film look

T

trebax

Active member
I was watching the making of a feature film and i noticed that the deleted scenes did not have the same picture quality as the movie itself. In fact it looked more like a camera that would cost less than $2000. The picture was not as smooth looking, had more light, and less detailed - lacked the traditional "film" look. Does anyone know what these studios post-preduction wise that allows the film to look so different?

I noticed that even the Broken dvd, which was shot with a panasonic dvx-100, contains the same element.
 
most of the time on DVD's that the movie was shot on video then transferred to 35mm film the deleted /extra scenes were never transferred to film so you are viewing the video ...

on movies that were shot on film - they are editied digital ..usually it is a low res transfer to digital format for editing ... at some point they will pull the negative for the shots that are in the edit .. some times the deleted or extra scenes come from the low res eidit files and not the pulled negative that is printed to film for release ... so the movie on the DVD is high quality and sometimes extra/deleted are low res files ...
 
There's a ton of post work done on film, color timing, dust & scratch removal, etc... that doesn't get done to the stuff that ends up on the edit room floor.
 
Also, often times the film is shot in a specific way, knowing what the post production process is going to be like. Example: For 21 Grams, the film was shot on 500ASA and 800ASA. These two film stocks were rated at 1000ASA and 1200ASA for filming, meaning that they critically underexposed the film during shooting. Then, the film was push processed heavily to achieve the intense grain that the film had. Sometimes, when you see images from this film on DVDs or Documentaries, you see the film before the push processing and before the color work was done. This makes the film look poorly shot, but it was shot for a specific technique to be applied to it.

Most of the time, you are seeing a negative, however, that has been over-exposed in order to increase the color quality. This film will be pulled down in post, but the negative you are seeing the over-exposed image.

Lastly, finishing stocks often times have their own characteristics that lend to the look of the film. It is impossible to view this until the film has been finished out for the release/preview negative.
 
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