Production
design is another thing that makes video look like film.
Be aware of how colors are used in the frame. Are they bright?
Are they dark? Is there a dominant color or one constantly
excluded? Or is everything the way it was before you got
there? Make sure everything in front of the camera is a
choice. Examine something as simple as the color of the
walls: In a Hollywood movie, are interior walls ever off-white?
No, they are either bright white or a darker, moodier color.
This is a micro-budget problem because most houses have
off-white walls. Off-white works in real life, but looks
dirty in a movie. Take control of the wall color! Paint
them for the shoot-day and then repaint them so your mom/wife/landlord
doesn’t get mad. This is production design. What about
costumes? Have you color coordinated the costumes so not
only do they go with the locations, but they also add a
level emotional intensity? (This is where you ask: "Costumes
can have emotional intensity?") Yes: If the main character
wears bright, colorful outfits in the first half of the
movie, but when she falls into depression at the end of
act 2, suddenly she is wearing more and more black and gray,
the costumes add to the emotional intensity. Production
design is one thing that separates good micro budget movies
apart from home videos and it will make your movie look
more like film.
Things
to do while editing
This is what everyone really wants to know about. What is
the magic filter to make video look like film? I’ll
tell you: It is called the “go back and re-shoot your
entire movie on film” filter. Call Kodak and Panavision
and you’ll be on your way. Now, aside from being a
smart-ass, I do have some things to do to make video look
more cinematic (notice I didn’t say “like film”).
With any step in moviemaking, don’t rush this because
you’re "almost done." Take your time. Be
thorough and consistent.
The
easiest, and most expensive way would be to buy a filter
package such as Magic Bullet or CineLook. These packages
will address the motion of film as well as the look of film.
I’ve used both and like Magic Bullet the best. If you
plan on using it, don’t shoot in ‘movie mode’
because MB works best with 60 fields interlaced video. MB
retails for $1000 or $500 for students and requires Adobe
After Effects. Unfortunately, renders can take a long time
(each second of video took 4 minutes to render for one of
my projects). [Editor's Note: Graeme Nattress
released his Film
Effects package which retails for $100 and will deinterlace
interlaced video and conform it to 24fps after this article
was originally written.]
If you
are a micro budget filmmaker, don’t buy a filter package.
Spend that money in front of the camera on costumes or props.
Almost everything that is done in these filter packages
is possible just using a nonlinear editing application or
compositor. Listed here are a few tips and techniques to
try once completely finished editing.
Color
Correct
I think this should be done on all video no matter what.
First, get all the shots in a scene to look the same. If
the white balance was wrong, the color tone may have to
be adjusted. Otherwise, fine-tune the exposure on each individual
shot. Now, develop a look for the scene. Nest the entire
scene into one clip and experiment with filters to see what
looks good. This stage is another license to get creative.
It doesn’t have to look exactly how it was shot. For
example, add some green to give the scene a sickly, institutional
look. Experiment with “curves” or “gamma.”
The advanced will adjust the color channels separately.
For a more in depth article of color correcting using FCP,
Andrew Balis wrote this
excellent article.
Desaturate
Colors
Some people think reducing the color intensity makes video
look more like film. It is a look. I have used it before,
but I don’t use it in every situation. Many video editing
applications have a “desaturate” filter. Experiment
de- and over-saturating the image. Again, the more advanced
colorist will adjust each color separately.
Crush
Blacks
For whatever reason, video cameras don’t record the
dark areas as black as they should (a contrast problem).
Nest the scene and make the blacks blacker. This is done
in the color corrector (Final Cut Pro and Avid) by reducing
the lows or with a filter called “Levels” by increasing
the black input. Experiment with settings until happy.
Blur
the Highlights
This is a trait of some films. The very bright areas of
the frame are blurry and almost bleed into the areas directly
surrounding them. Duplicate the nested scene and put it
on an upper video layer, perfectly aligned with the original.
Add a small Gaussian blur (2-5), reduce the opacity to 3-10%,
and change the composite mode to Screen.
Add
Grain
Most video editors have a “noise generator” of
sorts. Generate some noise that is colored and randomly
changing (under it’s settings). Put this in the timeline
above the scene. Reduce opacity and experiment with composite
mode (multiply might be good for this). Keep the opacity
low–a little goes a long way. I should note that I
almost never use this anymore because I don’t like
film grain anymore than I like a video look.
Widescreen
Dramatic media, whether on TV or in a movie theater, is
often presented in widescreen. This is another thing that
helps convince an audience that your movie is more than
just a home video. On video, add those annoying black bars
on the top and bottom of the screen by putting a black color
slug on an upper video layer and add an inverted 4-point
garbage matte filter. This is better than applying the "widescreen"
filter because this way you can adjust headroom on the clips.
If you plan on doing this, shoot accordingly–try taping
black bars onto the on set video monitor.
De-Interlace
The above 6 suggestions dealt with the look of film. This
attempts to make the motion more cinematic. Video is 60
interlaced fields. Film is 24 frames per second. We can
take video to 30 frames progressive (sort of). Most video
editing software has a de-interlace filter. Unfortunately,
it cuts the vertical resolution in half. Here’s how
you can maintain more of the resolution. Duplicate a nested
scene onto an upper video layer perfectly aligned with the
original. On the lower layer, apply the “de-interlace”
filter with even fields. On the upper layer, apply the “de-interlace”
filter with odd fields and reduce the opacity to 50%. If
you notice jagged edges, you may consider reducing the opacity
to 30-50%. If you shot with the camera in 'movie mode' this
step is not needed.
Other
Options
There are tons! You can buy plug-ins or just experiment
on your own. Do a google search for “video look like
film.” Just remember it’ll never really look like
film and be careful not to degrade the image too far with
all the ‘improvements’ you made–video doesn't
have the latitude of film either.
(Reprinted
with permission from JorenClark.com
)
