Getting a good grainy look in post with 60D

T

ToTheBack

Active member
I recently directed a music video with a DP who used a 60D and need to get a vibrant, grainy look to the footage to supplement what we shot. I wasn't able to get as high a shutter rate as I wished since we didn't have a ton of lights and the subject matter of the video is meant to be a gritty, hardcore fight-to-the-death between a few different groups of people. Right now, the footage looks good but a little too clean so I wanna dirty it up.

I'm editing with Final Cut Pro 6 and tried using Magic Bullet/Looksuite, but all it did was get a basic look and wasn't nearly as big as I needed it. It also kept freezing my computer so I wanna use another program. I don't have After Effects and haven't been able to figure out Color yet, but anyone have any ideas?
 
Why is a high shutter rate associated with a gritty look in your opinion. It kinda helps but that's not what's really gritty.

Anyway it should be no problem to get the look in post. Just up your contrast and play with your black and white levels. Also go either way with color either desaturate it or push it. In addition to that even a secondary color correction can help gritty it like taking a selection of color and knocking it out or back as if you were shooting on a film stock that treats a certain color that way. There's lots you can do. It's better you probably shot it clean anyway, you now have lots of room in post.
 
When you talk about upping the contrast, are you talking about the "brightness and contrast" filters in the quicktime effects folder in FCP? If so, I've been experimenting with it a bit since reading your post and have gotten interesting results though some of it resembles a bleach bypass look. Which filters are good for taking a selection of color and knocking it out? I haven't done much of that type before
 
Sorry I meant adjusting the brightness and contrast in the image in general, not necessarily using the brightness and contrast filters. I find that the 3-way color corrector gives the most control and should allow you to really stylize the brightness and contrast of the image. In addition to that if needed you can use the other filters.

Just play around with the image until you get what you need. As for the filter good for knocking color that would also be another layer of 3-way color corrector using the limit effect triangle at the bottom of the 3-way filter.

The fact that you are getting some interesting results is very encouraging and you can see that you are on the right track to getting what you want. Great to hear.
 
Here, I'm working on a very old project right now (shot with DVX) but that's not important. I did a quick (silent) tutorial for you (ToTheBack). Make sure to watch it at the highest youtube res you can because it might be hard to see if not. Hope this helps. It just shows using two 3 way color correction filters. Make sure to watch it full screen on your computer or you won't see my mouse.


 
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If you want a gritty grunge look try getting a 'grunge' style background image and placing it over your project and play with the composite modes until you find one you like. Then add some shake effects to just the footage, just the overlay image or both of them at different times.
 
After Effects grain functions are really nice, but render intensive.

For FCP, google "TMTS fcp plugin" (Too much too soon) - the guy has a lot of free plugins that simulate different looks.
 
magic bullet looks has some great grain options to throw in. I found that 2% grain works nicely, but for your purposes you will probably want to punch it up.
 
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