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I've lost all hope for the "film look"
OK. I just bought Final Cut Studio for my new 2 gig G5. I'm trying to finish my feature film by giving it the film look.
In the past, when I had FCP 3.0, I simply ran the "De-interlace" filter and it worked great. Seriously. No problems.
However, with my fancy dancy new FCP 5.0, it looks like complete sh*t. WTF happened?
How can I get that 30fps look without having to invest in new software. There has to be an easier way. I've tried duplicating the video track, putting deinterlace filter on v1 with an odd setting and v2 with the even setting, playing with the opacity, etc...but still get weirdness. Is there an easier way?
Why wouldn't just slapping that good ol' deinterlace filter work as it has done in past? If I would've known this crap, I'd kept 3.0 around long enough to finish my film.
Another crazy thing that happens is even when I have all the filters applied like I think, I export as a self-contained quicktime file, open it up on my NTSC monitor and still see it at 60i. Are there new rendering issues with FCP 5.0 that I need to be aware of as well?
HELP 
Deinterlacing isn't the best option unless you are comfortable throwing away half your resolution.
I would suggest biting the bullet and buying the nattress film effects plugin set....it's only $99 and it is one of the best purchases i've ever made....you can get some fantastic looks...especially when you depart from the inbuilt presets.
video is always going to look like video unless you use some kind of plugin....the ways to do it within FCP with layers, composite modes and deinterlacing will only take you so far.
having said all that i havnt noticed any change in the deinterlace in FCP 5, it looks fine here apart from it throwing away half my resolution.
Well I have two things to say...
You can start by shooting video to look film-like, 30p or 24p, ala a DVX or any other descent camera
and
the Magic Bullet filters can give you some great film-looks as well.
Also, I've had to mix 60i and 30p together and achieved a pretty good parity just by using FCP's deinterlace and setting it to Flicker Max. I can't imagine that 3.0 had some magical setting that is now lost in 5
"I would suggest biting the bullet and buying the nattress film effects plugin set....it's only $99"
at the least. this is your feature film? $100 is a no-brainer. i would start there. i would try everything to see what was best for the look that i wanted.
magic bullet is steep in price, so maybe you could find someone who has it and have a few looks applied to a small piece of your movie, say 3 scenes cut down (cause the render on MB is a monster).
if that was the best, bite THAT bullet. because relatively speaking the price of that software is nothing compared to the cost of the overall film. additionally, you've cut your corners and made your compromises and this is the last push...this is it. this is the final look of the film 'forever'.(i understand you could sell the film for a million bucks and do it then at lucasfilms, but you get what i'm saying)
that is always my mindset. i also always think nowadays indie feature films can be, essentially, cut for 'free' compared to 7-8 years ago when a week on an Avid then, is the same price as FCP studio itself now.
i guess if money is a real real issue, you could buy the plug in, use it, then completely uninstall the plugin/program and ebay the software. (i'm assuming that this is legal - no?)
fp
OH! And BTW - If you want your material to look like film - why not use FILM!
Video doesn't look like film, no matter what you do - really!
That's why there are Film Festivals. Please don't use FCP as an excuse. The monitor you view it on is what counts.
"Video doesn't look like film, no matter what you do - really!"
correct.
I second the Nattress solution. The limits of what you can achieve are endless. There are so many different options in this great package it makes the mind spin at first. Once you have had a chance to really work with it, you find that each and every tool really has a set purpose.
Foley just posted anothe classic "Foley," AKA, dumb, fake (as in Foley) advice. Think about how ignorant, arrogant, and asinine you "advice" is. You weren't given advice, you're a being a smartass, internet creep.
I'm assuming you shot your movie in digital. You have now so many ways to attain the "film look". I put it in quotes because "film look" is elusive and subjective. There is the frame rate, the highlights, the depth of field, the luminosity, etc. Personally, now that movie releasing is going toward digital, I'm beginning to find other ways to achieve the cinematic experience. Film look for me is how to frame, light and edit digital video now, to give it the classical film look of movies that were made in the 40s and 50s -- eliminating the use of zoom, unjustified camera moves, unjustified camera POVs, flash cuts, jump cuts, outlandish special effects, etc.
