Film Emulation Plugins

scorsesefan

scorsesefan

Veteran
I've never been a big fan of film emulation software, but tis the season for Black Friday discounts and there are several including Filmconvert. Does anyone use any of these regularly and if so do you have a recommendation? Thanks
 
There are quite a few, and it depends on which editing program you want to use:

FilmConvert - Resolve/Premiere/After Effects/Final Cut - On sale
Dehancer - Resolve/Premiere/After Effects/Final Cut - Not on sale
Video Village Filmbox - Resolve - Not on sale
CinePrint16 - Resolve - Not on sale (but only $30)

I have and like FilmConvert, which is on sale right now. It is very easy to use and I use it all the time, not necessarily even to recreate a film look. When I A/B the footage with and without, I often find that I prefer what FilmConvert is doing, especially with skintones.

Dehancer is very popular on YouTube. In terms of film emulation, I think it looks a little better than FilmConvert and seems to offer additional parameters that FilmConvert does not.

I haven't used CinePrint16 yet. Rather than an interface, you're working with a pretty involved node tree in Resolve. Results I've seen look good though. At $30, it's almost a no-brainer for anyone using Resolve.

And in my mind, Filmbox is the best of the bunch, but it's $1000 and rarely on sale. However, there is a 1080P-restricted demo version that I use whenever I really want to try to fool the audience.
 
Is there a solution to get the look bleach by pass?


Ah, in the resorlve this is simply possible
 
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QuickHitRecord said:
There are quite a few, and it depends on which editing program you want to use:

FilmConvert - Resolve/Premiere/After Effects/Final Cut - On sale
Dehancer - Resolve/Premiere/After Effects/Final Cut - Not on sale
Video Village Filmbox - Resolve - Not on sale
CinePrint16 - Resolve - Not on sale (but only $30)

I have and like FilmConvert, which is on sale right now. It is very easy to use and I use it all the time, not necessarily even to recreate a film look. When I A/B the footage with and without, I often find that I prefer what FilmConvert is doing, especially with skintones.

Dehancer is very popular on YouTube. In terms of film emulation, I think it looks a little better than FilmConvert and seems to offer additional parameters that FilmConvert does not.

I haven't used CinePrint16 yet. Rather than an interface, you're working with a pretty involved node tree in Resolve. Results I've seen look good though. At $30, it's almost a no-brainer for anyone using Resolve.

And in my mind, Filmbox is the best of the bunch, but it's $1000 and rarely on sale. However, there is a 1080P-restricted demo version that I use whenever I really want to try to fool the audience.
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Thanks. Probably going to pull the trigger on Filmconvert for Premiere. I will use it on fx6/3 footage. Do you find in general that film conversion software degrades the image in any way?
 
Only as much as you want it to. Once you tell it that you're importing SLOG2 from the FX6, it's basically a LUT with film grain, and you pick a film stock that you like and then dial in (or out) the individual parameters: color, contrast, and grain size/strength. I think they are adding halation now too.
 
Thanks, just purchased it and playing around with it I like the looks it gives. Wish there was a Kodachrome setting ;)
 
They all have their pros and cons, filmconvert has the best grain, and in dehancer I really love the Fujifilm print film, but not so much the filmstock emulations themselves. These come across as a simple lut pack. But overall, filmbox is far and away the best, no competition if you want to come close to truly making it look like film. Dehanver and Filmconvert can help you achieve really nice colors, but it never really looks like film I think. My favorite way of using these actually is to first make it look as good as possible with filmbox, then a parallel node of filmconvert where I reduce the effect of it to about 10-20% and then a final serial node of dehancer with only the fujifilm print film section and the color head section.
53397106687_4b61394360_h.jpg
 
industrialbirds said:
They all have their pros and cons, filmconvert has the best grain, and in dehancer I really love the Fujifilm print film, but not so much the filmstock emulations themselves. These come across as a simple lut pack. But overall, filmbox is far and away the best, no competition if you want to come close to truly making it look like film. Dehanver and Filmconvert can help you achieve really nice colors, but it never really looks like film I think. My favorite way of using these actually is to first make it look as good as possible with filmbox, then a parallel node of filmconvert where I reduce the effect of it to about 10-20% and then a final serial node of dehancer with only the fujifilm print film section and the color head section.
Click to expand...

Could you post a link to a split screen video that shows a fully color graded video -- that has one side with the film emulation look and other fully-graded but without the film emulation? I'd like to see exactly what the film emulation does for you after all other grading has been applied. Got any examples of your own or someone else's of moving video that you like?
 
Doug Jensen said:
Could you post a link to a split screen video that shows a fully color graded video -- that has one side with the film emulation look and other fully-graded but without the film emulation? I'd like to see exactly what the film emulation does for you after all other grading has been applied. Got any examples of your own or someone else's of moving video that you like?
Click to expand...

here's a recent project I did with filmbox, and then a timeline node with filmconvert reduced to 20%. I graded this much less punchy than the above still. I've used both filmbox and filmconvert grain on this. On many shots I also used Scatter diffusion emulation (alongside shooting with an actual hollywood blackmagic 1/8 filter). I've also used mononodes density and rgb crosstalk DCTL's on a few shots. I didn't use dehancer on this one.



to make a side by side video is alot of work, but I could try making some side by side stills tomorrow if I have some time. but I can tell you the effect is huge, the original looks very bland in comparison
 
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Thanks for all the info but I'm basically interested to see a before & after split screen of the exact same footage so I can see what the film emulation is doing. In other words, Graded vs. Graded+film emulation.

Thanks for offer to do something custom, but please don't go to any trouble on my account, I was thinking you might be able to post a link to one of the companies you mentioned that makes the emulation software. Seems like that is a basic thing they'd have on their website. But if not, don't worry about it. I'm just curious to see what the effect looks like and the only way to judge it is to see it demonstrated side by side on moving video.
 
Doug Jensen said:
Thanks for all the info but I'm basically interested to see a before & after split screen of the exact same footage so I can see what the film emulation is doing. In other words, Graded vs. Graded+film emulation.

Thanks for offer to do something custom, but please don't go to any trouble on my account, I was thinking you might be able to post a link to one of the companies you mentioned that makes the emulation software. Seems like that is a basic thing they'd have on their website. But if not, don't worry about it. I'm just curious to see what the effect looks like and the only way to judge it is to see it demonstrated side by side on moving video.
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I think the best you could do is just download the free demo versions. They all have one.

this channel might be of interest to you, he shows his whole grading process and he uses dehancer and filmconvert alot, as well as cineprint: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFY...ZzYWeDNUu5P3fg
 
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