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Make your video look more like film!
When you buy a $2500 digital camcorder you somehow expect that your videos will look more like the latest rental at Blockbuster. The holy grail of videographers: How do I make my video look more like film? This question is probably asked at least once a week on the video newsgroups. This page will continue to grow as more people send in tips. If you have any tips please send them to me at: video@guygraphics.com. Hopefully you'll find some pointers and tips on how to make your video look better, and dare I say--more film like.
It’s not entirely the medium.
You should know that VHS is just about the lowest video format around. With only 240 lines of resolution, VHS is easily surpassed in quality by SVHS, HI8 and DV, not to mention the professional formats. Why is it, then, that your video shot on a high format tape and then transferred to VHS does not seem as pleasing as some of the films that are released to video? Well, on this page we will give you some tips on how to make your video look more like film.
Turn down the enhancement.
One of the tell-tale signs of video is the increased contrast and over-sharpness of the picture. It turns out that those tiny CCD arrays create a "soft" image. In order to sharpen the picture, your camcorder electronically enhances the video signal coming from the CCD array. If overdone, this sharpening can produce a slight glow around objects in your video. There are a few ways you may be able to avoid this over-sharpening.
On some of the newer camcorders there is a setting in the menu for sharpness or contrast. By turning this setting down you can control how much sharpening your camera adds. You may find that if you shut it off completely, or turn it down to zero, the video picture may be too blurry. Play around with the settings and find the one that looks best to you.
If your camera does not have any way to adjust the sharpness there is still hope. We can diffuse the the light going into the lens of your camera by using a filter. With a Tiffin Pro-Mist filter you can reduce the sharpness and add a film-like glow at the same time. If you're looking for something on the cheap side try securing a piece of nylon (lady's pantyhose) to the front of your lens with a piece of rubberband. If you try different colors and thickness you can come up with a variety of effects.
Colored Filters/Gels
By using a combination of colored filters in front of the lens and colored gels in front of your light sources, you can create many effects ranging from subtle to outrageous. For that next movie on Mars you may want to try using a reddish filter. Or, a blue filter with green gels for your next underwater adventure.
Depth of field.
Being able to control and selectively focus the camera is a skill well worth mastering. Next time you watch a movie notice that everything in the picture is not in focus. This helps to draw your attention to the main action. The depth of field, or area in focus, is directly related to the aperture of the lens. When the aperture is greater the depth of field decreases--which is the effect we want.
Rack Focusing.
A trick that will really add to your video is shifting the depth of field between the foreground and background with the action. This draws the audience’s attention where you want it.
Auto Focus vs. Manual Focus
Of course, all of the preceding will only work if you can manually adjust the focus of your camcorder. Using the automatic focus of your camera will give away tell-tale signs of "video". Whenever there is movement in front of the lens there is the possibilty that your camera will readjust its focus. Watching the picture go in and out of focus can be very distracting.
Shoot video like film.
Just because your video camera has all sorts of great features doesn’t mean you have to use them. If you use your camera as if it were a film camera you’ll end up with better quality video.
Don’t Zoom.
The zoom effect is the most overused video effect. It does have it's place, but be careful. It is almost always better to move the camera than to use the zoom. Consider fabricating a "steadicam" or a tripod dolly.
Use a Tripod.
Unless you're going after that "Blair Witch Project" look use a tripod. Using a tripod will help you get a steady shot. Make sure you get a tripod with a fluid head so that your pans and tilits will be smooth.
Post Production Tips
Commercial Filters/Effects - If you're looking for a "one stop" solution for creating a film look there a few ready-made solutions. My personal favorite is CineLook by DigiEffects ($695). It allows you to control film grain, color curves, contrast, and more. It includes presets for many of the common film stocks. CineLook ships with FilmDamage a filter which is specifically designed to add defects to your video. Hair in the lens, frame jitter, uneven focus, dirt, dust and scratches can all be added realistically. While CineLook does a really good job, it requires After Effects and a lot of processing power. If you are going to use it a lot it is recommended that you use a dual processor machine.
Another "do all" plugin is FilmFX by BigFX ($499). It works with a variety of programs including Premiere, After Effects, Incite, and Razor.
The lowest price filter is AgedFilm by DigiEffect ($149). It works in PhotoShop and Premiere. It specifically is designed to make our video look like the old sepia-toned movies. If you tone it down, though, you can achieve respectable results.
Use whole frames rather than fields. - Troy Derrick
2 ways to do this, either use a progressive scan camera (I've been told they exist but I've never seen one), or secondly alter the footage in post. How you do this varies from system to system, but a universal way to make your video footage seem like it's 30 frames per second (as opposed to 60 fields per second) is to speed it up to 200%, render it, and slomo it back down to 50%. This has the net effect of removing all 2nd fields and interpolating (or duplicating, depending on the system) the missing lines from the 1st field. Of course most edit systems have a better way to do it than that.
The resulting shot will run a smidge less smoothly than film at the same frame rate due to the doubling of shutter speed to capture fields ie, (loosely..) the shutter is open for 1/60th of a second per field of video, but a full 1/24th of a second per frame of film. This affects things like motion blur, exposure etc etc
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