<<eliminating the use of zoom, unjustified camera moves, unjustified camera POVs, flash cuts, jump cuts, outlandish special effects, etc.>>
Good things to avoid no matter WHAT kind of "look" you're trying to achieve....
Scott
<<< If I would've known this crap, I'd kept 3.0 around long enough to finish my film.>>>
Nobody brought this up yet, but you did a massive change and upgrade in the middle of the film? Will you ever do that again?
You know there are three different deinterlace options, right? Upper, Lower, and interpolated. The first two use one television field and guess the missing fields, the last smooches the two existing fields so there is minimal difference between the two. Have you messed around with those options?
Yes, you should have shot film.
Yes, you can get the Film Look with video. One of the graphic artists shot his production with one of the Sony HiDef cameras. There is one scene where he messed up and didn't get the exposure quite right. For all the rest, I dare anyone to tell me it wasn't a telecine session from film.
By the way, that's our "fake" poster. He usually shows up looking like John Foley, but the address and name changes.
Koz
The built in crappy de-interlace filter is the same in all versions of FCP as far as I can tell. Now with FCP5 you've got a lot more options for realtime preview, so you're probably seeing a low-rez preview. Render it and play back out over DV and it should look identical to how it looked on previous versions.
As noted, you can do a lot better than the in-built tools, but there's no reason why they won't work as well as they've worked before.
Graeme
[ www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X
"OH! And BTW - If you want your material to look like film - why not use FILM!
Video doesn't look like film, no matter what you do - really!
That's why there are Film Festivals. Please don't use FCP as an excuse. The monitor you view it on is what counts."
-Send me the 250,000 dollars I'll need for film development and processing and I'll be happy to use film to re-shoot my movie. Thanks Mr. Foley, Folly, whatever.
I'll check the nattress solution out. To be honest, I'm pretty broke, not to mention I'm on a deadline.
here's the film, with the trailer if anybody is interested in checking it out:
www.simplyfobulous.com
For some reason or another, deinterlace worked last time. There weren't really any options for it in FCP 3.0. I'll try doing another cheap try at the max flicker setting and see what happens.
I KNOW it can never be truly film. I shot it very film-like, I just don't want the 60i look. I'd be happy with 30fps. I don't need 24fps.
thanks
Rich
I LOVE the film filters that Graeme Nattress has developed - I'm a new customer and very very happy with the results - I just screened my film at a festival on a very large screen and it looked amazing - his 'film look' is very distinct and completely obliterates the 'video look' that I wanted to move away from... made a big difference...
"OH! And BTW - If you want your material to look like film - why not use FILM!
Video doesn't look like film, no matter what you do - really!"
WOW... that's pretty mean-spirited and totally incorrect to boot. Magic Bullet does a pretty amazing job converting video to a nice organic film look. So does Tinderbox's Film plug-in.
BTW, Rich...
Toolfarm is having huge "One Day Sales" (50% OFF) starting Feb 27th on select plug-ins and Magic Bullet Suite (best 3rd party Film-Look plug-in in the biz as far as I'm concerned) happens to be one of them.
[ toolfarm.com] (Toolfarm Home)
[ store.yahoo.com] (Magic Bullet page)
I never saw nattress plugs in action, but I have seen these. This is an awesome deal.
- Joey
Post Edited (02-23-06 11:51)
When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.
I've never seen the magic of Natress.
How well does it achieve the film look when DV movies edited in FCP are projected in a theater? I assume that's the goal, but nobody has specifically said that's where their movies are going to be playing.
Thanks,
Mike
A friend in Montreal used Nattress Film Effects on an indie movie, which was projected digitally at the NFB Cinema in Montreal on a 12' screen in their nice screening room. Looked great! I test Film Effects on an 80" screen here too, again projected digitally, to make sure it works great, and it does.
Graeme
[ www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X
Montreal is where my DV film screened and looked kind of mleh. Had I only known...
