Three Kings Look?

[John Hudson]

Thank you Ken and Don for your advice on how to replicate the look!

[Nick Medrano]

If you have Adobe Premiere Pro, you can use a plugin called MAGIC BULLET: MOVIE LOOKS which has over 49 presets ranging from "film looks" of Saving Private Ryan, Three Kings, etc. I have used them and they are incredible. Here's one of the presets from this plugin that you can use for Three Kings:

"Color Reversal: Color reversal film stock is the opposite of color negative. Exposure density is converted to transparency on the film rather than darkness, so that the actual film original that ran through the camera can be projected as a positive image with correct color. This is the case with old Super-8 film for example — the film you project is the film you shot. Slide film is also color reversal. Reversal film, contrastier to begin with, involves an extra duplication step (internegative to interpositive), so the final image is extremely contrasty with super-saturated colors. Some scenes in the film Three Kings were shot this way"

More details about this can be found here: http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/movielooks.html

[John Hudson]

I am torn right now...

I am getting the agDVX100 24p in 4 days. I already know I will be getting 'some' software to do post.

I'm torn between VEGAS and ADOBE. The ADOBE sounds appealing just for this aspect alone! I love the idea od applying 'film look" to material.

I am going to be attempting the most 'film look' work I can (Letterbox, ana, etc).

Anyone that give some insight on VEGAS or ADOBE P would be helpful...

YEah, I know, search the forums. I have, and am still torn. I hear VEgas kicks As* in respect to 24p for DVX?

But, where are all of the cool plug-in's?

[Don Donatello]

both premiere and vegas offer downloads to try out.

vegas has many plug in's as does premiere .. what specific plug in's do you want ?

Vegas does handle 24pA NOW , letter box is easy , ..

drop pretty much any format on vegas TL 24fps , 60i , QT, AVI , any pixel sizes , uncompressed QT or avi , wmv , mpeg 1 or 2, stills , HD , PAL , divX (mix em all together) and Vegas will play it .. don't know about premiere..

[John Hudson]

Hi Don

I am really into what ADOBE is offering in terms of Film Look Pre-sets.

ie. bleach bypass, saving private ryan, training day, blackhawk down, etc

What does Vegas offer on the same level as this? I know one can manipulate with curves, contrast, etc - But the preset click option is appealing!

[Rob Lohman]

See this thread as well

[Don Donatello]

Vegas does not have any presets at the moment for bleach , flash look though i can match those looks when i have a still to compare against .. it does have a film fx which adds grain ...

BUT then on the other hand there are VEGAS Vegs share files ( VEG is a vegas file that stores info on how something was done). on these sites there are many Vegs for many purposes . you can find film look vegs.
when you open the VEG they have filter pack already set up in the vegas TL .. you then SAVE this filter pack (you name it ) then in future anytime you go into Vegas FX's you will find that filter pack already set ... i recently needed 25 persons on my screen at once - i downloaded the 25 block VEG - opened it and then lead vegas to 25 different clips = on my screen 25 persons. these share VEGS save alot of time..and i have to tell you it is AMAZING what others persons are creating and then sharing the VEGS ...

also Vegas runs SCRIPTING .. you can find many scripts on share sites.. so lets say you need to render out a dv avi , mpeg 1, mpeg 2 , QT , wmv ... you would download a render format script and then choose the formats you want to render out .. you then run the script and Vegas will render out all the formats one after the other ...

[John Hudson]

My problem is:

I am new to DV and real freakin new to NLE. My hands on film experience is Super 8 and editing with a splicer (come on, you guys remember these things, right?).

I am not knew to 'film' (having worked on some lo/no's). I finally put myself in a position to 'get busy' with the filmaking passion (ie. dvx100) and will be getting some NLE software for my projects.

Adobe as a platform I am used to in that I have taught myself how to use thier products before (photoshop, etc) and I am not familar at all with Vegas.

I goes back to:

1. Which is the best program for me in using the DVX100 and doing post?

I know it might sound silly to you guys; but that one simple ADOBE plug in that mimics filmlook (presets) is one of the key factors for my decison. I like that option!

I do, however, hear great things about VEgas and the DVX (pulldowns).

