Why does video have to look like film?

[Richard Alvarez]

Seems what this argument always boils down to is the evolution of an audiences' sense of aesthetics.

There is no question that aesthetics DO evolve. MTV has altered expectations for cutting pace... without REPLACING the old school.

As handheld, jerky video footage became "commonplace" in live news on television, (not to mention junior's birthday party and the office christmas orgy)... the "poor" camera work was introduced as an artistic choice in shows like NYPD Blue. (Forget the fact that I personally hate it... it is a valid choice to have the camera wander around, looking for the subject until it is framed off center...)

The French "New Wave" style was a direct result of the freedom of the euipment, and created it's own sensibility.

DV is introducing it's own sensibility into film, even as film is imposing its established parameters on expectations.

I think the oil-watercolor-acrylic metaphor is accurate. As long as we all agree that ultimately it is the SUBJECT and how you chose to present it. (IE:Story) that is the soul of the art... not its medium.


Its all good.

[Bill Ravens]

Richard...

Agreed. The ultimate goal is the message, the art of the creation. We have an expanding palette of tools available to deliver the message. Like choosing the right colors or the right fill music....it's all part of the creators' choices....what makes it "art".

[Derrick Begin]

"Why does video have to look like film?"

It doesn't.

Its whatever your aesthetic you want it to be. A film/video look is an artistic choice. The power is in your choice. If your particular piece would be better suited shooting on film, then invest your pennies. Likewise for DV.

Film is expensive, however, the backend of transferring DV to film is also very expensive (16mm, 35mm, or otherwise). Today, if you want to submit your work to a festivals, you send the a DVD or VHS cassette of your work, its accepted by the festival(s), but they screen in HD, DigiBeta, 16mm, 35mm. So you pay for the transfer. It has nothing to do with your look.

Don't delude yourself with cost: It cost you, 10 thousand beans to purchase/acquire your DV equipment/software (cracks, not included), not to mention the upgrades that are around the corner. You could have done a film with that price tag and not have to deal with transfers.

Work them both.

The palette for painting in film, at this time, is much wider than in DV.

Tell me a story...

Cheers!

Derrick

By the way, my "2 cents" and I'm just "giving my opinion" and qualifiers of these sorts tick me off. State you opinion loud and clear! No sense in under cutting it... You'd be lucky if "2 cents" bought you a swedish fish or piece of stale gum.

[Rob Belics]

It seems some think I said don't use dv, only film. I didn't say that. I said film is better than dv as far as resolution, color, lighting dynamic range, contrast, etc. And that you cannot deny.

DV can produce very good pictures if the camera is operated properly and the scene is properly lit. The fact that film may cost more does not make dv's quality any better.

[John Threat]

miniDV/DVCAM can look like film. That's actually shouldn't even be up for debate. The proof is there.

However there is a caveat. As long as it's presented as Video, such as on TV, or on a video projector. Taking miniDV/DVCAM back out to a 16mm print doesn't have spectacular results.

A lot of people here invested in these prosumer cameras to achieve a filmic look, and they can reach that goal, without breaking the bank. It takes hard work thought, and this community is a great way to have a resource that people can learn to achieve some measure of success in this endeavor.

[Derrick Begin]

You break down the elements into what they are, i.e. lighting, composition, action, etc. They are the same regardless of media being used. Choosing the media to be use creates specific characteristics.

Shoot thoughtfully to challenge yourself.

Don't be a "Jackass" or "The Real Cancun"


John T. - - Without a doubt. I love my XL1S and its frame mode. This is a great/knowledgeable community. Its helped me grow... Are you working in the city?

[Adam Lawrence]

its irrelevant for people to assume your biased when you express your opinion on one subject and not the other...but thats the moral majority.

lets face it. most of us are involved with DV becuase a couple
notches down the hierarchy from film. Of course DV can produce
footage in the same ballpark, its been done many times, and not by just "experimental FILM makers". its been done by ourselves.

