I've done some pretty extensive film-look effects on a series of three music videos I did a while ago that were shot on Beta, and can give you some general guidelines. The first thing you need to understand is that there are several visual qualities that constitute the major differences between transferred film footage and video footage, and that to achieve an effective film-look effect, they need to work in concert.
Since video is captured and refreshed at 60 fields per second, the first step is to approximate the 24 frame 3:2 pulldown of a telecine machine. The easiest and fastest way to approximate this effect with video footage is to remove one field from eac
h frame, which reduces the screen refresh to 30 fields per second. The resultant difference (30 fields minus 24 frames) is usually close enough to approximate film under many uses.
In the Composer, this can be done by creating a Motion Effect that strobes 30 times a second, and removes one field by either Doubling the remaining field, or Interpolating new field information. You MUST remove one field by one or the other method, and
yes, this does throw out half of your vertical resolution. Diagonals will become jaggy, and fine details will vanish-that's par for the course. Interpolating field material has a more pleasing look, because it blends every other field to smooth out the j
aggies caused by doubled scan lines, but it still is an effective loss of resolution.
Note: While the latest version of After Effects contains some powerful 3:2 interpretation and rendering options, I've not yet tried them out for a genuine 24 fps/60 field effect. This may be very useful if you're trying to get VERY close to a true film-
look.
For many shooters, THE major difference between film and video is the wide latitude of lighting values that film stocks can capture vs. the relatively limited latitude of traditional video cameras. This is becoming less of an issue as CCD chips get b
etter (the Sony digital cameras come to mind), but is still a major component of achieving a "film-look." Newer video cameras allow you to not only capture far more latitude than ever before, but allow you to tailor the chip's gamma curve to app
roximate the gradual curves into shadow and highlight of film vs. the hard square cut of traditional video tubes or chips.
As an editor, you're rather limited by how well the video footage you've been handed has been lit and shot. Every production is different, but if you get a chance to have input during pre-production, try and anticipate the problems you might run into. A
music video, for instance, may allow you to push the film-look qualities to the edge. A serious drama, however, calls for far more control and subtlety. I can't over-emphasize the importance of communication with the D.P., if you have the time and opport
unity.
I've also found that adding Film Grain via some sort of noise filter can achieve two ends: It can approximate the effect of push-processing a negative (especialy 16mm), and can actually buy you back a little bit of perceived resolution from the field
removed footage in the process. It's important to add this filter downstream from the prerequisite field removal; otherwise, you'll remove a field worth of nice, "virtual broadcast-resolution" grain as well.
While there are a number of noise filters out there, I recommend Adobe (nee Aldus) Gallery Effects' Film Grain filter for several reasons. First, the film grain is very controllable and subtle, and is limited to the c
hroma information in the original shot, so it doesn't add weird color noise to the effected footage. In addition, the filter has very natural (read: film-like) gamma ramps into shadow and highlight, so you don't get noisy dark passages, and blow-outs grad
ually fade into no grain at all, just like a negative. It does have its quirks, though, and if you've got a lot of lighting changes within one shot, be prepared to key-frame through several settings.
Note: Be prepared for some long, long renders.