Make DV look like 35mm film
You've just shot some footage and are playing it back on your TV or PC and you notice something just doesn't look right with the picture. But you can't put your finger on what it is. It doesn't look like a film that you would watch on DVD or the cinema. There's something "funny" about it. Basically you think it looks like crap. But why?
The reason your footage looks nothing like a film you would see in a cinema or on DVD is because - unless you are super-rich - you didn't shoot the footage using actual film. The majority of blockbusters in cinemas use 35mm film to record all the images whereas most amateur film-makers, at most, can afford a expensive video camcorder.
35mm film costs a fortune to buy and a fortune to run (we're talking hundreds of thousands of pounds/dollars). The reason they are so expensive? Because they are some damned good!
Film processes the picture information in a completely different way to video. It works in the same way as 35mm cameras (before the dawn of digital megapixel bollocks) except instead of capturing just one picture, it captures many, many pictures every second.
Film has a naturally sharp yet somehow smooth appearance to it. It has a natural "grain" effect and other such "blemishes" which actually make the picture look rather quite nice.
However, video on the other hand - everything is digital these days. Images are compressed onto tapes, the image is sharp but lacks any detail. Cheaper camcorders offer really crap colour reproduction, poor performance in low light and so on. In short, they will never match 35mm film. Sure new high-definition camcorders are appearing on the market (at a price!) which are slowly closing the barrier between video and 35mm, but we're still a long way away.
There are a number of things you can do to your project to make it look more like film but please don't fool yourself into believing your cheap miniDV camcorder is any contest for 35mm film or else you will be sorely disappointed.
1. Use lighting creatively in your project. By this I don't mean just turn on a lamp. When you've seen any film on the big-screen you will notice that lighting is used effectively to create a mood. e.g. lighting under a characters face to make them appear menacing. This is one of the major things cinema-goers subconsciously look at which tells them they are watching a film. Poorly lit projects will tell your audience straight away that it is the work of amateurs.
2. Use movie-like camera moves. Okay, that's a bit vague. By this I mean hold-off the zoom button during a shot. In fact unless you require a "snap-zoom" for a particular effect within your shot, don't touch the zoom button. It looks cheap. It looks shit. Never use it unless it is to frame your shot. Hollywood blockbusters rarely use zooms. Go watch your favourite movie on DVD and count the number of times you see them zoom in. I bet you it's less than three times at most.
Other than the zoom button, learn about panning and tracking shots. For example to open a shot you might want to follow a person's feet and move up the body to reveal them rather than just sticking a camera in their face. It's the little touches like this that make the difference.
3. Learn about those camcorder settings that frighten you: Exposure (iris), focus and white balance - they are amongst some of the most important settings on your camcorder and you need to know how to use them. Failure to adjust these settings according to your shot will again sound the sirens of "amateur".
In a nutshell, the iris controls the amount of light getting into the camcorder (so if it is a really bright day you'd want to turn it down or else everything will be drowned out in white!). This is also known as exposure.
Focus, well you should really know what that is, but what you choose to focus on will make the difference between the amateur and professional. It's all a question of creativity. And by the way, you should really turn OFF the auto focus.
And finally the white balance is an image control which helps your camera decide what colour white actually is. This might seem strange, but in all that technical wizard gadgetry, to get the best colour reproduction from your video camcorder you need to help it get on its feet. Usually all you need do is mess around with settings within the menu to point it in the right direction. Better camcorders allow you to point your camera at a white object and click a button - far more accurate and far more professional. Of course you don't have to change the white balance but then don't be surprised in that yellow flower you've been filming all day looks a different colour.
Depth Of Field is also a major factor in getting that "film-look"
4. Don't use the camcorders "digital effects": If you have a lower-end camcorder you will have noticed that you can add fancy effects to your footage like mosaic or spiral, or any number of tacky transitions. Don't use any of them. They all look really bad and would look more at place in an awful wedding video. The only transitions you'll ever tend to find in most movies is either a fade or a cross-dissolve (yes Star Wars had some different types but hey, that's Star Wars!). Never use built in effects as you can't change it later. If you must alter the image in any way, do it later on the PC so you can "undo" it if it turns out bad.
