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Making Digital look like 16mm film

Discussion in 'Fan Films, Fan Audio & SciFi 3D' started by dvdcdr, Dec 26, 2012.

  1. dvdcdr

    dvdcdr Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Aug 8, 2006
    I am trying to get some footage from my camcorder [Sony NEX VG20] to match some 16mm reversal. I have not had much success beyond overlaying a simple grain plate. The results are not too stunning.

    Anybody have any experience with this, know of any good resources, wanna take a stab at it? etc.

    [​IMG]


    [​IMG]
     
  2. drewjmore

    drewjmore Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 15, 2007
    What do you mean by "match"?
    Have you got footage from both sources, or are you just trying to level up your film look?
     
  3. dvdcdr

    dvdcdr Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Aug 8, 2006
    "Level up" the film look? Sorry don't understand the terminology. I have 16mm footage and digital footage, and I am trying to get the digital to match what was shot on film.
     
  4. drewjmore

    drewjmore Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 15, 2007
    Right, got it. I wanted to be clear that you had two different camera sources, versus simply trying to add effects to make digital look like film.

    Simplest thing would be using AE or Ppro color correction tools to get a color pallette match, plus the grain add you've mentioned.
    How much footage are you talking about?
     
  5. dvdcdr

    dvdcdr Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Aug 8, 2006
    I'm looking at a 2-3 minute scene, half of which was shot on digital and half film.

    I have been adjusting color and such in AE and my success has varied depending on the shot. Some like this turned out all right.


    [​IMG]


    The shot in my OP [and others like it] are giving me more trouble. Generally the more white in the background and more I had the iris open makes the transfer look not so nice. I am not really doing much besides basic curves and color adjustment. I am wondering if there is anything more advanced.
     
  6. drewjmore

    drewjmore Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 15, 2007
  7. VaporTrail

    VaporTrail Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    May 19, 2002
    How are you going to show the final product? Scan the film or make prints of the video?
     
  8. 2284

    2284 Jedi Master

    Registered:
    Apr 29, 2009
    It's typically best to color-match shots channel-by-channel. Both the Levels and Curves effects can manipulate an image's color channels individually (via drop-downs); the Hue/Saturation effect is also often effective when paired with either of the two aforementioned effects, and its “channel” selections are somewhat more robust. The Match Grain effect is invaluable for this kind of work, but if it fails, a bit of fiddling with the Add Grain effect might suffice. What's more, they both include color channel intensity sliders!

    Below are the monitor window color channel hotkeys. Each toggles between the three-channel color image and its respective channel.

    Option + 1 = Red

    Option + 2 = Green

    Option + 3 = Blue

    The channels are also accessible through a drop-down menu, at the bottom of the monitor window, denoted by three intersecting circles (green, red, blue).

    As you probably know, the grain effects are rather computationally intensive, and therefore default to a preview mode in which a small, user-selected portion of the screen is rendered. Many individuals, however, are unaware that After Effects includes a region-of-interest selection tool. It's located just right of the resolution drop-down, at the bottom of the monitor window, and allows you to define a rectangle which essentially delimits all rendering in that composition to the given rectangle.

    Here's a cheap trick (courtesy of Andrew Kramer): Render a few seconds of grain on a solid. Export. Import into project and loop over footage. Avoid needless rendering.

    I would also suggest that you set your project bit depth to 16 or 32 bits-per-channel—preferably linearized—in order to avoid color banding.

    Good luck.
     
  9. IndyFan89

    IndyFan89 Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Apr 27, 2007
    Film convert has got some good reviews for converting video to look like film. I use magic bullet myself but it looks promising.

    http://www.filmconvert.com/