I think this discussion has been spawned numerous times on this board. We all know Its becuase of DV and the theatric implements that we now see HD in theaters. This would be un-heard of 10 years ago. This is why they call it a revolution.

One day HD will be provided to us in the "pro-sumer" market and all of us will be chatting on the HDinfo forum arguing amugst oursleves within general closed minded arguments.

What keeps this all consistant is the fact that most of us support
a new perspective on film making, and i couldnt imagine otherwise.

[Frank Granovski]

"The Real Cancun?" I saw that movie (free tickets). It had a nice film look and did it's part with telling a story. Mind you, there wasn't much of a story: these kids go on a drinking/partying spree on spring break: screw each other, thus discover themselves---and some even discover the meaning of life---er, spring break.

[Derrick Begin]

Just to provoke...

FREE! HAR HAR. It is free. I experienced it many times, especially living in a fraternity house. Those experiences are yet to be revealed...

My 10 bucks, no way. My time, no way.

[Chris Hurd]

Personally I think the big deal isn't so much about getting video to look like film, as it is getting video to look less like video. Some people will think this means getting it to look like film; for others this just means making it look less like video.

[Bill Ravens]

Well, after reading the volumes and volumes that have been written on this subject of "film look", I continue to struggle with the investment in time to re-render video footage to try to make it look different. I, personally, and perhaps it's just personal taste, prefer the clarity and smooth motion of video. I do not like the cold, blue color, but that's easily remedied with a sunsoft filter careful white balancing, or post color balancing. 60i lends itself to much smoother slo-mo's which can't be achieved with 24 fps. Again, this is very subjectively my opinion. I shoot an XL1s exclusively in the frame movie mode, outdoor subjects under natural sunlight with VERY slow pans. I continue to receive feedback on the beauty of my work. I don't think much of film critics, and put more stock (no pun intended) in the comments of the viewing public. Not once have I ever had a comment . "gee, that looks so much like video". I think video has one BIG drawback, and that's the lower latitude of CCD's as compared with film. This causes a lot of trouble when finding evenly lit footage, but it's not insurmountable.

I have not been professionally taught and raised with the film look perspective, and so far that has not been a hinderance to me. It may be significant to note that my training is with still image photography. In this field, many years have been spent in trying to achieve clarity(aka hi-rez) and low grain. In a photograph, grain and blur are things to avoid, except for specialty shots. I really believe that people who praise the exclusivity of the film look are creating their own realities. This flies in the face of at least 50% of all posters on this subject, but, it's my experience.

So, for all of you raised with film, I recognize that it's the contemporary preference. I'm just not convinced enough to invest me time and energy in my work to convert it to "the film look".

[Boyd Ostroff]

<<<-- Originally posted by Derrick Begin : its accepted by the festival(s), but they screen in HD, DigiBeta, 16mm, 35mm. So you pay for the transfer. -->>>

Are they not interested in lower budget productions? Since you say they screen HD and DigiBeta, does that mean they're using DLP projectors, or do they transfer these to film also? If they're projecting video anyway, how much trouble would it be for them to also provide a DVCAM deck? And the bigger question, if they aren't projecting video then why not? Seems there's a lot of unknown talent working in DV that needs an audience. With the price and availability of good, bright DLP projection there really isn't any excuse for not putting some of this work in front of the public.

[David Mintzer]

Why try to make potatoes taste like carrots-----Take the medium, and use it to your advantage. Film people (and was once one) often talk about depth of field issues in video---Well some of the great filmmakers of all time--Renoir, Welles etc used an almost video-like depth of field to tell their stories---Action occured on different planes and added to the story. Remember the scene in Citizen Kane where the guy comes to tell Kanes caregivers that he has inherited the money------As he informs them, you can see Kane through a window, playing in the snow-----In my mind, through his imagery, Welles was saying something about the child's place in the world in relationship to those with power----

[Joseph George]

Here are my 2 cents. I posted it originally somewhere else, but it fits better here.

