The old Ektachrome look on video

[GeorgeSelinsky]

Unfortunately, Kodak has discontinued the VNF Ektachromes, stocks that I found had an interesting color palette. Of course, many labs started charging ridiculous money to develop VNF film (Rocky Mountain and Bono want something like 0.59/ft for 16mm - alrighty there guys!), which offset the cost savings on the filmstock.

 

I was thinking of a straight to taper that would look really great with the old ECO look, as if it was shot in the mid seventies.

 

I know, the right thing to do is to shoot on color negative and then have the colorist do the magic. But recently I've been looking at some internet footage from the DVX100A (traitor I am), and I have to say I am very, very impressed with this camera.

 

I know I may be asking others who haven't done it to hypothesize along with me mentally, but is it possible to use Red Dot's Magic Bullet and the DVX100A in 24p mode to get (or, shall I say, approximate with decent accuracy) the look of a film shot on 16mm ECO? What about the depth of field of the DVX100A vs regular 16mm, are we in an even remotely similar league here? Remember we're talking straight to video here. If I wanted to go to print I imagine that the DVX100A would be a pixel sea compared to ECO shot with an old Angeneux 12-120 wide open.

 

I am choosing the DVX100A because it is the only 24p DV camera I could reasonably afford to rent or buy - although I'm ALWAYS scared of buying video cameras, it's called "and six months later they came out with model X which totally kills the previous one!!!!"

 

Any speculative comments, educated guesses appreciated...

 

- G.

[Thomas Worth]

With the right software on a PC, you can pretty much simulate any look you want with any format. I've shot stuff with a cheap, $300 Panasonic camera from Best Buy and ended up with a 24p clip with an old 'chrome 16mm look from the 70s. And this was without Magic Bullet.

 

It really doesn't matter what you shoot on. As long as you are good with After Effects or Combustion, you can get pretty much any look you want. I can post some "before and after" examples if enough people are interested.

[Scot McPhie]

Apart from 24p the only real significant thing about the DVX100 is the on board film gamma settings - if you underexpose to give your self some head room you should be able to replicate that kind of a gamma curve in post anyway with another camera. So I wouldn't think that a DVX100 was absolutely necessary for this. I don't know about the ektachrome pallete though - there should be away to approximate it one way or another in post. Motion and grain properties will be something else though :P

 

Scot :)

[andrewbuchanan]

I can post some "before and after" examples if enough people are interested.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yes, examples, please. I love to see what other people are doing.

[Alex Ced]

Yes, examples, please.  I love to see what other people are doing.

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of course...

[Sam Wells]

If I wanted to go to print I imagine that the DVX100A would be a pixel sea compared to ECO shot with an old Angeneux 12-120 wide open. - G.

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Right you are. ECO was a nice stock, albeit slow slow slow. Some of the best 16 >35 blowups have been done from it, a bit grainier than you'd expect but sharp and great color.

(But prime lenses, not 12-120's !!)

 

No one will believe this as I speak from observation and experience, instead of from what I've read on the internet.

 

VNF is different than ECO. Maybe you could fake it sort of. I've used Magic Bullet with DV footage, it gave a filmish look. Here goes THAT argument again, I don't want to go there.

 

I personally - if I was spending your money :D would shoot 7279 or 7248 and play in telecine if I wanted "faux" VNF

 

-Sam

[GeorgeSelinsky]

Right you are. ECO was a nice stock, albeit slow slow slow. Some of the best 16 >35 blowups have been done from it, a bit grainier than you'd expect but sharp and great color.

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Interesting, I would think that at an asa of 25 the grain would be extremely minimal (like the grain on 7245). Maybe the older intermediate stocks were more grainy, but again, maybe the T-grain is really such a drastic improvement that we can have blowups from asa 100 film looking better than from ECO.

 

It's a bit tough to test this, although I spotted yet another few cans of ECO for sale on ebay again, "refrigerated fo 20 years" - combine that with Rocky Mountain's processing at $0.69/ft and you have a really good deal :P . Unfortunately the stuff I shot on ECO I am almost 100% sure I threw out, I was a kid back then and had no idea of how to shoot film well :lol: I did nail the exposure though...