5. Shoot using a PAL camcorder: Okay, this is where we get a bit more technical about the look of film. Video footage is made up of a number of still images all thrown together to make it appear that the images are moving. PAL camcorders (Europe predominantly) shoot 25 images a second and NTSC camcorders (US predominantly) shoot at just over 30 images a second. Yes it is far more complicated than this but you really don't need know much more. 35mm on the other hand shoots at 24 frames (images) a second.
You may be thinking why does the number of frames/second effect the overall image - surely more is better? Well, no. Not if you want it to look like film. Billions of people across the planet are now accustomed to seeing movies shot at 24 frames/second and so the motion on screen is embedded in their subconscious. It is all about the "feel" of film. A different frame rate and the audience know something is up but they can't say what.
So the closest you can get to shooting 35mm 24 frames/second film is PAL 25 frames/second. There are some high-end camcorders that can shoot 24 frames/second so if you can afford one, buy it - but only if you are intending for your film to one day end up on the big screen.
6. Use Film-Look Software: I saved this one until last as doing all the stuff above will make a bigger difference than just using this type of software alone.
Film-look Software (mainly Magic Bullet, FilmFX and Cinelook) is software that takes your footage and tweaks around with the colour, contrast, grain etc. to make it look more like film. Changing of the image in this way is also known as grading and it can really make your video footage look much, much better.
Feature movies use grading all the time. Think "The Matrix" - a very dark, atmospheric film. Do you think it looked like that on set? Bollocks did it. Yeah sure the lighting was done but tweaking the image to make the blacks really black and giving everything a sort of green tint - that was the work of grading.
Your film-look software works in the same way (Magic Bullet even has a Matrix setting) and so it takes your footage and gives it a desired "tone". Some of the software can even remove digital artifacts caused by miniDV to help clean the image. And on the polar opposite, you can add film artifacts like scratching, rolling and dust if you want you video to look like battered film.
Film Look Software:
> Magic Bullet
> FilmFX
> Cinelook
CONCLUSION
If you can be happy with the fact that your digital camcorder will never look like true-film, then you can have some fun experimenting with the image to make it seem more professional. As long as you follow the five steps above (and step six if you can afford it) then you have no reason not to be happy with your footage. After all, you did saved alot on the camcorder!
Thanks stormforcepictures.com
The reason your footage looks nothing like a film you would see in a cinema or on DVD is because - unless you are super-rich - you didn't shoot the footage using actual film. The majority of blockbusters in cinemas use 35mm film to record all the images whereas most amateur film-makers, at most, can afford a expensive video camcorder.
35mm film costs a fortune to buy and a fortune to run (we're talking hundreds of thousands of pounds/dollars). The reason they are so expensive? Because they are some damned good!
Film processes the picture information in a completely different way to video. It works in the same way as 35mm cameras (before the dawn of digital megapixel bollocks) except instead of capturing just one picture, it captures many, many pictures every second.
Film has a naturally sharp yet somehow smooth appearance to it. It has a natural "grain" effect and other such "blemishes" which actually make the picture look rather quite nice.
However, video on the other hand - everything is digital these days. Images are compressed onto tapes, the image is sharp but lacks any detail. Cheaper camcorders offer really crap colour reproduction, poor performance in low light and so on. In short, they will never match 35mm film. Sure new high-definition camcorders are appearing on the market (at a price!) which are slowly closing the barrier between video and 35mm, but we're still a long way away.
There are a number of things you can do to your project to make it look more like film but please don't fool yourself into believing your cheap miniDV camcorder is any contest for 35mm film or else you will be sorely disappointed.
1. Use lighting creatively in your project. By this I don't mean just turn on a lamp. When you've seen any film on the big-screen you will notice that lighting is used effectively to create a mood. e.g. lighting under a characters face to make them appear menacing. This is one of the major things cinema-goers subconsciously look at which tells them they are watching a film. Poorly lit projects will tell your audience straight away that it is the work of amateurs.
2. Use movie-like camera moves. Okay, that's a bit vague. By this I mean hold-off the zoom button during a shot. In fact unless you require a "snap-zoom" for a particular effect within your shot, don't touch the zoom button. It looks cheap. It looks shit. Never use it unless it is to frame your shot. Hollywood blockbusters rarely use zooms. Go watch your favourite movie on DVD and count the number of times you see them zoom in. I bet you it's less than three times at most.
