Magic Bullet's Grain Effect

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Drewcifer3000

Member
So, I am one of many upstart video guys trying to achieve that allusive "film look." I for one am less concerned with frame rates, gamma curves, and all that jazz, the effect I've been trying to emulate is the look of film grain. Sure those other things have alot to do with the look, but I've got my DVX and the right scene file settings, so 24fps and cinne-gamma should already be taken care of.

I installed my copy of Magic Bullet Editors, only to discover that the Misfire Grain effect was not at all what I was hoping for. I tinkered around with the settings a bit, but no matter what I did it only seemed to look like static on top of video.

Am I doing something wrong? Or is this really just a lame effect? So far I've been underwhelmed by the Misfire effects in general, so it wouldn't surprise me. Perhaps the problem may lie with me, since I know what "grain" is, but can't really describe how film grain actually looks. I guess I just know it when I see it. I am also dissapointed becase I am familiar with Photoshop, and the film grain effect in that program is wonderful.

I did a pretty exhaustive search on these forums and a few others, and couldn't really find anything describing the actual process.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
 
Don't add grain on top of your video, it just ends up looking like video noise. That's not what the film look is about. How often do you rent a DVD of a film shot on film and say "oh wow, that grain is amazing"? You look at the composition and the lighting.
 
I never said the film look was all about noise or grain. I know that it is a much much more complicated and involved process than just using a single canned effect.

And, for the record, yes, I do see a movie and say "oh wow, that grain is amazing." In particular, I noticed the grain in 300 a lot, but mainly because the effect was a bit overdone. And I assumed that like Sin City, it was all shot digitally, therefore the grain effect must have been added in post. Which got me on this tangent.

So, back to my main question, how can I, the lowly student videomaker, emulate that effect that I like so much? This digital film (http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=71299) has a very effective use of grain added in post, particularly the 2nd and 3rd shot. Sure it was shot on an HVX, but apparently they added the effect after the fact, so it's not IMPOSSIBLE. So, is Magic Bullet the answer, and am I just using it wrong? Or does the Magic Bullet grain effect really suck as much as I my experience wit it suggests?

Again, thanks for any advice!
 
I've been told that modern 35mm film transfer techniques produce almost no detectible grain. So the effect is really more of a vintage look, not a modern "film look." FWIW

The Magic Bullet effects can produce a fun vintage home movie look.
 
Ok, so 300 was shot on film, so I guess that was a bad example.

Even though it's a "vintage" look, I'd still like to add it, and by the looks of it Magic Bullet isn't the answer? Unless I want to go with a vintage "home movie" look, which I'm not.

So, if not Magic Bullet, what software out there can do it? Or is there some sort of by-hand technique that doesn't cost a dime?
 
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Geez louise. Yes, I know that lighting, composition, money, acting, storyline, blah blah blah are all very important to the film look, and that film grain is an almost completely insignificant factor to that look. I tried to state that in my original post, without going into every little thing that's more a factor than film grain. That would be quite an exhaustive list. Granted.

But, as my original question stated, I MYSELF happen to be fascianted with film grain, so I would like to emulate that, if at all possible.

So, to restate my original question for the umpteenth time, can this effect be accomplished with the Magic Bullet Grain effect? If so how, because I have been unable to get good results. If not, how else?

Thank you for taking the time to repond to my post, I really do appreciate it, but come on, can someone actually answer my question?
 
Now that's funny... Maybe Natress FCP filters can help you on this... As for Magic Bullet... Never tried it before... Try PM Graeme Natress.
 
Drewcifer3000 said:
Geez louise. Yes, I know that lighting, composition, money, acting, storyline, blah blah blah are all very important to the film look, and that film grain is an almost completely insignificant factor to that look. I tried to state that in my original post, without going into every little thing that's more a factor than film grain. That would be quite an exhaustive list. Granted.

But, as my original question stated, I MYSELF happen to be fascianted with film grain, so I would like to emulate that, if at all possible.

So, to restate my original question for the umpteenth time, can this effect be accomplished with the Magic Bullet Grain effect? If so how, because I have been unable to get good results. If not, how else?

Thank you for taking the time to repond to my post, I really do appreciate it, but come on, can someone actually answer my question?
Click to expand...

I would bet the tone of your responses to advice already given would guarentee a negative on that . . .
 
Yea, it would appear so. I think these forums are so over saturated with "film look" questions that people automatically give knee jerk response of "Story, lighting, production value, and 24P," even if it's a different question altogether. I didn't think it was all that tough of a question, nor was it one that had been asked before (emulating film grain, that is, not the whole film look thing).

As for my tone, I've tried to be as polite as possible, really I have, but it is kind of frustrating when people respond with everything but advice or an answer to your question. Althoug SPZ's comment was fairly helpful.

Perhaps this may be a question better served by other forums.
 
Drew, I don't use MB. Keyframing, have you tried to keyframe the grain control (slider?), as even varying the value ever so slightly over time, should achieve non-static grain. Now, perhaps the next question is, can you keyframe within MB? Good luck.
 
I'll bite. MB's grain is okay if you deselect the color box at the top and take it way down and tweak the black and white, it should affect one or the other but not both. I like all the colors at about 25 with the sofness at .1. It also only works if the camera doesn't move at all. Once the camera starts to move it becomes obvious that it's just swimming on top.
*I personally like to use a combination of gaussian blur and the sharpen filter. It can make your footage look nice and dirty without looking so much like a filter.
 
I've fooled around with the MB demo a bit and was also unimpressed with the grain. I too am more familiar with the Photoshop grain plugin and that led me to realize that I could apply a simple photoshop trick to making grain in AE without the annoyingly long render times of some of the plugins.

I make a 50% gray solid layer the size of my footage and use the built-in After Effects grain plugin. None of the presets really work for me but I find that tweaking the size and softness parameters get me closer to what I want. I also desaturate the colors a bit. Then I render out a short clip of just the grain on 50% gray to use as my grain plate. The loop doesn't have to be very long at all and you'll never notice that it's looping. Simply overlay the grain plate on top of your footage and adjust the opacity to taste. You can also further tweak the effect by adjusting the levels of the grain, blurring or sharpening it. I find this method to be much faster and more tweakable than any of the grain plugins I've tried.

Ideally if you needed to mimic a particular film stock you would shoot a middle gray card with the film and lay it on top of your footage (or cg element or whatver) in post. I would think that a collection of real film grain loops like that in HD format would be a pretty handy tool for indie filmmakers and certainly much simpler and more realistic than any of the plugins.
 
Boost gain in-camera. Keep it at about 6 even in the day and adjust accordingly. That works best for me and I think that's what they did in the HVX feature you mentioned.
 
i may be late to this but that particular thread and grabs he used a redrock m2 which can add a bit of grain, and maybe bumped it subtly in post. grain unless it's supposed to be noticed (ie 300) then it should be barley noticed. i believe in that particular thread that guy used it for aesthetic purposes.
 
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