the 16mm film grain look

[James B.]

Hi
Had a chance to hear Kyle Cooper speak at a technology and design conference yesterday and he shared a recent and very moving short film he shot entirely on 16mm film about Alaskan fishermen. It came as no surprise that he prefers the look of 16mm film. This may sound like a naive question, but is it possible to accurately simulate the look of 16mm film using an entirely digital workflow?

By 'accurately' I mean to the trained eye and by 'the look of 16mm film' I'm referring primarily to 16mm film grain, though of course latitude, resolution play a huge part.

 

[Tom Greenberg]

Take a look at Cinegrain. They offer film grain samples using various film stocks and resolutions that you can composite with your footage.

 

[Marc Wielage]

I got three episodes into watching The Walking Dead on AMC before realizing it was shot on 16mm. Definitely some noticeable grain there, and an unusual color palette as well.

My advice would be to hold off adding any grain to a long-form project until everything is completely locked and color-timed. Project it on a good-sized screen (at least 20'), and then decide if adding grain is necessary. The issue is that you'll find that there is no "one size fits all" grain mode; you have to use grain management to selectively add grain where needed, and you need human judgement and experience to make that call.

 

[Steve Marshall]

I got three episodes into watching The Walking Dead on AMC before realizing it was shot on 16mm. Definitely some noticeable grain there, and an unusual color palette as well.

Took me a while to realise this too! The Vision3 16mm stock is outrageously good.

 

[Jake Bastian]

Don't forget DOF, RED one and Epic are good for a 35mm film look. You'll want a Scarlet and 2/3" sensor to properly simulate 16mm.

 

[Jim McKinney]

Or 2K on the Red, as far as optical characteristics for the lenses.

 

[Jim McKinney]

As big a fan of the Red as I am, 16mm is absolutely the right approach for The Walking Dead. Lots of latitude and no cables! Nice and light for that hand held, too.

 

[Michael Totten]

IMO - The problem with adding grain to 4K footage is that it ends up looking like 4k footage with grain added Not like 16mm.

4K is so far beyond 16mm in resolution - you need to mar up the footage a bunch.
I would start by shooting in 2K with older 16mm lenses. Maybe add a mild softening filter.

(this will sound weird) Then, try a series of down rezzing and then up rezzing.... for instance: Go from 1080P to standard def (and then take that Standard Def file and "stretch it" back up to 1080P.) It's surprising how the resolution/oversampling stays with the image.

Also, if you add grain in the different stages of up/down rezzing, the grain seems to feel more like part of the footage as opposed to a synthetic layer on top of the footage.

The long and short of it is - yes it is possible to make a very convincing match. This is one way... maybe a bit laborious though.

 

[Marc Wielage]

IMO - The problem with adding grain to 4K footage is that it ends up looking like 4k footage with grain added Not like 16mm. 4K is so far beyond 16mm in resolution - you need to mar up the footage a bunch.

Naaaa. Defocus, diffusion, and careful grain management in post will solve most of these issues. I've had projects where we've had to match 16mm to 35mm, or even Digital to 16mm, and it's not rocket science. I would agree that if the picture was shot in 4K, I'd ask for tests prior to the start of production and come up with a solution for increased depth of field -- most likely adding more light and stopping down slightly. Clarity and definition are more a question of diffusion and lenses, whether done on the set or added later in post. It's a lot easier to take a sharp shot and degrade it than it is to have a soft shot that's gone too far.

Some of the better post houses out there can also provide precise grain samples from specific emulsions. You go to Lowry Digital in Burbank, for example, and you can ask for 5247 grain from the 1950s and 1960s, or 5254 grain from the 1990s, or 5219 grain from the 2000s. Companies that specialize in this sort of thing have grain down to an absolute science.

 

[Francesco Bonomo]

IMO - The problem with adding grain to 4K footage is that it ends up looking like 4k footage with grain added Not like 16mm.

I agree with this, Michael, at least from what I've seen so far. It always looks like evenly distributed grain pasted on top of the footage, like looking through a "grain filter", so to speak, but maybe it's just a matter of personal taste, and maybe there are some solutions that can really mimic the look of film grain, taking into account how the presence of it is influenced by many things and by exposure levels within the frame.
I'm a grain lover, even when grain is barely there, and I somehow dislike the ultra-clean and ultra-sharp digital look, though I would choose it without hesitation if the project called for such a look (for instance, I just can't imagine Tom Lowe's gorgeous time-lapses shot with anything other than digital, but if it was still pictures, then I'd say medium or large format film wouldn't be a bad choice at all). In the end, it's a matter of choice and personal taste. Personally, I'd still take film (16mm and 35mm) over anything digital for narrative work, including Epics and Alexas, but that's just me...

 

[Ivan Kovax]

Hi
Had a chance to hear Kyle Cooper speak at a technology and design conference yesterday and he shared a recent and very moving short film he shot entirely on 16mm film about Alaskan fishermen. It came as no surprise that he prefers the look of 16mm film. This may sound like a naive question, but is it possible to accurately simulate the look of 16mm film using an entirely digital workflow?

By 'accurately' I mean to the trained eye and by 'the look of 16mm film' I'm referring primarily to 16mm film grain, though of course latitude, resolution play a huge part.

Shoot 2k using p/L arri primes designed for 16mm cameras. I remember those from days of yore in film school. I am sure there are grain plugins that can add some grain for you to taste as well.

