Making Video Look Like Film

[jbridges]

How about some tips for a dude with little fundage trying to make Mini-DV look more like film. I know messing with Depth of Field helps. Any other suggestions out there? [img]graemlins/sure.gif[/img]

[Nigel]

Yeah...Shoot Film.

Buy a 5 dollar Super8 camera and from there it is just how much you want to spend.

Good Luck

[jb_617]

I'm with Nigel on this one. You can't make DV or video look like film. Ever. Can not. If you look into it, 8mm is cheaper than DV. 16mm is also well affordable, even on a "sod all" budget.


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16mm baby...16mm.

[jbridges]

Sounds good. Problem is I have lots o tape and have a JVC DV500. Gotta work with what I got you know? Just thought there may be some tricks out there as far as filtering or a common trick with aperature settings.

[jb_617]

The best advice I have is use what you've got as well as you can. If you're shooting video, make it look like really good video. Nobody is really going to care what you used if the picture is good enough and the film is good enough.


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Just do it. <font size="1">TM</font>

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ January 12, 2005 11:53 AM: Message edited by: jb. ]</font>

[tim partridge]

Black promists are pretty standard for dulling the highlights on video- also it's the post packages like After effects and Magic Bullet that make the difference too.

Shallow depth of field is always seen as a cinematic cliche, not every project suits that look however. Keep some NDs handy just in case.

As long as you are proud of your format and you tell the story well through lighting, exposure and composition that's all that matters- talent will shine through.

[Brooks Productions]

Also a lot can be done in post - here is a nice tutorial for that [img]biggrin.gif[/img] Mikes fancy tutorial - you know you love it

[Tasty Fish Lips]

Take a look

[jbridges]

Someone just told me to stretch panty hose over my lense. Sounded pretty hot, but I wonder if it would do anything as far as making my video look more like film.

[tim partridge]

Adding Pantyhose is a technique called adding a "net" and this is an old trick used to get halation (sparkles of light) on highlights and smearing out skin detail (acne, scars, wrinkles, etc) when photographing women, traditionally for glamour photography. old fashioned diffusion used to soften subjects. If you use nets you have to have the aperture near wide open all the time, a) to get the strongest highlights halated, b), more importantly because go f5.6 or a higher number and it'll look as though you are filming through a chainlink fence! Depth of field has to be shallow so you are making the net transluscent, shooting through it and focusing on the subject BEHIND the net.

Usually you use go with a 10-8 denier stocking over the lens, black ultra sheen (to preserve contrast)- it's traditionally used for glamour photography, however people like Gil Taylor have used nets for other purposes like making scenery stand out against muddy lighting, as in the Tatooine sequences on Star Wars A New Hope.

As for it looking like film or not, in many ways it's the same as a black promist in the sense that you are shooting through a gridded pattern, but Promists allow you to go at any aperutre setting without being visible, nets ARE visible (chain link fence) if the depth of field isn't shallow. It's all subjective though -you may like the look and consider it to look like film so try it out, however consider the basics I have stated here.

I shot ON A NIGHT LIKE THIS (www.excelsiorkingspictures.com) with both a #2 Black Promist in the mattebox and an 8 denier pair of stockings behind the lens- format was DVCAM (DVC35 + DSR1 recorder). you can see I shot all of it wide open to get the sparkles of light on highlights and to soften up portraits using softlight (I used alot of smoked sets as well).

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ January 12, 2005 05:08 PM: Message edited by: tim partridge ]</font>