Besides DOF & Focal Length, what else could help this video to look more like film ?

[Roberto Lanczos]

I think this one works with QuickTime 6:

http://www.fdivisions.com/temp/320_short.mov

Here's an XVID/DivX version:

http://www.fdivisions.com/temp/640_short.avi

[Giroud Francois]

the problem with "film" look is that most of it is a personal preference.
from film look of the fifties to the film look of today there is a so big range
in processing of colors, contrast that nobody can give you an advice.
try to get some programs designed for such effect (filmFX, magic bullet) with lots of presets so you can have an idea of what processing goes the best with you film and your mood.

[Roberto Lanczos]

Originally Posted by Giroud Francois

the problem with "film" look is that most of it is a personal preference.
from film look of the fifties to the film look of today there is a so big range
in processing of colors, contrast that nobody can give you an advice.

I totally understand that. Is hard to feel any color filter in most movies today.

I used some LookSuite Presets in the test, and i tweak a little bit, but i still think that something is not convincing me yet. So i was looking for a little help on that.

- Grain ( Is not seen anymore in most movies today )
- Scratches ( the same story )
- Focel Length ( Ok that's obvious )
- DOF ( I don't even want to talk about that. I'll end up shooting my self )
- Camera Movement ( Ok, i'm shaking a little bit. No Big deal )
- Lightning ( Ok, It wasn't that high ).

Is there anything else that could help the shot, to look a little bit more like a film ?

[Brent Marks]

for simple DOF/bokeh effect... get your camera further away from the kid and then zoom in on him a bit more...

that will create SOME blurred background and give it a more "movie" look.

[Tom Hardwick]

Next time you watch a Hollywood blockbuster notice how often the director forces you to watch the main character by the simple expedient of differential and selective focus. Out of focus fore and backgrounds can be used to make Julia Roberts look even more beautiful as well as to make Robert De Niro even more threatening.

Conversely great depth of field can contribute to Peter O’Tool’s loneliness in the desert or to show Clint Eastwood’s gun and his luckless opponent across the street, both in sharp focus. Now go and look at your own home movies. I’ll bet the biggest single difference is that your footage is predominantly sharp all over all of the time, and a lot of folk equate this with the video look.

Of course it’s nothing to do with video and all to do with gate dimensions – we generally shoot onto chips that are about 4 mm wide, whereas 35 mm film cameras have gates that are 24 mm wide. Whereas we have a standard lens that’s something like 5 mm in focal length, they’ll be using something like 35 mm. For any given shooting aperture we have much more depth of field, hence the video look.

People who have moved up to high definition camcorders often remark on the ease with which they seem to be able to obtain differential focus, and this got me thinking. Most people remark on the FX1's very limited depth of field whereas it’s no different from the VX2100 of course – they both utilise 1/3” chips. But HDV footage is much sharper than standard definition (1.12 megapixels per frame as against the 0.4 mp/frame of standard DV), and this level of detail really shows up the unsharp areas. In comparison SD footage doesn’t look so hot, and the difference between sharp and unsharp is less obvious.

tom.

[Cole McDonald]

Here's a cheat...but a large piece of black sheer fabric and stretch it across a large frame. 6' by 6' should do for this footage. Stand it between your subject and the background. This will slightly diffuse the background and lower its light values. Make sure your lighting isn't interupted by it. Add a rim light to your subject to separate them from the background more. Either lock down your shot with a tripod or add weight to your camera to make it look/feel like a heavier camera.

[Juan Parra]

Originally Posted by Roberto Lanczos

- Grain ( Is not seen anymore in most movies today )
- Scratches ( the same story )
- Focel Length ( Ok that's obvious )
- DOF ( I don't even want to talk about that. I'll end up shooting my self )
- Camera Movement ( Ok, i'm shaking a little bit. No Big deal )
- Lightning ( Ok, It wasn't that high ).

Is there anything else that could help the shot, to look a little bit more like a film ?

YES.

1) Picture softening: Video camera circuitry applies an artificial edge
enhancement to correct a problem inherent in CRT video displays.
To compensate for this and mimic somehow film, you'd need to apply
some kind of diffussion filter from your video filter sets or Looksuite.

2) Gamma correction: Use a color correction filter to give a warm look,
add a bit of saturation, and extend the range of tones in the low end
(shadows and blacks). Basically you apply the S curve.

3) Take most of the grain out, it doesn't look right.

[Marcus Marchesseault]

The really big one, and unfortunately something we can do little to correct, is exposure lattitude. Film has about two f-stops better exposure lattitude, so shadows and highlights can show detail simultaneously. Highlights in video lose detail very easily. Careful consideration to the lighting, especially keeping the highs and lows closer together, can help. In my opinion, the biggest positive changes to standard video appearance come from, first, good lighting technique, and secondly, a 35mm adapter that allows control of the depthl of field. After footage is gathered using a 35mm adapter in good lighting conditions, good color correction and gamma control makes a big difference.

Unfortunately, lighting is a skill about as complex as photography. It also requires moving around fairly bulky equipment. I have been working on good lighting technique for narrative movies for about two years now and I am finally putting all the technology and my experiences together. Learn lighting, then learn about color correction. If you can, get a 35mm adapter and practice your focus techniques.

[Cole McDonald]

On the lighting front, shoot with a (circular)-polarizer whenever possible, even indoors. Due to the grid nature of recording digitally, off axis light will skew the values in the pixels strongly. This will also help pull down peaked highlights (glings).

Underexpose just slightly as it's easier to pull information back from the dark end of the digital spectrum than the light end. That graph is nigh logarithmic, this is the opposite of film in which blacks are protected more than whites (although both are important) due to the chemical process involved in film (the grain washes away never to be recovered). In digital, protecting your whites is more important, they'll go away for the digital equivalent of exactly the same way, 102% of pure white = 100% of pure white -- 0% of true black is 0% of true black.

Generally to bring out a little of the detail of the shadows in both film and digital, you'll throw a little light at the dark areas of the frame, but the threshold points need to be watched at the pertinent ends of the spectrum in both formats.