The Elusive film look, an elusive fake.

t-h-e-w-h-o

t-h-e-w-h-o

Well-known member
Im sitting here at the studio i work for working on a show for HBO. (im doing roto/paint work at the moment) and it has dawned on me (well it dawned on me a long time ago, but i dont know how many others realize it yet) that the elusive "film look" that so many people on this forum strive for is all a fluke. I would say a fair 70% of the depth of field in major motion pictures that come through here is entirely visual effects. The grain is also added in post. Now adays there are so many set extensions and tiny things that we dont notice at first glance that almost 75% of scenes are all composited depth of field and grain / motion blur. Sorry if these are run on sentences, but im multitasking and working right now.

I just wanted to point out that so much of the depth of field blur/ motion blur/ grain is added in post its a bit unreal.

Dunno if that comes as a shock to anyone...
 
t-h-e-w-h-o said:
I would say a fair 70% of the depth of field in major motion pictures that come through here is entirely visual effects. The grain is also added in post.
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Where did you get this figure? I find it hard to believe that studio would want to spend more time and money in post production to mimic an inherent nature of the medium they're shooting on. This meant that directors on set would actually have to consciously block their shot so that DOF are deep, which with film is probably about as much work as us trying to get shallow DOF with our camcorders.
 
Well if you want do high end vfx work, the footage needs to be clean, sharp and high resolution. Then they make it look film.
 
ive worked on 3 feature films in the last 2 months, and now im working on a mini series. Im saying in every shot we did VFX roughly 70% of them have depth/grain added in post
 
You guys, he's right. It's done all the time.

The Elusive Film look is a mass of efforts, not just retarded-extremely shallow DOF. Sometimes, the shot can't be composed as the director or DP wants it, so they complete plates so that later... subject a and b can be sharp focused while the rest of the background is slightly out.

On the VFX shots, I think they're grained up to match the original film footage... but I have read a lot of cases where composition couldn't be done in camera so they used post effects to do it.

On DOF in general: Another member here mentioned how super shallow adapter users are considering this the "film look". The only time I ever see super shallow DOF is on close ups or ECUs. There's generally always a great amount of detail even though it's separated with lighting and such in the backgrounds.

I'm inclined to call it Photographic DOF, the super shallow stuff, because every second looks like a still photograph.
 
I know where your comming from,

basically what hes saying is that, so much of the final shot nowadays is done with multiple elements that straight footage is rare, and that because when things are made up so different elements (mostly digital) you have much more control over it, adding shallow DOF is no more difficult than just applying a filter, (if your using depth maps from your 3d elements or using direct DOF renders).

as a side note heres a set extention I was testing with (footage kindly given by a fellow DVX member)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9UxR0yYYOw

(please don't kill me for the mistakes, its only my silly tests)

But basically I can totally control the DOF in that shot because the only thing real is the actor.

sorry for pluging my stuff :)
 
Hey that was tight, Anhar. Very simple but looked like pretty good tracking. What'd you use to do that?
 
hey thanks Kholi,

I used PFtrack, funny thing was I was scared that it might not track, after nailing the co-ordinate space in PFtrack everything just "locked on".

I think Shallow DOF is over rated, just a personal view, it should be just used sparsley here and there on key shots. my 2cents
 
t-h-e-w-h-o said:
bingo. exactly.

And the other 3 guy above me are also correct. kholi has a good understanding. :) DO you do vfx kholi?
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I'm JUST starting out. Very small time but have been reading up on it for quite some time. I feel that to really understand the monster, you gotta understand the different components and VFX is an integral part.

Always thinking about composition as well, and I know for a fact that composing a shot as simple as having two distinct objects or items standing out is extremely hard to achieve in camera. There's generally a vision for such a scene that calls for post manipulation, and people don't ever notice it.
 
Hehe... this isn't my experience...

You're taking film originated plates, rotoing and simply blurring areas for
simulated DOF? Thats most likely a specific necessity for the project's
aethetics if thats the case.. its not the standard.

I'm a vfx supervisor here in town.
 
well im just saying in general. It may not be the stadard, but thats 3 films in 2 months that have required a lot of it. Im not saying its ALWAYS that, of course it isnt, but i would venture to guess it happens quite a bit.
 
Greggl said:
Hehe... this isn't my experience...

You're taking film originated plates, rotoing and simply blurring areas for
simulated DOF? Thats most likely a specific necessity for the project's
aethetics if thats the case.. its not the standard.
I'm a vfx supervisor here in town.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Done a lot, not standard.

I think I saw a breakdown somewhere of LXG, where Tom Sawyer was aimin' to shoot a rifle and they needed to composite a soldier in sneaking behind him about eight to ten feet away because they couldn't have both sharp at the same time. That's the kinda specifics I'm referring to.
 
Blurring elements or matching the optics of a specific shot to integrate elements
into a plate is standard practice for all composites. We're not talking 'simulating'
a supposed film for most theatrical films...today, almost all films go through a
DI stage and color correction without extensive manipulation except for their
vfx shots.

The dof, chromatic characteristics and lens coatings used for 35mm shot films
today isn't a digital trick.. its just 'film'.
 
I think I misunderstood the original post as "It's not just film, it's a bunch of other post stuff a decent amount of the time that goes into it."

That's what I thought he was talking about?
 
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