 

Anyway, I am aware that the VNF films are of a high gamma, so that's why I decided that video would be able to approximate them better (and man, if you overexpose Ektachrome it's about as bad as video I'd say). I think a 3 chip camera can come reasonably close to matching the VNF palette (after all, those films didn't have masking that helps give film its excellent color reproduction).

 

Please do post those examples, Thomas. I'm interested in exactly how these settings are arrived at in AE, I can manipulate color balance but I've never played with color reproduction characteristics.

 

- G.

[Chance Shirley]

Regarding depth of field/focus on the DVX100: I've been renting a DVX100 lately and have found the depth of focus much deeper than 16mm. Everything usually looks very flat, focus-wise, unless you're zoomed just about all the way in. And even then, it's still pretty flat.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> . So I wouldn't think that a DVX100 was absolutely necessary for this.

 

Me either. There have been better cameras around for a long time. It makes me laugh every time someone claims to have come up with some amazing new advancement that's only possible with this camera (not that George's enquiry is one of these, nats.)

 

Phil

[Sam Wells]

Interesting, I would think that at an asa of 25 the grain would be extremely minimal (like the grain on 7245). Maybe the older intermediate stocks were more grainy, but again, maybe the T-grain is really such a drastic improvement that we can have blowups from asa 100 film looking better than from ECO.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yeah I was a little surprised, because altho it was shot in the 70's the intermediates were 5244 and prints on Vision Print stock - recent blowup, modern stuff.

 

A direct 7245 > 2283 seemed consderably finer grained.

 

BTW it was not uncommon at one time to post flash the 7242 and 7240/VNF Ektachrome stocks, so in some cases they could have have a more delicate look.

 

-Sam

[Thomas Worth]

Here's a quick-and-dirty example of what can be accomplished in either After Effects or Combustion without any third-party plug-ins. This particular example was done with Combustion 3, but the same result can certainly be achieved with After Effects.

 

I was going to post Sorenson 3 QuickTime clips, but I realized that the small size really doesn't show the detail very well. So, I instead opted to post a zipped file of an already compiled NTSC DVD (the entire VIDEO_TS directory) that can be burned to a DVD or CD and played on a DVD player. This should give you a better idea of the effect:

 

Download ZIP file (20 MB)

 

Here are a couple stills showing before and after:

 

Before:

 

After:

[Sam Wells]

"Before" looks much more like 7240 than "After"

 

-Sam

[GeorgeSelinsky]

"Before" looks much more like 7240 than "After"

 

-Sam

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Yeah, agree with Sam on that. Thanks for the post though, Thomas. It looks like a reversal dupe actually.

 

I just downloaded a demo of the Magic Bullet software. It splotches a very annoying logo right over the image so it's hard to really tell what the heck it looks like, but if you choose a wide shot you can make it out more or less.

 

I used footage from a 1 chip Sony camera, it's not bad but it's no Ektachrome either. It doesn't have the motion rendering (that is only available in Magic Bullet Suite with AE). The color is interesting, I tried the "Buffalo" setting (I guess that's supposed to make it look like 7239 given that this is what Buffalo 66 was shot on) and all it seems to do is crush the blacks and pop up the saturation.

 

The "Posterize Time" filter in Premiere (for going from 60 fields to 24 p) is total BS, btw. It turns your resolution into crap and the motion rendering isn't smooth at all. I think AE's built in filter was better.

 

I would really have to test the f*ing hell out of this setup to get anywhere with it, and I'd definitely have to try using a better camera. Maybe I'll get decent results.

 

This sucks. I loved how you could get the short ends of Ektachrome so cheap at one point, it was almost like shooting film for pennies (like at 9 bucks a minute, 10.50 a minute for push - a real bargain compared to color negative). You could load it into a Bolex, shoot with Kern Switars, and it had such a cool look esp. when projected.

