Hi all,
Infrequent poster here. I am working with Super 16 footage I shot on a Bolex that turned out to have a number of issues - light leaks on one side of the frame, a nasty thick hair along the top of the image, and a slight but persistent registration problem. The gate on the camera was recently converted and as I used to finish on film (I make short experimental films) this is my first time actually finishing on video. After talking to a few friends, I decided to scan to 2k instead of 4k as it seems like some find the higher resolution more noisy. So, with all that background...
I am thinking my workflow should be as follows:
1.Picture lock without processing any of the footage.
2. Use Premiere's Warp Stabilizer with no motion option (footage was all shot on a tripod except for a couple of shots which I will treat separately). Also select "no crop" for stabilizer.
3. Crop the image to hide all/some of the light leak and hairs. I assume that the crop will have to be the same across the whole project so that the grain size remains consistent. Am I right about this?
4. Grade and export
Does this seem like the right way to go? I only ask about 4k above as I'm wondering if there will be less degradation/softening of the image after cropping, but if that resolution is noisier anyway, maybe not? The final presentation is for a video installation on two 60" monitors, if that makes any difference.
Thanks so much for your help and advice! Happy to post examples if that would help.