been my experience from running my own Super8 telecine and grading it. you have to look at it 2 ways – you have the image you want and the film that it’s on. in most cases i would try to take the film out of the equation and get to grading the image. here, you want to do the opposite. most people find it easiest to buy film packs and apply them as a filter. if you do that, do a balance color correction of the footage to make it look good on its own, then apply the filter, then tweak in a final node to get the exact look you want. you might need to lift the blacks before applying the filter to make sure the filter doesn’t raise crushed blacks. it looks like for the daytime there’s a simple brown filter and the nighttime has a blue or green filter – the casts i mentioned above. but it’s mixed up, which is cool.

if i’m wrong here, and this was shot on RED or similar, i would also be very interested in how they achieved this look.

e

Eric Hansen
Production Workflow Designer / Consultant / Colorist / DIT
https://www.erichansen.tv

[Nate Weaver]

When I see stuff like this, the first thought of course is lifted blacks, but you also have to consider that the noise floor of the film and/or digital camera was clipped out somewhere along the line, either on purpose or by accident (in this case, most surely on purpose, even if shot on 16)

I go to the Soft Clip panel, and start clipping up the blacks, but leave a 0 or very low “Soft Clip”. On the scopes a clip like this would be about 10-15IRE. You can change the tint of the clipped blacks by un-ganging the sliders. Then add black and gain washes in a node after.

Nate Weaver
Director/D.P., Los Angeles
https://www.nateweaver.net

[Juan Salvo]

I’m willing to bet this wasn’t shot on film.

Colorist | Online Editor | Post Super | VFX Artist | BD Author

https://JuanSalvo.com

[Nate Weaver]

There’s some giveaways, not the least of which overcranking in about zero light.

500 speed 16mm pushed to 1000 or more is soft enough to see even on web video.

Nate Weaver
Director/D.P., Los Angeles
https://www.nateweaver.net

[Rick Turners]

It looks like it has lifted blacks that are clipped, then some color pushed into the shadows.

I was playing with this the other day.. how can I clip the blacks? I was trying to just lift the blacks using the curves/lift control and it was just lifting it and giving me more shadow detail, not giving it that lifted & clipped look.

[Nate Weaver]

Nate Weaver
Director/D.P., Los Angeles
https://www.nateweaver.net

[Andi Winter]

hmmm… due to the fact that the blacks are clipping sooner than the highlights (combined with some shots that have small white random dots) i would guess that it was shot on film and afterwards a telecine was done (no scan, so the underexposed stuff is lacking black detail).

but it could also be a good fake. somehow a dirty but cool style…

[Andrew Smith]

Thank you for all of the feedback, really appreciate your time and insight.

Nate you went above and beyond man thank you.

[Eric Hansen]

Thanks Nate. That’s a trick I have yet to try

e

Eric Hansen
Production Workflow Designer / Consultant / Colorist / DIT
https://www.erichansen.tv