How do you create a cine film look from video?
 

I need to know how to make a cine film look from video.

Basically these shots will be used as a flashback, when the character was younger (as shot on an old cine camera). Cutting between now, and the past.

What type of filters would you suggest to use in post production (scratch look, hue, saturation, cut out frames etc), or that matter on the camera?

Any other tips to create this effect would be handy.

I will be using Premiere 6, Photo Shop 5.5, Canon XL1 and Sony TRV900

Well you could start out by making everything run at 15 frames per second and giving it a monochrome sepia tint. As far as filters I would recommend something that has old nicks and scratches, but that only applies if you are assuming the "film" has been poorly stored and cared for. Film can run in perfect conditions with nary a mark for decades and decades --- that meaning tens of thousands of runs if treated by someone who knows how to handle film. But what I WOULD definitely recommend is something that creates a slight "flicker" to the video.

I don't know the names of any filters that do these things, but they are definitely out there. Please post if you find any that do the flicker/scratch thing well.

Also, if your "film" is going to be in poor shape, delete groups of four or five frames here and there to simulate "missing frames" where the film broke and was spliced back together.

All very good information, cheers Joe.

But how would I get the correct colour saturation, contrasts to make it look as if it was shot on my Grandads/ Dads 8mm/super8mm/16mm colour cine film (1950's - 1970's)?

I guess its a matter of playing around a little bit.

Any other ideas, anybody?

Thanks, all the best,

Ed Smith

as far as the saturation/contrast...i usually forgo any plug-ins and simply modify these attributes with adobe's built in filters (in premiere/after effects/photoshop). I've been able to get some distinctly "period" looking footage just by experimenting with the values.

For those die hard video artists who really want it to look authentic, be sure to manually draw "tape lines" on your splice. The edges of the tape collect dirt and project as black. Each frame where the splice joins (two frames) will have visable tape lines. Also, splicing tape attracts more dirt than usual. So draw more dirt on the frames leading up to and away from the splice. If you have a crappy theater near you, which you probably do, go watch a movie over two weeks old. You'll notice the dirt at the splices as well as the tape lines if you are fast enough. Also the image tends to jump when the splice is going through the projector gate.

Check out this Quicktime I did just to demonstrate all this in action:

http://207.168.10.78/splice1.mov

It is a little over 1 Meg in size, very short and no sound.

And don't forget to add the white flashes to cue the next reel.

White flashes? You mean from a really bad changeover? Actually what you probably would see is the reel tailing out or black, but that is for 35mm film. You could always add "cue dots" for the reel change. 8 seconds before the reel change place a black dot in the upper right hand corner of your screen for four frames. Then place another one (for four frames as well) exactly one second before the "reel change".

Maybe even a small "pop" in the sound 16 frames later would help (film audio is recorded 16 frames ahead of the picture on 35mm film, so the splice pop would be delayed by that much while it was traveling down to the sound drum). Of course if your "movie" is supposedly playing in Dolby Digital, DTS or SDDS, then there could be a small glitch (not pop) in the audio in exact sync with the splice. To simulate the digital sound dropping to the backup analog track, just lower the audio in volume by -6db for two frames. Or better yet, compress it so it loses all dynamic range and re-EQ it.

Don't forget that there are three things you can do during production to make your videos have more of a film look...

1. Use depth-of-field to bring out the key elements in the shot
2. For exterior shots, use a water hose to lightly spray down the area where you'll be filming...especially pavement, stone walkways, vegetation, etc. Spray early enough so that liquid-look has time to evaporate so that only the dampness remains which really punches colors.
3. For interior shots, fog the set slightly (if only the background)...especially when you'll have rays of light shooting across the scene in the background such as from a window.

Of course, you don't want to use these tricks in all cases. Just watch popular TV shows and movies carefully and you'll get a feel for when they use these techniques.

John,
I think I will have to try some of those camera effects, they sound really interesting.
I brought a smoke machine about a year ago and don't really use it (last time I did it was for a very atmospheric freeky short), so now I know what I could use it for.
The water idea sounds interesting, I had not really thought about that, and just started to realise, that most films and adverts use this trick (Doh!!).

Joe,
The short clip was also good, and I found out that I have a filter created by quicktime in premiere which will add scratches etc.

Any ideas for Cokin filters for any of these effects?

Cheers every one for all the information it will really help.

All the best,
Ed Smith

Ed,

One more thing...I just saw on the Cyber Film School site that they sell a videotape covering this very topic. Apparently it's a collection of interviews from professional on how they achieve the "film look."

