How to make film look like digital!

cscs · November 9, 2009

Hello,

I am currently shooting an advert at university. The advert is a parody of a news report and therefore the director wants the advert to look as digital as possible. We have to shoot on Kodak film as it is one of the guidelines of the competition we are entering.

There is lots of information online about how to make digital look like film but I was wondering whether anyone could inform me of ways to do the opposite.

I plan to use 50D or 250D in attempt to get a less grainy look. We are shooting 90% of the advert on exterior locations in the daytime.

Hope you can help.

Thanks

Cenay

K Borowski · November 9, 2009

Are you trying to get it to look like HD or SD video?

You can make this very simple and simply shoot off of a television monitor to avoid having to do any degradation yourself.

Low-con filters, frame rates (at least here in the land of 29.97), and lighting styles will all go a long way.

Or, of course, why not just use a video camera and transfer that to film?

David Mullen ASC · November 10, 2009

Heavy noise/grain reduction coupled with electronic sharpening goes a long way to making film look like video. Some IMAX DMR blow-ups can get that way because of all the grain reduction combined with sharpening.

Beyond that, you could try shooting at 30 fps if this project will be finished in video and is for 60Hz display countries only (i.e. 480/60i or 1080/60i or 720/60P).

Satsuki Murashige · November 10, 2009

Don't use any ND filters and stop down to an f/8 or so. Maybe overexpose by a few stops to blow out highlights and then pull it back in telecine. Use hard frontal lighting. Shoot at 30fps.

Tom Jensen · November 10, 2009

Shoot the entire thing on video and then project it on a tv. Shoot the tv monitor with a film camera. This is what we did on this Nirvana video. Kevin Kerslake got a bunch of old tv cameras and shot the live performance then I took a film camera and shot the monitor. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InQWcq8_VPg

cscs · November 12, 2009

Thank you for all the advice. Very helpful.

Ian Cooper · November 12, 2009

Thank you for all the advice. Very helpful.

Bearing in mind you're based in the Uk (ie. PAL land) I wouldn't recommend shooting at 30fps!

25fps means both upper and lower fields are the same frame, shooting at 50fps would give a more 'video' look as both the upper and lower field will map to different film frames... giving the same type of look as shooting 30fps would for a NTSC transfer.

Andy Karkut · November 14, 2009

Here is my question regarding the Nirvana video:

If one was to try it now, would it make sense to just shoot the thing in video and not bother with capturing the footage with a film camera? I guess I'm asking, are there inherent aesthetic advantages of shooting video, then playing back on a TV monitor and capturing that on *film*? (Obviously the choice of stock would also be a factor, no?)

I think it's a very cool technique, but am wondering about the justification behind trying it now.

Edited November 14, 2009 by Andrew Kassagi

Edgar Dubrovskiy · November 14, 2009

Telecine as usual (to DigiBeta/miniDV/etc) and then transferring that to VHS.

Jim Carlile · November 27, 2009

If one of the guidelines is to shoot on Kodak film, they may not like it if it is originated on video-- they'll see right through it, if they are so inclined, and you might get penalized.

Mei Lewis · December 6, 2009

The original poster asks for help making film look digital, but then all the advice he receives is about how to make film look like video.

Are those two words used interchangeably? I'm new here and new to cinematography and I'm still just learning the terms.

There are lots of non-digital video systems aren't there? Like all the old ones?

The Nirvana video (great band, great video!) couldn't look less digital to me. It looks very old and analog which I think was the intention fo the people who made it?

To make something look digital wouldn't you shoot it so that pixels were visible, and maybe add compression artifacts?

Phil Connolly · December 6, 2009

Shooting at 50fps will go a long way to making it feel more like video - but if this is for the Kodak student commercial and you still only get one roll - thats not going to be practical. You could try some motion interpolation software like twixtor to generate a smoother 50fps look then convert that to interlaced - getting you closer to the video look.

But that might be going a bit too far. A couple of years ago the NFTS did a Hellamans Ad for the Kodak comp. Its was a Jerry Springer spoof and obviously shot on film - but a combination of bright flat lighting and a slightly muted colour pallet - seemed to sell the illusion that it was a studio type TV show.

Shot by Stuart Bently, I think it works quite well:

http://www.stuart-bentley.co.uk/siteNorm/p...tedProjectId=42

Video artifacts can be added in post as well - plenty of plugins for after effects and fcp that let you do things.

Geovane Marquez · January 25, 2010

Why not simply shoot on an HD cam?

Chris Keth · January 25, 2010

Why not simply shoot on an HD cam?

It's for a kodak sponsered competition where the students are given free kodak film with the one rule that everything in the film originate on that film.