I'm a student at Karelia -university in Finland. I'm writing my thesis on "How to make digital video look like it was shot on film in the 70's". My thesis aims to answer questions like 'why did movies look the way they did in the 70's', 'why and how does deteriorated film look' and 'how can you achieve that look with modern tools'. I focus on the post-production part.
If you could answer one or more of the following questions, I'd be most grateful. Or if you know a book or a website (other than Wikipedia) which deals with these subjects, that could help too.
1. How were the colors of the film altered or enhanced in the 70's? If I understand correctly it was done chemically somehow. Could you alter colors separately or would the alteration affect other colors as well?
2. How has film stock improved from the 70's to this day? 35mm film was used back then and it's used nowadays, so what is different? For example, older movies look softer or blurred compared to movies nowadays. Is this due to film stock getting better, or some other factor?
3. Color fading. I've come to understand that the colors of the film stock fade at a different rate. Cyan fades faster than yellow and yellow fades faster than magenta. Still, I have seen older horror movies that are quite heavily blue tinted. Of course I haven't seen them on film, but on DVD or Blu-ray made from the film. Are there some variables to how the colors fade?
4. Why do older movies have more film grain than newer movies? They are caused by silver particles in the film stock, if I'm correct. Is this due to film stock or camera equipment getting better?