I'm excited to try the trial version, thanks for offering it.
Please try it out and see how you get on, and do email me for any help or info you need. The tech support we offer at Nattress is "the best". I wouldn't put my name to anything less.
Graeme
[ www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X
I just downloaded it. I'm not going to have a chance to play with it for a few days (at least until the compression problems I'm asking about in another thread is dealt with). But I'm excited to try it out.
Thanks again,
Mike
This has turned into a Nattress plug-in sales thread. Sorry about the Magic Bullet thing.
When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.
...and he lives in Canada, too!
I'm in Ottawa, Canada.
As for sales thread, we're a small company that uses word of mouth marketing, a great product and wonderful tech support, to sell a product that's priced right for everyone to afford. I can't compete with competitors' marketing budgets, print advertising and hype, but I can and do compete on product.
I don't ask for people to recommend my product - they do so because they like it and feel that it's the one for their needs.
I love to help people out, hence why I hang out here. It's where I get my best ideas from for my plugins.
Graeme
[ www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X
Graeme,
Hey...not saying your stuff isn't good, because I have not tried it. It's just that everytime someone asks for a suggestion, the sales pitch starts (you're not the only one). It's just weird, that's all. Mike's a different type of forum CEO because he allows advertising & sales in the open forum. A lot of other forums frown madly on selling anything. I am just not used to it.
BTW = IDEA FOR PLUG-IN: How about a plug-in that speeds up rendering of layers with plug-ins on them? The only reason I don't do any FX in FCP is that the rendering is THE WORST.
- Joey
When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.
No worries Joey. These days I hardly ever have to recommend my products as people just dive in (as they did above) to tell the world about them.
I wish that such a plugin could exist for FCP..... That would be wonderful.
What I am doing though is moving everything I do across to the GPU which is producing amazing results, the first of which is a great set of plugins for FinalTouch. That will, in the end, help up render time a lot, and floating point quality is nice too.
Graeme
[ www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X
"BTW = IDEA FOR PLUG-IN: How about a plug-in that speeds up rendering of layers with plug-ins on them?"
Plug-in a faster Mac!!!
Faster, Will Robinson, faster, faster!!
< tee hee>
Koz,
No! This really was the real John Foley. I suppose it is my tiresome listening to people who want to make $100 look like $1000.
I will always take respnsibility for my own postings, and this one is way out of control. If what I said was worthy of this name calling, then so be it but I am really tired of hearing people who tell the truth called assholes and other such derogatory names.
My purist attitude about trying to make video look like film is based on experience. You can't just show a film originally projected on a film projector, then converted to 29.97 and shown on a television look the same. Even when you start with true film, it looses the effect in the translation. Can you watch a film at the theater and then go home with the very same footage on a DVD and have the very SAME experience? Well, I can't!
This trying to make video look like film reminds me of what has happened to the music industry. Its called the dumbing down of listening and watching.
So, I suppose if you can't take that then it's just too bad cause it is very true.
The name calling because someone has a diffrent opinion is just plain childish and those who do so are evident.
I'm stll having a hard time with
[How can I get that 30fps look without having to invest in new software. ]
That 30fps look would be closer to video!!! LOL.
Although lots of commercials were shot 30 fps for more pleasing video finish, the 24 fps look is film rate.
Part of the magic of real "film look" is film viewing in a fllm theater on a film projector, and that half the time, you're sitting in the dark while the next frame is moved nto the gate, which means two things: 1) you should be paying half price, and 2) your mind is building the rest of the scene. Video for all its convenience, bombards you with more fluid information-- you sit mesmerized and I think with less participation. For me, that was the magic of film. It was a tad more participatory on a very deep perceptive level. You tend to "own" a movie as if it you dreamed it. In fact, you dream half.
You get some of the magic back by shooting 1080 and transferring to real film for release, so all is not lost.
- Loren
Today's FCP 5 keytip:
Place and edit Marker labels immediately with M-M !
The FCP 5 KeyGuide?: your power placemat.
Now available at KeyGuide Central
www.neotrondesign.com
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