The title "How to Make Your Video Look Like Film." (clever, eh?)

http://www.cyberfilmschool.com/

Can't vouch for it's quality, though. Maybe someone here has seen it and can give you an idea.

Brilliant website John, A*

I've been playing with a Cokin SunSoft, no. 694. Seems to work pretty well for diffusion and warming.

Actually the only thing I don't like about the Quicktime filter is that the scratches are white. A white scratch on a film would mean that the entire image of the film has been scraped off. Most scratches are base side scratches and appear black. Emulsion side scratches can appear as green for the first level, yellow for scratching through two levels and white for scratching through all three levels of emulsion.

Another thing I don't like is that the Quicktime filter animates too fast for my frame rate.... For DV it always must be 29.97 frames per second even if I delete every other frame and duplicate the remaining to make it "appear" to be running at 15 frames per second. The Quicktime filter will change the dirt specks on the frame every 1/30th of a second, which would be impossible on an old 15 frame per second film.

i have no experience with that scratch filter, but couldnt you run the filter on the 29.97 footage first, then drop everyother frame and dupe. If my head is working correctly i would think this would do it.

You're right, it can be done that way! Good thinking.

Cheers guys,
I start to go into production in a couple of weeks hopefully! It will only be a 4 minute short, shot with me and my friends, just to test a couple of techniques.

Cheers,
Ed Smith

Well Ed, I must say I wish you the best of luck on your production, and I certainly hope you'll keep us abreast of its progress!

Can diddly do do!!!!!!

All the best,
Ed Smith

old film look
 

i have an after effcts plug-in called cinelook...
if you can score a copy of after effcts you can use this..
its a very good plug-in.

not only does it create awsome damaged film look..
it also takes your video and makes it look cinematic..just like if it was shot with film.

email me if you want it...

all635@yahoo.com

I thought that I would give you a progress report on how its going.

Just started postproduction.

(Flash back)
In order to give the kind of effect I was after, I decided to shoot at 25/1000-shutter speed, and slightly over expose the image. Then In post... In the end I decided to use the QuickTime effect even though it was technically wrong, it suited what I wanted to use it for. I used the colour fade option which took away the harsh colours which DV can sometimes produce, slowed down the footage by 80% and shot handheld - this gave the images a very unique look which I kinda like.

More to come, once it is finished.

All the best,

Ed Smith

Ed,

Looking forward to seeing a sampling. Sounds great.

John

Use of movie mode ?
 

Just wondering if you or anyone else have used the frame mode for their short movies? I've tried it on specific shots and I like the feel of it, but don't know what a whole movie (even a short one) would look like with that effect.

Randy

Finished
 

Every thing finished.

I thought I would let you know the whole story now that it is finished. The short drama is called E-motion, and is about a young girl who had her young baby taken away from her by her boyfriend. She is being driven up to see the baby for the first time in about 4 years. As she is driven up to see the baby by her best mates friend she reflects back on the times when she was with the baby/young child - hence the cine film look effect.

The first thing to say is that in the end we decided not to use the XL1 but instead to use a Sony DCRTRV900. The reasons for this include:

1. This is part of my college course and so decided that it would be easier to use the colleges’ equipment.

2. The camera would not only be used by me but other people in my team, and decided that I did not want any one else to touch my camera apart for me (after all I would be telling them what buttons to press).

3. The Sony TRV900 camera is much more smaller then the XL1, and as most of the shots were going to be shot in a car, it made sense not to use the loveable XL1.

The shoot was set over 2, 5-hour days. The first day was to shoot all the car scenes, and the second day to shoot all the flashbacks.
Car scene - As I mentioned above we used the Sony trv900 as it would be much more easier to use when shooting in a moving car. I was the driver and so had no control over what the video would look like, in the end I left it down to one of my friends who seemed to know what to do. We were going to use some sort of camera stabilisation kit (monopod) but found it very difficult to use since the camera would be in awkward positions, As all DV cameras now a days are equipped with steady shot we thought we would put this to the test instead, and it worked remarkably well - nice and smooth, handled very well - or my friend had a very steady hand? The next problem was light, I thought that this would have been a big problem, but in the end it was not so bad. I wish I had taken a reflector, but did not think of that at the time (Doh!!). Some of the shots were under exposed, but this could not really have been helped due to light sources fading in and out, as the car was moving. Sound - man that was annoying!!! This is often the bit which gets left out when you produce movies for college, or is always the last one to be sorted out. The sound was recorded through a mono tie clip mike attached to the actor and plugged into the camera. The thing is when we reviewed the tapes the sound was horrible, very quite speech very loud car noise (more on this in the post prod section).
Flashback - I had control of the camera this time. As I mentioned in my previous post I shot at 1/25 shutter speed and slightly over exposed the images, this gave a very surreal picture, which has worked well for our opening sequence. Again sound was a major problem - windy day and so we used a riffle mic attached to the camera with a proper windshield, but this was still not giving the effect I was after (thank god for Post production). Oh yeah... I forget to mention that never work with uncooperative children. The young actress we used was my friend’s younger sister, we thought every thing would be okay but in the end we ended up bribing her to do what we wanted.

