i just bought a Sony HVR-Z1U (i'm using FCP5). 24p isn't incredibly important to me (hence the Z1), but i'll be interested in that "film look" now and then, i know. what is your favorite way to fake 24p?:

-sony cineframe
-nattress g film
-magic bullet
-ken stone method (http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/film_look.html)
-all the other methods i didn't mention

i'm thinking of purchasing the nattress plugins because they're so affordable, and the demo looks pretty good. but i'm sure there are other plugins out there that i don't know about, so i thought i'd ask the great DVi's opinion.

1. Shoot in PAL Cineframe25

Other ways to get a film look:

2. Use a DOF adapter.
3. Shoot underexposed by 1 stop (bring up gamma in post)
4. Turn down sharpness.
5. Colorista for color grading

Besides doing everything you can in this article http://www.dvcreators.net/seven-secrets-of-shooting-video-to-look-like-film-intro/

I would say that personally, I like the Presets from Magic Bullet (these folks obviously spent some time working on various "looks" http://redgiantsoftware.com/lookguide.html

-but for the price, Nattress is the way to go.

It's pretty subjective though. What you may like or call a film look someone else may disagree. With the Z1U though, it is cool to try some tests with the Cineframe mode and see what you think - what looks good to you or your client is the most important. Personally, I like the 30fps mode better than the 24fps. Makes it easy to edit in FCP with the HDV Easy Preset too.

great article. thanks for the helpful reply.

i purchased the nattress film effects set. i really like a lot of the looks, but i have to say...i'm started by how "stuttery" the 24p simulation is. at first it looks great, but it starts to be very jarring after a few minutes. i know camera movements should be slow and smooth when using an effect like this, but it was more drastic than i thought it was going to be. perhaps there is a way to tweak this, i don't know. i'm going to continue playing with it.

Another thing that is more about shooting than post production: try and get a shallow depth of field, so that the background is out of focus. Having a background that's just as focused as the foreground is one of the video's "signatures."

after playing with the nattress g film, i noticed that the movement is not so "jerky" when the "De-Interlace Options" is set to "Normal" instead of "Smart." just a personal preference, i guess...but i like it much better with the normal de-interlace.