Compare?
 

Original: http://www.entityinspiration.com/vousorig.jpg
Output:http://www.entityinspiration.com/vous.jpg

Shot with XL-1s and Century .3x fisheye. Intended to look cinematic (A Lord Of The Rings esc feel to it was intended) rather than "film" you could say. Thoughts?

Cool. What did you do to brighten up the 2nd one?

After Effects
Duplicate the base footage layer twice.

Footage_3.avi - Set to HardLight transfer mode, with slight guassian blur.. 2 or 3 or so.
Footage_2.avi Set to soft light transfer mode, with same guassian blur amount.
Footage_1.avi adjusted levels

Kevin, I like both images. To my eyes the "original" one looks like it was shot on 16mm and cut on a steenbeck without going through any digital manipulation in post. The second image has more of a "Lord-of-the-Ringish" look; that is, a very "clean" look.

May I ask you, Kevin, what's the difference (for you) between an image being cinematic and one that looks like "film?"

Interesting After Effects tip. I'll try this myself.

Sorry, no feeling or cinelook in neither of them at all. You have to use lighting to create shadows and a totally different picture composition in order to bring that image alive. Unfortunately the shallow DOF isn't enough to create a cinematic feel.

Stylianos, from my point of view, it's nowhere near 16mm even before manipulation, according to my experience, but I have seen really bad 16mm footage which looks like video.

To me, a cinematic look is that of warm color, good lighting, contrasting, high quality imagery. Basically, the general imagery feel you get from a movie in a theater.

Film is much crisper, and more detailed to such things. However, HD, DV, and MiniDV can all get up to par with that if used right. So, in a sense I'm trying to create professional quality imagery, and not trying to make the difference between meidums less obvious.

Cinematic imagery is something that film can create. Same with each medium. They all have their own recognizable characteristics, but all of them have the capability of achieving a professionally cinematic quality outcome.

I wasn't trying to replicate the 24fps, somewhat grainier, super crisp image as produced by film as much as I was trying to create a solid, quality image.

That particular method in After Effects I mentioned, doesn't work the same for every shot. Some different transfer modes are used for different lighting situations.

http://www.entityinspiration.com/vous2.jpg
Also, this one... done a bit different.

I am a film man myself. Love film to death. That being said, I prefer the original image by a factor of at least ten. The other images seem oversaturated and highly aftificial. Very "tampered with" so to speak. The original has cool depth of field effects and doesn't really need alteration to look better, IMO.

You described it perfectly yourself, but when you look at the image it seems like you are looking at it from a pure technical point of view. I guess from that point of view it works to a certain point, but the image itself doesn't work as soon as you compare it to any movies, as I wrote before, there is no feeling in it. You have to create a totally different composition for that.

Are all movies oversaturated? No. I have actually seen many movies with a similar look. You can't compare an image to "any movies" (which, by context, means ALL movies). It just depends on what you are going for. If you are going for a dark and broody mood, then it won't help to have all the lights in your house turned on to 100% and a cold blue-ish tint. But I have seen many movies with similar color temperatures to the original pic above... like The Truman Show.

Well of course that single image doesn't hold the feeling. The feeling created is a mix between the scene prior and after, along with audio. (Music, sound effects, voice tracks, etc)

The scene that shot is going to be in, is a very dark feeling... sort of magical escence to it. Very similar to the scene with Gandolf and Frodo near the fireplace with the ring from Lord of the Rings. Dim lit, eerie, and warm. Music in the back is a very soft soundtrack.. as in this shot it pulls focus from the face.. and then he puts the ring up close.. all the way into the camera.. where in post I'll make a field of energy (some cool lighting effects) run inside the ring itself.. and then the ring floats out of his hand and into the camera.. using the forward zooming ring as a transition to the next shot... which in the story, is a sort of history, explination.. showing visuals of a story that's being told.

Curtis, Well, I was generalising about the any movie remark, and I agree with you, on the other hand he tried to go for a Lord of the Rings look, not the truman show. I can say that it doesn't even look like the truman show, mostly because of the composition and lack of lighting.

Kevin, not to try to put you down or anything, but if you cannot create a feeling in one image, how do you expect to create it in a scene or an entire movie. Even if you add special effects and cool sound, then people will say that the special effects are cool and the sound is good, but they will not hire you as a DP for their next project.

Because in that single frame, you can't tell where it's set and why the things are that way. @_@

You're telling me that if you had a close up that was done with your "perfect" or ideal lighting.. you'd expect them to get an entire feeling of what's going on? Please.

I like the warming of the picture (somehow I tend to like the
warmer color palette more) but the rest is a bit overdone in
my very humble opinion.