 

I wish I had bought freezerloads of it then, had I only known. I guess you only realize how much you miss something when you loose it. It's ludicrous, it costs MORE TO SHOOT EVEN Super 8 now than 16mm VNF recans, and we're talking maybe an 8 year difference. Now I gotta play with all this video nonsense to make it look like something half passable. Yuck.

 

To paraphrase the Stones, "I know it's only Ektachrome but I like it, like it, yes I do..."

 

- G.

Edited March 11, 2005 by GeorgeSelinsky

[Thomas Worth]

The references I used were old public domain films from the 60s and 70s, which were very contrasty and grainy. The colors were also fading, especially in the magenta and yellow layers.

 

Here's a version of the "before" frame that is more contrasty, and with slightly less latitude:

 

[GeorgeSelinsky]

One of the things I wonder about is the brightness range of camera original Ektachrome versus a given DV camera. I really wish there was a way of plotting the two next to each other. I think that the Ektachrome would be able to hold the sky as well as the DV did, that's the thing. Maybe the dupe would already start blowing it out like you have on your last image.

 

The next step would be color reproduction.

 

Btw I have a reservation about digital grain, I think it looks fake as all hell and when it's faked on DV, the compression artifacts get really nasty.

 

- G.

Edited March 11, 2005 by GeorgeSelinsky

[Thomas Worth]

Btw I have a reservation about digital grain, I think it looks fake as all hell and when it's faked on DV, the compression artifacts get really nasty.

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When I simulate grain, or do any type of color or VFX work at all for that matter, I never recompress to DV. I always go to a lossless format. The only other time the footage is compressed is when it goes to DVD.

 

How are you doing digital grain? It certainly doesn't have to look fake -- in fact, digital grain is added all the time in feature films when compositing CG with previously photographed action.

[Sam Wells]

One of the things I wonder about is the brightness range of camera original Ektachrome versus a given DV camera. I really wish there was a way of plotting the two next to each other. I think that the Ektachrome would be able to hold the sky as well as the DV did, that's the thing. Maybe the dupe would already start blowing it out like you have on your last image.

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I'd say the Ektachrome still has the advantage of the curve in the shoulder (shoulder: rem we're talking reversal). High end video cameras are starting to get pretty good at this, and probaly see into shadows better.

 

I still say Before # 1 resembles 7240/7239 camera original more.

(also if you wanna get nit-picky, VNF has a slight warmish cast as it was designed for direct to video transfer with a Xenon light source).

 

But George, unless you need to match some specific VNF footage, why not invent your own "reversal look" ?

 

Show me a fake AGFA Precisa maybe :)

 

-Sam

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Once again, don't try to make it look like "(insert filmstock)", try to make it look right for the production.

 

If right for the production means that kind of aged, faded, duped-reversal look you came up with earlier, then fine.

 

Also, I still don't get why you need Magic Bullet for this. You should be able to do anything it can do with curves and levels.

 

Phil

[David Mullen ASC]

I agree with Phil -- people's impressions or memories of older film stocks is SO subjective that you should just make the stock look the way you want it to and stop worrying about whether you are exactly mimicking the curves of some old emulsion. If you want a faded look, go for that, if you want a lot of contrast, go for that. Very few people can accurately describe the ECO look, including me.

[John Pytlak RIP]

Very few people can accurately describe the ECO look, including me.

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I'm been around long enough that I certainly could try! ;)

 

I used 7252 for shooting a film project that was used for my training assignment when I first joined Kodak in 1970. The title of my film was "A Wind or B Wind, Which Kind?". Also used B&W reversal for some flashback scenes. Made both 7389 and 7387 reversal prints, and some prints using 7271 as an internegative... I better stop before I feel too old! :lol:

 

For those who don't remember, ECO was a low contrast camera color reversal film that was optimized for duplicating through an internegative system. Very popular for 16mm industrial and educational films in the 1960's and 1970's, before the Kodak ECN-2 color negative films came along. Had an EI of only 25T.