Other than the zoom button, learn about panning and tracking shots. For example to open a shot you might want to follow a person's feet and move up the body to reveal them rather than just sticking a camera in their face. It's the little touches like this that make the difference.
3. Learn about those camcorder settings that frighten you: Exposure (iris), focus and white balance - they are amongst some of the most important settings on your camcorder and you need to know how to use them. Failure to adjust these settings according to your shot will again sound the sirens of "amateur".
In a nutshell, the iris controls the amount of light getting into the camcorder (so if it is a really bright day you'd want to turn it down or else everything will be drowned out in white!). This is also known as exposure.
Focus, well you should really know what that is, but what you choose to focus on will make the difference between the amateur and professional. It's all a question of creativity. And by the way, you should really turn OFF the auto focus.
And finally the white balance is an image control which helps your camera decide what colour white actually is. This might seem strange, but in all that technical wizard gadgetry, to get the best colour reproduction from your video camcorder you need to help it get on its feet. Usually all you need do is mess around with settings within the menu to point it in the right direction. Better camcorders allow you to point your camera at a white object and click a button - far more accurate and far more professional. Of course you don't have to change the white balance but then don't be surprised in that yellow flower you've been filming all day looks a different colour.
Depth Of Field is also a major factor in getting that "film-look"
4. Don't use the camcorders "digital effects": If you have a lower-end camcorder you will have noticed that you can add fancy effects to your footage like mosaic or spiral, or any number of tacky transitions. Don't use any of them. They all look really bad and would look more at place in an awful wedding video. The only transitions you'll ever tend to find in most movies is either a fade or a cross-dissolve (yes Star Wars had some different types but hey, that's Star Wars!). Never use built in effects as you can't change it later. If you must alter the image in any way, do it later on the PC so you can "undo" it if it turns out bad.
5. Shoot using a PAL camcorder: Okay, this is where we get a bit more technical about the look of film. Video footage is made up of a number of still images all thrown together to make it appear that the images are moving. PAL camcorders (Europe predominantly) shoot 25 images a second and NTSC camcorders (US predominantly) shoot at just over 30 images a second. Yes it is far more complicated than this but you really don't need know much more. 35mm on the other hand shoots at 24 frames (images) a second.
You may be thinking why does the number of frames/second effect the overall image - surely more is better? Well, no. Not if you want it to look like film. Billions of people across the planet are now accustomed to seeing movies shot at 24 frames/second and so the motion on screen is embedded in their subconscious. It is all about the "feel" of film. A different frame rate and the audience know something is up but they can't say what.
So the closest you can get to shooting 35mm 24 frames/second film is PAL 25 frames/second. There are some high-end camcorders that can shoot 24 frames/second so if you can afford one, buy it - but only if you are intending for your film to one day end up on the big screen.
6. Use Film-Look Software: I saved this one until last as doing all the stuff above will make a bigger difference than just using this type of software alone.
Film-look Software (mainly Magic Bullet, FilmFX and Cinelook) is software that takes your footage and tweaks around with the colour, contrast, grain etc. to make it look more like film. Changing of the image in this way is also known as grading and it can really make your video footage look much, much better.
Feature movies use grading all the time. Think "The Matrix" - a very dark, atmospheric film. Do you think it looked like that on set? Bollocks did it. Yeah sure the lighting was done but tweaking the image to make the blacks really black and giving everything a sort of green tint - that was the work of grading.
Your film-look software works in the same way (Magic Bullet even has a Matrix setting) and so it takes your footage and gives it a desired "tone". Some of the software can even remove digital artifacts caused by miniDV to help clean the image. And on the polar opposite, you can add film artifacts like scratching, rolling and dust if you want you video to look like battered film.
Film Look Software:
> Magic Bullet
> FilmFX
> Cinelook
CONCLUSION
If you can be happy with the fact that your digital camcorder will never look like true-film, then you can have some fun experimenting with the image to make it seem more professional. As long as you follow the five steps above (and step six if you can afford it) then you have no reason not to be happy with your footage. After all, you did saved alot on the camcorder!
Thanks stormforcepictures.com
posted by arkietechs at 6:52 AM
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