GH2 Holy sweetness... has anybody else tried out FilmConvert?

Chris Adler said:
The use of grainy 16mm film in Black Swan had nothing to do with making the movie look "old" or like it was shot on a low quality source..
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I watched around 15min of that movie before I called it quits. It doesn't matter what camera/format a movie is shot with if the viewer is not entertained.
 
Jim Simon said:
For quick turn-around broadcast, that's not surprising. For American cinema, it'd be a very different situation.
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Well yes it's a different situation. The screen is much larger when projecting the image compared to the small screen. Which means the size of your grain gets even bigger and is even more evident.
 
What was the point of your comment?

Aside from the story I couldn't get into, the grain also left a bad taste. The point being I don't watch movies because of film grain or because it was shot with camera X, I watch movies to be entertained.

Walking dead folks said they shot on 16mm because they thought the grain helped give the viewer the impression of an old 50's Horror flick mixed with the feel of a documentary and if they had shot HD or 35mm would have added grain in post to give the old movie feel. I wonder if they have ever looked online at the comments from viewers who feel the grain is just too much?

When I started shooting 35mm, 16mm was a grainy low cost format used for TV stations to shot the news on, low cost documentaries, and home movies. It wasn't until budgets started to drop and 16mm film stock got better that 16mm was even used in production. Now with production budgets shrinking even further, Fuji stoping film production in 2013, and Kodak's woes, I seriously can't see film being used in production past next year. Of course you do realize that in 10 years you will be able to get a popular new plugin app to replicate that nasty digital look from old cameras like the Epic and Alexa.

All the Best!

Dave
 
L1N3ARX said:
...The 2 together are enough to transform the image in a way that helps with suspension of disbelief.
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I think you nailed it right there. It's all about suspension of disbelief. That's what we're after. We know film delivers it so we've been breaking down the film look for a decade or so now. I've been reading these boards for a long time and before that I ran a small filmmaking board of my own in the late 90's early 00's. I've watched it all unfold.

1. Zoom in with your 1/3" chip camera to try and knock out the background. Paint the white walls colors and gel the windows to reduce blowouts.
2. George Lucas get's 24p Sony cameras. Followed shortly after by DVX100's with 24p
3. Raw image tapping of DVX100 using cable and computer with whatever that hardware hack was called that very few people ever bought into.
4. Spinning DOF adapters
5. RED mania and the disillusion with the price still being too much for many people.
6. DSLR's with large sensors (big applause from the shoestring budget crowd)
7. Hacked GH1/2 with higher bitrates and large sensor video cameras.
8. BMC with Raw and greater dynamic range (the RED for the rest of us)
9. ....who knows? 4K? Advanced filmlook software? Nagra 4.2 recording?

We've been chasing the suspension of disbelief by breaking apart what the film look is piece by piece. From frame rate to shallow DOF to HD at higher bitrates to higher dynamic range to color grading and grain libraries made from real film stocks.

Personally I long for the look of movies like Alien. Point me to a digital cinema camera or a technique that can give me the look of that movie and movies like it from the late 70's and early 80's. Because I love that era of film. I love it more than all the modern film stocks that came after it. There is just a tonal quality about that era of film that is perfect for suspenseful sci-fi and horror. A kind of dark textural look to it. But I imagine that we'll never be able to achive that look again. There are just too many variables that came together beyond the film stock itself. The audio recording method, the costumes, the sets, the visual FX, the music, the style of acting, the lingo of the time, the hairstyles, the expectations of the audience, our memories of what we believed it looked like. The list goes on.
 
Hmmmm....

Devils advocate mode on:

is it just me, or do some of those presets turn the blacks in a noisy, bloby disaster?

Look at the guy with that grinder - the original looks alright, but as soon as they apply the looks, everything dark and out of focus turns into madness. Compression and Vimeo introducing all sorts of artifacts on top of that.

Which brings me to my next point, how do play noise(grain) and compression together?
How much quality and information do we loose by adding grain, cause the compression codec cant handle that or tries to soften it out?

Frank
 
@Postmaster Valid questions, though there is one variable that is getting overlooked. The addition of grain can often help reduce banding issues caused during re-compression (though they do nothing to really help with banding already present in the shot footage or editing session).

In terms of the RED footage, are you referring to the subsequently re-compressed footage? I attributed almost all of those artifacts to the Vimeo re-compression, but if you were talking about uncompressed stills, I'd happy to take a look and check my assumption.
 
At times, having the pros predictably chime in to belittle digital shooters - is equally as tiresome as noobs posting about how to get a 'cinematic look'.

Anyways, I've tried a couple of shots with FilmConvert demo, and I'm not seeing much improvement. I'll keep testing across all the stocks.
 
Fresno Bob said:
Anyways, I've tried a couple of shots with FilmConvert demo, and I'm not seeing much improvement. I'll keep testing across all the stocks.
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Yeah, I have used the free demo to apply a look to some shots I have done.

The first shot worked brilliantly; its a close up of a guy driving a motor-canoe down the nile. He is is focus, and the background is not. The Kodak film stock makes it look lovely; I was very pleased with the results straight off the bat.

When I applied the same stock to another shot (another motor canoe passing by in the opposite direction, with everything in focus including a lot of background foliage) it looks terrible. I tried playing around with the settings but everything made the shot look worse. Bearing in mind that the two shots were taken with the same camera, lens and lighting (about 2 minutes apart).

I'm using the FCPX plug in (it integrates well by the way). Just wondering how do you calibrate it for different sensors (I believe they have done it for RED and Canon DSLR's)?
 
Since I only have Premiere Pro 5.0 I cant use the demo (require PP 5.5 or higher). I would have to buy CS5.5 upgrade, or CS6...which is MO money. I dont quite understand the "stand-alone" version and the work flow that would be involved. Will there be a "stand alone" version for windows, and does it accept AVHD files for processing before importing into Premiere?
 
I believe there is something in this thread that says a PC version is at least 8 months away.

check their facebook, I think that's where it came from.
 
Funny responses to someone's observation about a plug in. It's just another tool to help in the pipeline. If it's not for you, nobody really cares. Don't use it. If you dig it, then it's there for ya.
 
Hey, I agree different strokes. But it has been my observation that it is film geeks who more than not treasure film grain and muted colors, and most of the average viewing public treasure a bright clear vivid picture. Just saying, remember who is your intended audience is before you start adding cheese. Not to say I don't use an ample supply of cheese at times. The majority of my work now is broadcast TV commercials where an agency is always wanting to whore up a good commercial with fonts writing all over the screen, logos exploding, and crap flying all about, with the thought that all that stuff is going to make someone buy the product. People don't care about all that stuff, either the product is good and they buy it or it is not and they don't. In a similar way, people don't really care about film grain or what camera was used to shoot a movie, either it was a good movie and they were entertained, or they were not.

I'll leave it here.

All the Best!

Dave
 
Who knows. I think the grittiness adds to it, and a series/movie is a mix of tons of ingredients. The story wouldn't be any different if it was pristine clean, but that the feel would be.

One of the big complaints I had about Prometheus was that it was too clean and surgical looking. I love the Epic but I think the imagery in that film wasn't served as well with a squeaky clean image as it would have with more texture.

But it's all subjective.
 
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