FILM LOOK vs. VIDEO LOOK

1. Film look is overall better than video look.
2. Video has elements that look better than on film.
3. You should always strive for the best look, not just for the classic film look.
4. One of the biggest misconceptions is that 24 fps gives you a better look than higher speeds. It will give you a lot of motion artifacts that are typical of the film look, but are not desirable, unless there is some special reason. That's why there were always attempts to raise the 24 fps speed up and on some expensive films in the past 30 fps was used but due to economic reasons this speed was abandoned -- not due to artistic reasons. IMAX HD is 48 fps. Why? Because the higher speed simulates better the look as if we pan with our eyes. This is the optimal motion look.
5. The classic 24 fps motion artifacts are naturally present 100% on 24 fps film. 24p/fps is the ideal format because it is the film speed; it can be shown on PAL without speed change and transferred to NTSC. But it is not the ideal speed for the best motion look.
6. Pulldown from 24 fps to 30p/fps crates lot worse motion artifacts than 24 fps has.
7. Native 30p/fps material has more of the classic film motion artifacts look than 30 fps (e.g. NTSC) created from 24 fps.
8. 24 fps created from 30p/fps by eliminating frames has a lot worse motion artifacts than 30p created from 24 fps.
9. Depth of field is extremely important and shallow depth of field is what video lacks most, compared to film. Larger depth of field is often desirable and can be accomplished better with video.
10. Camera movement, artistic lighting, film gamma, unclipped highlights -- all this is part of a film look
11. Special effects are a lot easier achievable on video and film is normally converted to video for good special effects work. So we add video (video look) to film to make it better.
12. Both film and video have their advantages and disadvantages. Video has definitely less motion artifacts, you can see what you're shooting on a good monitor, can replay it back instantly. That is the biggest advantage of electronic cinema. This is what will make movie production better and less expensive and why films days, or rather years, are numbered.
13. The film naturally has better resolution, highlights, latitude, wider speed choices, etc., but with time video will surpass that.
14. Again, forget film look, go for the best look, although from the two, film normally looks a lot better than video.

[Charles Papert]

Joseph:

Many good points. Some questions/responses:

2) What elements of video do you feel look better than film? I can certainly agree about certain applications such as news or sports, the immediacy of 60i video informs the "live" look.

9) "Larger depth of field is often desirable and can be accomplished better with video."

Can we amend this to "accomplished easier with video"? And of course this is gauge dependent--Super 8 has greater depth of field than 2/3" video, eh?

11) "film is normally converted to video for good special effects work. So we add video (video look) to film to make it better."

For features, film is converted to data files which are arguably not video, and in a perfect world the re-transfer back to film is done as transparently as possible, so as not to affect the look of the image except for that which was purposefully manipulated. For broadast work, it certainly easier to do electronic/digital effects than optical since the material is already telecined. Either way, I don't feel that a "video look" is being nominally added.

12) "Video has definitely less motion artifacts, you can see what you're shooting on a good monitor, can replay it back instantly. That is the biggest advantage of electronic cinema. This is what will make movie production better and less expensive and why films days, or rather years, are numbered."

Without question, the ability to view composited effects live on the set will help speed up that aspect of filmmaking. However, video assist and playback on set has been around for many years (thanks to Jerry Lewis!) and it is often debated whether it helps or hurts--more time can be wasted discussing playback than actually doing another take in the meantime. Currently, video assist allows virtually everyone on set to see what they need to see: the director can judge performances, the DP can judge the operator's framing, the mixer can tell the boom operator if he is too close to the frameline. None of that changes on an HD set (except you can't see outside the framelines anymore, which is a loss). As far as the DP is concerned, those raised in the film world may or may not consider it valuable to see the results instantly on the monitor. One downside is having to deal with the unwanted input from the "mucky-mucks", the money folks who love to meddle in the process. Commercial agency people are the worst at this. More time wasted! As far as these being the reasons that film is numbered, I believe that it will have nothing to do with immediate viewing. It has everything to do with lower cost of acquisition and incorporating into what will ultimately be a purely electronic workflow.