Garnish with burn marks.

 

[Marc Wielage]

Personally, I'd still take film (16mm and 35mm) over anything digital for narrative work, including Epics and Alexas, but that's just me...

Interestingly, that was Matthew Libatique's opinion in a recent ASC seminar. His basic comment was <paraphrasing>, "you ask any major cinematographer in the world if they'd rather shoot any digital format or film, and they'll say film."

In Matt's case, he shot Black Swan in Super 16mm and got an Oscar nomination for it, and it was a very beautiful film.

I have to admit, any post trickery where grain is artificially added to digital won't ever be as organic or inexpensive as just shooting on film in the first place. But the reality is that this isn't an option for a lot of productions these days, especially TV series and independent films.

And film grain does have a certain look to it that you can kind of ignore after awhile. Digital noise, though, especially when it comes and goes, is a lot more irritating.

 

[Harry Clark]

Other way around, I think. 54 was the older stock. I've never shot it, but I spent the 1980's and 1990's shooting an awful lot of 47.
Not to be nitpicky.
I do agree with some who have posted here that the only way to faithfully reproduce the film look is to shoot film. I do love the silky-smooth grainless Red image too, though...
Cheers,
Harry

 

[Bill Anderson]

If you prefer film over digital, that's fine, but, by doing so, please don't imply that film is inherently superior to digital methods - it is not. Who'd have ever doubted that S16mm film was capable of delivering beautiful imagery? But that beauty is tightly bound to a quality that is not desirable or adequate for every work. Black Swan is a beautiful piece of work, and "Matt" is one piece of a very large and complex art; what works for him today will as likely fail him tomorrow, and that is why one should not look towards Oscar to find any absolutes. I would like to hear "Matt's" reasoning (or anyone else's for that matter) for universally touting film over digital. What are the reasons for listening to Matt, whilst denying the views of Francis Ford Coppola or so many other great filmmakers and cinematographers who choose to employ digital acquisition? It seems to me that when one bases one's preferences on the word of another artist without fully understanding the complexities and counterclaims, then one is in trouble. Unfortunately this misplaced idolatry is not uncommon, and perhaps that is why we have to suffer so many cliches in art.

 

[Francesco Bonomo]

If you prefer film over digital, that's fine, but, by doing so, please don't imply that film is inherently superior to digital methods - it is not

I can only speak for myself, Bill, but I never claimed or implied such a thing. I just happen to like film better (and by that I mean both its inherent aesthetic properties and its so-called "limitations"). I never said film is superior, as a statement of absolutes. It may be superior for me, but that's a very personal opinion, shared by many, and not shared by many others.

Actually, I think that soon (or maybe even now) some digital cameras will be superior to film regarding ALL aspects, at least according to numbers, it'd be foolish to believe otherwise: higher resolution, greater latitude, and so on, and that's great, because it means that people who want that kind of resolution, latitude and super-clean images can actually get them.
But for some people those numbers are not the most important thing. If numbers were all that matters, Super8 and even Super16 would have been dead a while ago, don't you agree?

I would like to hear "Matt's" reasoning (or anyone else's for that matter) for universally touting film over digital. What are the reasons for listening to Matt, whilst denying the views of Francis Ford Coppola or so many other great filmmakers and cinematographers who choose to employ digital acquisition?

no reasons at all, if you ask me, and I like to hear every opinion, whether I agree with it or not, but I didn't see any "denying" in any of the previous posts in this thread. Actually, in the last 10 years or so, the views of the ones who have embraced digital tools have been reported and not denied at all.
I guess it's just that some people like film better, while other like digital better, and everyone has the right to do so, for millions of different reasons. In the end, everyone is (somehow) free to choose what works best for them and for the projects they work on.

It seems to me that when one bases one's preferences on the word of another artist without fully understanding the complexities and counterclaims, then one is in trouble

Absolutely. And that is true whatever medium and tool you take into consideration, being it digital or film, and to be fair, in the last few years, the "problem" you're referring to has happened quite a lot in the "digital world".
I know where I stand, but that's because of direct experience, not because I like, say, Libatique better than Coppola or Rodriguez. It's just that I like film better, I don't think that's a crime, especially since I also work with digital cameras when I have to and I would have no problem in picking digital over film if I felt it was better and made more sense for a specific project.

 

[Zharmane Washington]

aaa

 

[Marc Wielage]

Other way around, I think. 54 was the older stock. I've never shot it, but I spent the 1980's and 1990's shooting an awful lot of 47.

You're absolutely right. '54 was indeed the older stock (introduced in 1968). I've transferred a lot of both over the years, but probably more 5218 than anything else in the last ten years.

Good list of Kodak emulsions and dates at this link.

A DP/friend of mine put it best when he said, "the great thing about film is that it's more forgiving if you screw up a stop or two either way." But I think this is less of an option today than it used to be.

 

[jack tobermann]

Your link is broken, this is the right one

 

[CocoBermudez]

I know this has nothing to do with "grain look" but...

Has anyone checked out Ikonoskop?

They call their little camera a Digital 16 cam.

I saw these guy at NAB, their images were pretty impressive...does have a 16mm film look to it.

It takes advantage of all the cheap 16mm lenses that are laying around there for cheap.

http://www.ikonoskop.com/dii/footage/