Edit question : super 8 look?

C

Craig Zarkos

Member
sorry if this is in wrong section, but besides actually shooting *gasp* a super 8 film camera for effect, is it possible to get that super 8 look from the 7D, by utilizing plugs etc. in FCP...? or?

I just got FCP yesterday, and have barely cracked the hood, so go easy on me!

cz
 
My day job is a motion graphics designer and animator, so I spend lots of time doing treatments for footage. For the Super 8 look, you're going to need After Effects, NOT FCP. There is a plug-in called Magic Bullet that you can give looks and add grain and it comes out looking OK. You can add scratches and degradation using stock footage. It's actually really hard to get a good super 8mm treatment.

I see the super 8 treatment all the time, and I can usually spot it pretty quickly.

The best thing to do is just to shoot it on Super 8. Unless you really know what you're doing in post, it's much easier to just shoot it on the actual format.
 
Super 8 traditionally was a reversal stock with a very limited latitude, and was very contrasty. It didn't have a lot of detail because of the small size of the image, and the colors are very saturated.

These days, you can get negative stock as well as reversal from Pro8mm in Burbank, which will have the full latitude of negative, so it is going to depend on what specific look you are after.
You might want to experiment by shooting footage side by side Super8 and 7D, with both Neg and reversal super 8. Transfering the footage and comparing the two side by side in After FX will really show you what you need. It's a fairly cheap test to do, and should answer all of your questions.

I'd love to see what you find out!

Chris
 
I recommend contacting DVXuser member youngindiefilms. Someone else mentioned the Digital Harinezumi months ago, and youngindiefilms decided to try to achieve the same look via filters in his NLE as an alternative. I think that his results are pretty convincing: http://www.vimeo.com/5690243
 
The one thing I miss about 35mm adapters is the zooming out to see the frame and the weird blur it gives from the groundglass. It made it alot easier to get a super-8 ish look. But none of the tricks or filters really match super-8. I love it and still use it!
 
this thread made me want to try to see if I could get a super 8 look out of 7d footage. I don't have a 7d so I downloaded some footage from the footage/stills forum here: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=186503 (thanks norbert by the way and I hope you don't mind).

anyway I'm not sure if it came out all that convincing but I'm pretty sure the look is probably achievable for someone if they tried. It was kind of a pain though but doing a film-to-digital transfer of super 8 footage is probably a hassle as well. that's why I kind of like that harinezumi (which isn't bad for $170). anyway this is what I came up with:



(I like the new vimeo tags by the way, pretty sweet)
 
killacam, that was definitely not bad! I thought that it was pretty convincing. If you tell us how you did it, then I'm sure that it would be helpful to some people here.
 
wow, killacam very impressive.

I see tons of people tyring to get that old look and its usually super obvious and annoying to look at.

Ive usually dont see anyone that actually gets a pretty close approximation to it, kudos.

Next though, why would anyone still want to get that old school look? Unless your trying to do some old school period piece.

jon!
 
stephenmick said:
Agreed! Nice work, killa. Any directions as you how you got there?
Click to expand...

I'm suprised you don't already know how to do this...wow. Just kidding, but I do use a preset in lightroom which is how I grade and has an awesome super 8 preset. I should try to replicate it in AE as a preset.
 
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You gotta laugh doncha .. we spend all this money to get superb equipment that can produce wonderful pictures .. then we turn it into an approximation of 8mm c**p.:happy:
 
Well, the high quality gear and high quality output gives us the flexibility to fashion the exact crap look that we want. It's much harder to do when you start with a crap look that you DON'T want. :)
 
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