Polaroid SX70 effect?

[Joey Foreman]

Heve you heard of Magic Bullet? Check it out:

https://redgiantsoftware.com/magicbulletlooks.html

Joey Foreman
Editor/Animator
Nowhere Productions, Athens, GA

[Karel Bata]

To my knowledge Magic Bullet has no Polaroid preset.

But would you say that MB has another that would do the job? I’ve never seen any moving image that comes close to replicating the dream-like magic of a polaroid. But it would be great to get it in AE somehow.

Part of it has to be the optics of a Polaroid camera lens coupled with the relatively huge format of an SX70 film, but most of it is, I believe, down to Polaroid’s own chemistry which doesn’t work in the same way as a film emulsion’s.

[Karel Bata]

And why use two legs when you can hop?

Well…I think it’s a more complicated affair than just tweaking the knobs that magic bullet comes with. I figure I can’t possibly be the first person to consider this question and could save myself many hours of trial and error by seeking out someone who’s already cracked it.

[Karel Bata]

Wow. Have you really never seen a polaroid print before?

Take a look at this Polaroid data sheet, particularly the spectral sensitivity curves. See how narrow they are? https://www.polaroid.com/service/filmdatasheets/squareformat/89fds.pdf

Now take a look at the curves for a random Kodak stock https://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/e190/f009_0181ac.gif

Meanwhile here’s a CCD https://www.astrosurf.com/audine/result/kafc2.gif which is one of the reasons video doesn’t hold a candle to film. Yet.

And meanwhile, just to complicate matters, here’s what our eye does with it all https://www.normankoren.com/Human_spectral_sensitivity_small.jpg

And this is only a part of the difference. So it’s really not a trivial question that comes down to a soft lens and a bit of grading.

Surely someone somewhere in our brave new world must have figured out a way to do this…?

[Nicholas Toth]

There are presets in the MB Suite may emulate what you’re looking for, mix it with some edge blur/diffusion and maybe some over-grained chromatic aberration… also some carefully applied gradient blurs based on perspective gradients….

Don’t forget too, the beauty of consumer/low end polaroids (which is why I have 5 of them) is that they never develop the same way twice — and they are spontaneous. Take two pictures of the same composition at the same time, at the same place, and they won’t develop the same. Perhaps you want to take this into consideration when creating your preset.

[Karel Bata]

So translating that literally would mean that every frame is a bit different. I think I’ll pass on that.

also some carefully applied gradient blurs based on perspective gradients….

and I’ll have to google that!

However it’s done would be a cheat. The problem is (in effect) how to determine what mix of colors were present at a particular point (or pixel) – which would be way more than just levels of RGB – and then translate that into how a polaroid would have reacted. Pixel by pixel. An impossible task made more difficult by the fact that the way any ‘grain’ on a polaroid film develops seems to be affected by its neighbors.

Or else cheat.

[Brian Walsh]

Gradient, blur, grain/noise, blow out whites and boost cyan levels. There really is no mystery involved in this.

[Nicholas Toth]

THE MYSTERY IS THAT YOU MUST CHEAT!!!!
CHEAT! CHEAT! CHEAT!

(ok sorry, I got a little carried away)

[Kevin Camp]

of course it’s a cheat… you’re trying to make video look like film rather than spending the money to shoot film. that’s cheating, right?

i don’t think there is a ‘real’ way to make pixels behave like emulsion…

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Brian Berneker]

You have to realize that “a bit of color grading” isn’t diminishing the task whatsoever. It’s probably the most accurate and robust technique to get the results you want. You already have the reference shots, so you should know what you’re looking for. Time spent learning or working on color grading is never time wasted.

AE’s tools with a bit of patience and a mindful eye can get you far closer to a perfect match than any canned software off the shelf ever will. Even if it mathematically calculated a perfect conversion, a preset or plugin would probably start from the assumption that your footage is properly color corrected to begin with… so you’re back to grading again.

AE is a hands-on tool. Don’t be shy to use it as one. Why not be the first one to make a preset to match this particular polaroid and post it here on the Cow for everyone to appreciate?

Honestly, I think the only way anyone will find a preset for that particular grade of film on the internet is if someone (such as yourself, with a passion for the integrity of said preset) were to post it.