Post Production
This is the stage I enjoy most - seeing the raw footage turn into a polished production. All the editing was done at college a part from the creation of the music which I done at home using Ejay studio. We dumped in all the footage into the computer, and started editing using Adobe Premiere 6 on a Matrox RT2500 system.
As I mentioned before, I decided to use the QuickTime filter in order to create the cine film effect, it was good enough for what I had planned to use it for - the settings we used are: Film noise, dust and film fading, faded colour film and kept hairs and scratches to a minimum. As this is not a real time effect we had to wait hour’s for it to render the bits with the effect on (so much for real time effects!). I also slowed down the flash back footage to 80%, which made every thing in slow-motion, as if it was a memory. That was the only effect we used, the rest of it is just simple cuts with raw DV footage.
Sound - as I mentioned above we had horrible sound problems, and so in the end we decided to re-dub the whole lot (dialogue, effects, buzz track etc). The sound effects was recorded on to MiniDisc, with that 90, 180 switch Sony microphone which produced pretty good results and then they were laid down in the time line where they were needed. We also had to do a bit of lip-syncing. So we connected a pair of headphones to the headphone socket in the sound card, used the MiniDisc recorder to record dialogue and headphones were plugged into the recorder for the soundman to monitor. We then played the video with the raw sound and recorded the actors voice as they repeated what was being said through the headphones (plugged in the computer). This was then placed in the time line - about 95% of lip-syncing worked - in the end it turned out pretty good.

9 audio tracks, 3 video tracks, a re-dubbed movie, and a child actor, which would not cooperate, I feel that we had made a very successful movie/ drama.

I have my final major project coming up, so I think this time I will use my XL1, shoot in wide screen, and in frame movie mode - plus more questions to come on this board.

Hopefully I should be able to get a sample of the movie on my website pretty soon.

All the best,

Ed Smith

film look
 

making things old is the easy part all good tricks give. make new video look like new film. its apples and oranges. i have had some success with after affects and using a 2 or 3 frame strobe. usually starting with beta sp or digibeta. i have used the frame mode on the xl-1 and added some other effects for old look. but not much success making it look like any of the current emulsions. i shoot and light for a good deal of film. soon film will look just like video and we will make our film look like video. (why?) much easier to do. i have intercut 16mm and 35mm with video on table top and product if the edit is under 2 seconds and the video is light nicely it is tough to percieve the difference. shoot film. find an arri s and have at it. peace

Ed,

You sure had some problems :) But you can only learn from
those. Keep up the nice work!

You could put it that way - problems are like hurdles, and you have to try and overcome as many as you can in order to create a video which is decent, and looks good. I kinda see them as challenges. But as you said I have learnt an awful lot from just this one video.

Any one with any tips or other ways on how to overcome some of the problems I had?

Ed Smith

Chris, feel free if you want too, to place my thread 'everything finished' in the DVinfo.net homepage, it might be useful for other people who use the TRV900. Make amendments if needed and correct errors.

All the best,

Ed Smith

Take your *time* setting up your shots.Of course this goes hand in hand with carefully executed story boards also.If you know someone who is fantastic with a pencil,you can get some fabulous 'boards out of the situation and,therefore,fabulous shots.And even if you don't know such a person,you can do this.
Go through some old comic books of the superhero variety.Copy the pages that have "shots"(aka "panels")that have particular appeal to you that you think you can use in your own production.Try and look at them "cinematically" as if they are part of a finished movie.Make note of the lighting and composition and put your favorite panels in a "warbook" for future reference.Catalog them in any way that makes sense to you.
And when appropriate,try and execute a shot as close as possible to the illustration.This way your camera skills can only improve because you will have a variety of panels to draw upon
and you won't be just shooting all of your stuff from one tripod level.


A.