So, whichever I choose, I will be at the entry level position when I start doing my first post. (It's okay! I am an incredibly fast learner; I am sponge boy)

I noticed Vegas has a section on their site for people do do plug ins... I still havent seen any though.

Adobe has: Premiere and then comes after effects
Sonic (now sony) has: Vegas and then comes.... ?

[Rob Lohman]

I'm not sure if Premiere can work with the DVX100, probably
can though. Personally I wouldn't be so obsessed with the
film look plugin. Try to make some good things first which will
probably take you a few shorts to get down, even if you have
had previous experience. Telling your own story with a DV
camera and no crew is something else.

You can always look at the matter of film look later. Things for
that are coming out each month because people seem to want
it so badly. I think I proved with my little short (see thread link
above) that Vegas can do A LOT natively. And that was just my
first try in Vegas.

Then again, so might Premiere Pro natively (haven't used it).
For older versions of Premiere you'll definitely need a plugin.

It is nice that you know Adobe software, but Premiere has
always been the weird package in the lineup as far as interace
is concerned.

Why not try out the demo for Vegas for a couple of weeks or
something and see where that takes you? I switched very
easily myself and just needed to look up how a few basic things
like splicing a clip (with the 's' key) , fading (move the little
triangle in the top corner of the clip) and cross-fading (just drag
one clip over another) and I was editing!

I'm not saying you should go with Vegas, just try it out. And
get your movie shot first before worrying about film look. You
might be 6 - 12 months down the road and Premiere Platinum
and Vegas 5 might be out with automatic-film-look(tm) straight
out of the box!

[Nick Medrano]

Hi,
Adobe Premiere Pro can not yet edit and output 24p footage from the DVX. So, what you have to do is buy a program called DVFILM MAKER (www.dvfilm.com) and have that program do the necessary pulldowns so Premiere can edit the footage. Once you finish your editing in Premiere, you then output the footage to the DVFILM MAKER program have it do the changes needed in order for your footage to retain that original "24p look".

It's really not a complicated step....just a 1-2 step process. DVFILM MAKER costs $99 and is a steal since you can do other cool things with it.

The FILM LOOK plugins are incredible and they really compliment my video footage from the DVX, but, like someone else said earlier, you should concentrate on creating a great story first before focusing on special effects. Story is still king when it comes to filmmaking.

One draw back from using the FILM LOOK plugins is that they take forever to render. I have a 3.0ghz P4HT machine with 1gig of ram and it takes me about 6 hours just to render over 15minutes of video.

Hope this helps.

[John Hudson]

You both are correct and when I get this kind of advice; it reminds me of why I come here. I will spend the next couple of months 'making short' and learnign the proper way to use my amera and lighting and composition, etc.

I'm sure by XMAS, I will be able to tell my wife which one i want. In the meantime I will demo both of them! (I think I am leaning towards Vegas for the 24p thang)

[Bob Hart]

I got a vaguely similar look accidentally when taping a footy match whilst getting a handle on new camera's settings.

It was a light bright overcast day. I had not selected the ND the camera was screaming at me to select and I also selected the backlight setting.

It was not a replication of bleach bypass but might set the foundation for the effect.

[David Seguin]

Originally Posted by Don Donatello

supply a still of the cross processing Look you want ( 3 king ) and i'll give it a try next week ...


the skip bleach process .. vegas users start here and adjust to your liking .
put clip on video track 2 ..then make copy of it on track 1 .. track 1 make B&W i prefer channel blend FX using distribute red channel for B&W -- now use color curves and crush the blacks only .. make sure track 1 level remains at 100

solo video track 2 - use color curves fx to crush the blacks & bring up mid range gamma - can fine tune this later .. unsolo track 2

video track 1 switch compositing mode to OVERLAY ( you cannot solo track 1 as it will be black if you do)

video track 2 adjust mid range gamma using color curves FX. add color correction FX , back down color saturation 30-60% ( to your liking ) ..

now put track 1 compositing mode back to ALPHA .. solor track 1, add film grain FX to track 1 adjust more then you like ... now un-solo track 1 and put compositing back compositing mode to OVERLAY ..

if clip is too contrasty you can use the LEVELS on track 1 to flatten ...

skip bleach look is higher contrast, less color saturation & more grain...

Thanks. I've been looking for something like this for a while. The only thing I could ever find was using After Effects plugins.