Creating a film look with video

December 29, 2003
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    David / 04/01/2004

    i like the music - the video is a little too arty for the content for my liking

    it could do with some puke scenes and general larking about - ahem

    actually on a more serious note; does skate videos need the film look, or is digital video alright?

    though yours was probably shot in new york (or summin) the manc skateboard kids have been known to film their skating in town with one kid following the others on a skateboard holding mini-dv cams

    though your techique does work and i must admit jagged lines, esp on fast camera movements are very annoying

    13twelve / 29/01/2004

    Then again why do all bloody skate videos always have music from the likes of Offspring, Korn etc etc blah blah blah. I just wanted to see what it would look like to slow stuff down and put it with some music that you don’t normally associate with skaters.

    Bren / 29/01/2004

    If you’ve got $100 you should check out G Film - brillaint set of filters for Final Cut Pro (though also work in Express). More pricey but worth checking out is the people behind Magic Bullet for After Affects. They’ve now created a plug-in for Final Cut Pro.

    Bren / 02/05/2004

    I’ve been doing some digging on how to make video look more like film. The big giveaway for me is the realism of video, it’s sharpness, it’s saturated colours and sometimes the “jaggies” on diagonal lines. While there are various pieces of software that allow you to get a better film look from your video, I did find a great little article by Shawn Bockoven on Ken Stones Final Cut Pro site.

    It basically involves making 2 copies of your sequence onto a new timeline, de-interlacing the bottom sequence and turning the opacity of the top sequence down to 30%. For added effect Shawn suggests using the film grain filter in QuickTime Pro and turning all the settings to zero and use the 1930’s film fading. Personally I chose the normal colour film fading as it de-saturated the colours a bit more.

    Does it work? Well check out this frame without the technique applied then check out the very same frame with the technique. Notice the second one has a lot less jaggies and seems slightly softer. At the end of the day nothing is going to be as good shooting on film, but this is better than nothing!

    Check out the Flash MX compressed version - it’s just some footage of some Seattle skaters shot way back in 2000.

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