What gives Films their cool look ?

[Stevesherrick]

I assume you mean when they show you footage before color timing, etc. In film, a lot starts with the choice of film stock. Then you have color timing, etc. which can get the look just right. And remember, they are showing you footage from a workprint, not the negative most likely. With Digital Intermediate now the color correcting can really be fine tuned. It’s quite a process, and very difficult to achieve when using prosumer video. Also, they are using incredible film lenses which can really give things a look that is also difficult to achieve with a prosumer video lens.

Having said that, there are things you can do to work towards a much more filmic image using a video camera. Lighting and great color correction can go a long way.

Steve

[David Roth weiss]

The answer is yes, and no. Actually, the final look of the film starts in pre-production in terms of set design and colors. It is then realized in lighting, camera, choice of film stock, and in post colorization. Remember, film has far greater latitude than video, and it is shot and processed to allow its maximum dynamic range to be used in the grading/colorization process.

[Bill Willins]

Thanks Steve. Yeah.. I think you nailed my question by saying that “most likely I am looking at a work print”. So the work prints look a lot rougher than the actual film footage ehh ? I’ve never had any film experience … so I find this info interesting 🙂

[Jb]

Having a higer resolution and a deeper color depth helps a lot, in fact its key to its look.

James b.

[Tom Matthies]

Sometimes, what you may be seeing, are the “making of” video shots recorded on the set using by the publicity guys using, well, a video camera. Most cameras (depending on location) are shooting at different frame rates than the film cameras and much of the footage is marginally filtered or color corrected giving it the “news” look of a video press release. Two totally different animals.
It always amazes me to see the stark reality of video shooting the same scene that you later see on the film relese print and what a different look each medium can have.
Tom

[Stevesherrick]

Actually, I think he’s referring to deleted scenes type of footage which is actual film footage, but sometimes not brought to the final stage of the process because it was determined it wouldn’t be needed. And yes, sometimes they add behind the scenes stuff too, but I assume he knows the difference with that stuff. As I alluded to, it does go beyond the film stock itself, lenses, lighting, set design, acting, it’s all needed to give that “Movie” feel. Very difficult for us indie filmmakers to immitate, which is why I think the best indie films are the ones that don’t necessarily try to immitate them, but find their own style within the medium they are using.

Steve

[Bret Williams]

I’d have to go with David on the latitude. It’s the total key to it. With film, you actually get a better look than video with LESS lighting. If you think of it in f-stops, shooting video is like shooting slide film. NO LATITUDE. You have to be within about a half stop or else you’re going to be clamping or expaning a signal in post, and that means less detail of course.

But with film, you can expose for someone’s face and have a bright sky behind them, and a shadowy corner nearby. Detail will be available in the shadows, and detail will be available in the sky. Whereas on video the sky will be overexposed and have no detail, and the shadows will be too dark with no details. So video requires more lighting. Every thing has to be within an fstop or so of each other. Meaning that everything needs light thrown at it. But then you end up with a very flat, unorganic image.

Maybe someone knows how HD compares to film in terms of latitude. Is it still limited? And if not, why don’t they make some SD CCD chips with the same tech?

[David Roth weiss]

Bret,

HD isn’t even close.

Just as you have seen digital still cameras climbing from 1 megapixels all the way to 11 megapixels in a very short time, you will eventually see full motion digital video that has the resolution, dynamic range, and other characteristics of film. But its not easy, certainly not as easy as still imagery, and its certainly not cheap. And, keep in mind, it won’t be going onto tape, it will have to be captured direct to huge hard drive arrays. So, its not gonna be very portable either.

On the other hand, there’s a heck of a lot of digital film scanning at only 2K resolution that the public accepts. And, they’re doing a good bit of 4K scanning now, and they’ll go up 6K soon, still not film resolution. But the motion picture industry may not be inclined to spend the dough to go all the way up to true film resolution if the audience can’t tell the difference.

DRW

[Don Greening]

I watched a workshop video presentation with Adam Wilt from DV Magazine and he said that exposing for film is the opposite of exposing for video. Highlights have to be protected in video or the detail in the highlights will be lost. Sounds logical and we’ve all seen what blown out video highlights look like. In film the detail in the dark portions have to be protected at the expense of the hightlights. Interesting. Does this mean that blown out highlight detail in film can be recovered in post?

– Don

[Bret Williams]

It’s possible that the extra latitude of film resides more so on the highlights side of exposure. If you’ve ever learned to shoot a 35 mm camera you’ll understand latitude. Different film has different attributes. Generally, negative film has about a 5 fstop latitude. So if you expose for standard grey or fleshtones, then you’ll have 2+ fstops above and below that also get captured. So, if exposed correctly, you can have detail in the shadows and the sky. It all depends on the actual situation. If you want to capture the most of a scene possible, I suppose you could read the light in the shadows, and the sky and split the difference, but that may leave what you really want, say someone’s face, under or over. That’s where lighting comes in. If you overexpose or under expose, you can have all the detail above or below your exposure, and fix it in post. Over expose someone’s face by 2 fstops on film and you still have the detail of the face. When printing you can bring that brightness down, with the benefit that you also captured 5 fstops below in the shadows without any lighting. Do the same with video and you’ll probably overexpose the face too far, losing detail making the person pasty, and only gaining 2 fstops in the shadows, etc.

I took a quick little couple hour course at infocomm one year. They let us run the 16mm cams and shoot a couple scenes without any additional lighting. At the time we also had a little cannon digital camera, which is kinda like video. On the digital camera there weren’t any shadows or highlights detail. Just the main focus of the scene we exposed for. But we also shot film of the scene and they mailed us a dvd. The sky and the shadows were intact. And there wasn’t any manipulation. This was just raw film footage.

If you’ve ever shot super8 film too, you know what I mean. Horrible resolution as far as grain goes, but the color and the latitude is essentially the same as 35 or 70mm film. The difference with the old super8 is that it’s usually positive (slide) film. So there isn’t an inbetween workprint or any post adjustment. They develop it and you project it. If you exposed incorrectly you still have the latitude, but you’re stuck with what you shot.