Old and Retro

I've been working with final cut for several years now. The modern styles of high definition graded film have started to lose their effect on me. The use of blue-green filters are too trite now. Looking back on all those great movies that were created decades ago, we can see the beauty of the old film people were using. Movies like west side story, Rear Window, Laurence of Arabia, and Rosmary's Baby sport a unique style of color and tone. I've been trying to emulate these old color types of tones, yet havn't yet figured out a way to do so. I've used the color grading and correction tools that come standard in final cut as well as many plugins for the same thing, such as magic bullet. None of my attempts have succeded. Does anyone knows of a way or would look for a way to emulate the color of these beautiful movies? It would be much appreciated.

-MG

Do you have any good pictoral reference for exactly the look you're looking for? If so, then I can either tell you how to do it with my Film Effects plugin, or I can write a version that will do it for you.

Graeme



[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

I am not too sure that you are really talking about color -saturation-luninance as such with these older classic films, but rather the locations and the film stock used to shoot.

Film emulsions have changed greatly since those films were shoot in the 60's. That is PanaVisions territory. Trying to emulate or more likely recreate those images is really a lost art.

I look at it this way. Music and Films have gone through transitions that are not so good. It took really great musicians and directors and lighting directors and sound engineers and camera persons and all those support positions that bring together a genere of film or music.

Editing techniques for either music of film were radically differnet from those acceptable today. Hand cutting negatives to edit together a film was time consuming and allowed for little creativity, in a certain way. The editor could not create 10 different versions of the same story. It really was the vision of the director that got told on screen.

Today it is easy to shoot video and try to make it look like film. The real look of film is 24 frames per second, not simulated film from video at 30 fps. The RGB colors allowed by a computer are very limited in scope compared to film. Computer colors are typically bright and crisp, whereas film colors are subtle and has unlimited color space.

The only way I know of going back to the 60's and 70's is to truly use the same cameras and same film stock and same techniques and you will get a much closer rendition of the retro look.

Film doesn't have unlimited colours though - it has a large but measureable colour gamut, and indeed, because these old films still retain their look when transferred to video, there must be a way to manipulate video to give the look of these movies. Film is RGB (and it's compliments) also.... To say computer colours are bright and crisp is wrong - computer colours can be whatever you want them to be. If you want soft pastel shades, so be it. The trick in making video look like what you want is to be able to see what it is that causes the effect you like, and then to emulate it's essence. This isn't always easy, and different people see different things....

Graeme



[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

One of the big problems with video service over film is the gamma curve. Film has two special ones and video doesn't have any.

This is a major point of contention between the engineers and the producers. The producers all want the cameras to have "toe" and "shoulder" brightness curves to more closely simulate whites and blacks of actual wet-process film.

The engineers are all screaming that's the last thing you want. You really want a camera that captures everything (which is statistically accurate, but doesn't look so good) and apply the film curves later--under controlled circumstances.

"OK. Lets make this scene look like Kodak 5296."

If you do it in the camera, you're stuck with the look from that point on. People forget the millions of feet of film that were exposed and then put in the trash because the toe and shoulder were in the wrong place or got in the way.

As you discovered, once the video camera cuts off the blacks and whites, you're more or less stuck with the grays that are left in the middle.

But not always. I've seen this done. You light the scene slightly lower than normal contrast and brighten up the blacks with extra lights. Then you apply "film" corrections with the resulting video later in post.

You can only go so far with this process because you only have 8 bits per color to work with, but that comes far closer than you can do with regular camera video in post.

The "Film Look" people here in Hollywood have a demo tape with a lot of before and after on it. If you pay attention, the best "film" conversions are always of video shoots that were perfectly lighted.

Koz

Agreed, Koz. When I shoot video to add a custom gamma curve afterwards, I shoot as flat as possible, as well lighted as possible, I avoid crashing blacks or over-exposing in camera, and control my contrast range as best as I can. I like Ultra-Contrast filters to help me do this. I'm going to try and post up some before and after shots of what shooting flat + nice gamma in post can do, and it's just beautiful the difference it can make.

Graeme



[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

<<<When I shoot video to add a custom gamma curve afterwards, I shoot as flat as possible... it's just beautiful the difference it can make.>>>

And, of course, nobody wants to hear that. Everybody wants to convert "Mom's Trip To The Beach" so it looks like film.


We had a really simple product edit session that breezed through here on Friday. I sat the shooter down in front of FCP to cut it.

"Boy, I would never have shot it like that if I knew I was going to have to cut it."

Right.

Koz

When I shot film I used both my spot and spectra meters to measure every scene...shadows, highlights...and we'd spend time lighting, flagging, scrimming, putting negative fill in. Looking at Lawrence of Arabia, the images are breathtaking because they took the time to make them right...whether it was flying diffusion above the close ups or waiting for the right natural light for the big exteriors.

Best
Chet Simmons

<<<When I shot film I used both my spot and spectra meters to measure every scene>>>

And when you shoot in video, you hold up a wet finger to judge brightness and then press record--with the intention of fixing it all in post.

And you do that because the producers demand you do that. "Finally, we don't have to do that lightmeter and grip thing."

Maybe.

Koz