[GeorgeSelinsky]

I agree with Phil -- people's impressions or memories of older film stocks is SO subjective that you should just make the stock look the way you want it to and stop worrying about whether you are exactly mimicking the curves of some old emulsion. 

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I generally agree with your sentiment. The only thing is if I can find a way of replicating a specific SYSTEM that I already was familiar with, that can sometimes serve as a starting point for a departure to another look if so desired. Also, that's important if you ever want to match VNF footage, which I might want to do.

 

- G.

[David Mullen ASC]

I generally agree with your sentiment. The only thing is if I can find a way of replicating a specific SYSTEM that I already was familiar with, that can sometimes serve as a starting point for a departure to another look if so desired. Also, that's important if you ever want to match VNF footage, which I might want to do.

 

- G.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

How experienced are any of us here on this forum with shooting ECO?

 

And exactly why is the VNF look so desirable? Soft & grainy with poor exposure latitude? You can't make color negative behave that way? Let's all at least agree that VNF was a pretty mediocre color reversal product (compared to Kodachrome or modern E6) that was only useful for when you wanted something to look like a 1970's 16mm documentary or something similar -- i.e. of limited use. Now and then you get something interesting to look at like "Buffalo 66" but there are limits to how often you can get away with that style.

 

Anyway, it's clear that none of us can agree on what ECO looked like, and many here haven't even seen VNF, so you're pretty much free to make up your own look.

 

The best thing is to scan some specific VNF footage, then try and match your new footage to it digitally.

[Thomas Worth]

Also, I still don't get why you need Magic Bullet for this. You should be able to do anything it can do with curves and levels.

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Phil's absolutely right. George, don't waste your time with Magic Bullet. Just start experimenting. You'll eventually get the look you want. :)

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> The only thing is if I can find a way of replicating a specific SYSTEM that I

> already was familiar with, that can sometimes serve as a starting point for a

> departure to another look if so desired

 

A good idea. But if you shoot video and try to make it look like VNF, you won't be teaching yourself to shoot VNF, you'll be teaching yourself to shoot interesting-looking video - no bad thing though and it might be quite an education. You do normally end up shooting the most bent-looking video to give yourself room to go where you want to go in post.

 

Phil

[GeorgeSelinsky]

And exactly why is the VNF look so desirable? Soft & grainy with poor exposure latitude?  You can't make color negative behave that way?  Let's all at least agree that VNF was a pretty mediocre color reversal product (compared to Kodachrome or modern E6) that was only useful for when you wanted something to look like a 1970's 16mm documentary or something similar -- i.e. of limited use.

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I don't think it was that soft (okay, softer maybe than EXR), and I don't think it was that mediocre. I mean, what is mediocre? You're always going to have crappy exposure latitude even with a modern E-6 reversal, that's not mediocrity, that's just the nature of the type of film you're using. The grain was of course a serious issue, which is why I wasn't crazy about those stocks at first. But then I got to enjoy the texture of the grain more (more than color neg grain). The color reproduction is also different than the standard ECN-2 we're all used to seeing everywhere. Why do people skip bleach their film (something which I personally find to look worse than VNF by a far shot)? They want a different look.

 

I certainly am not saying that VNF would be my standard choice for shooting film, and yes, this is a SPECIFIC look that I'm after. One reason being I'm trying to invoke the look of that era, as you mentioned. I want to make that mental association with an older look.

 

That said, if I had a choice between a high quality SDTV camera and VNF Ektachrome, I would take VNF Ektachrome in most cases esp. if we're talking blowup (where you can go straight to IN). I saw the similar looking ME-4 Ektachrome blown up for "Gimme Shelter" (available light in many shots) and man, that smacks a DV to film transfer down like nothing. Maybe it was grainy and contrasty, but I felt like I was at that concert when I was sitting in the movie theater. The only thing that prevented me from being totally immersed was the optical soundtrack (even though the sound at live rock concerts isn't always top rate, esp. then).

 

- G.

Edited March 13, 2005 by GeorgeSelinsky