Film look on digital!

[Jamie Yukich]

There are many posts regarding film vs digital, but I was wondering if any of you have found a good mix in the middle. Obviously i love the cost of doing things digitally but it doesnt always live up to the film look. Im currently a film student working on a short and am most likely going to use the hvx200 but I am researching different techniques to give it that "film look". What has worked best for all of you? Whether it'd be post techniques or during production etc....thanks A LOT

[David Mullen ASC]

It's been well-discussed...

 

One issue I have with the whole topic of a "film look" is that movies shot on film don't have a monolithic look. How can you say that an old 3-strip Technicolor movie or b&w movie looks like a modern color movie? Or Super-8 looks like IMAX? Yet they are all shot on film.

 

Personally, I think the more constructive thing is to (1) breakdown the specific visual qualities of film you want to emulate, and (2) breakdown the specific visual qualities of video you want to avoid or minimize.

 

Often what it really comes down to is not making the video look more like film, but making it look less like classic notions of video.

 

For example, depth of field. It's not that film naturally has less depth of field -- look at deep-focus movies such as "Citizen Kane" -- it's just that on average, something shot on a video camera with a 1/3" sensor will have a characteristic deep-focus look, so one method of disguising that it was shot on that 1/3" camera would be to get a shallow-focus look.