HELP. Why is my film so grainy.

[Thomas Koch]

Hi all. I just got some super 16mm 500T Vision 2 back from the scanner and it's horrible. I didn't shoot it, but I know the shooter and the exposure was probably on.

The film was normal processed. Then sent for film scanning. I'm just wondering if this is a problem with the film scan, or if using 4 year old film (refrigerated) could cause such horrible grain.

http://bayareafilmmakers.com/Jar_FilmGrain.mov

This is blown up a bit.

And a full shot

http://bayareafilmmakers.com/Jar_FilmGrain2.mov

It's the blue grain in the blacks that really makes me wonder what is going on.

 

[Richard Foster]

Using old film is a definite no-no. Once I shot a test on some film that had only been in the freezer for about 18 months and Astro (the lab in Chicago) called me (I was in the islands) and said the film is grainy and looks like it was fogged, what gives? They knew me and my work. I learned. Never shoot out of date film.

 

[Thomas Koch]

I still have some left and have scheduled a test shoot with it and new 500T. Richard, did you see the footage? Is that the sort of look expired film might give?
thanks for the reply! Can't wait for my epic so I can stop shooting film.

 

[Francesco Bonomo]

Hi all. I just got some super 16mm 500T Vision 2 back from the scanner and it's horrible. I didn't shoot it, but I know the shooter and the exposure was probably on.

definitely something wrong with it, but as Richard rightly said, using 4 years old film is generally not a good idea, unless you're doing it for specific aesthetic reasons (and even then you don't know what you'll get until the negative is developed). We're currently shooting thousands of feet of 16mm 500T, and we're also pushing it one stop occasionally, and it doesn't look that grainy at all (we're shooting on Vision 3, but still the amount of grain shown in your footage looks definitely above what you would expect in "normal" situations). Actually, I've seen 500T pushed 2 stops and it looks less grainy than your clips! Sorry!

Can't wait for my epic so I can stop shooting film.

Why can't you just shoot both?

(sorry, I'm biased and pro-film)

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Why can't you just shoot both?

Yeah, I have to say I'm collecting some 8mm film cameras. They certainly won't be replacing my 7D, much less an Epic, but I'll be shooting it.

(sorry, I'm biased and pro-film)

Bias is never any good.

Pro film is OK ... but Epic may change your mind for a LOT of work. There are still a few things that will work out better on film, but technologically time is running out on film's long reign as the gold standard of film making.

Actually, I'd argue that except for very specific production realms, it already has run out.

 

[jake blackstone]

High quality degrainig and noise reduction, like tools offered by FilmMaster, can greatly improve the image. Although, this is a scan and not a telecine, I see very similar results with old CRT telecine, where operator using aperture correction would try to compensate for the loss of resolution.
Working with students I see this all the time

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Scanner vs. de-grain

Scanner vs. de-grain

In general film has high grain levels in "raw" scans done with sharp optics.

Film scans need to be de-grained and chroma low pass filtered to look like they would on a DVD since that is what happens when they are encoded for DVD they get de-grained with both luma and chroma active filters, the TV low pass filters the chroma, and the compression has its own area filters.

You can try NeatVideo (tm) on the footage one shot at a time before you edit it to help "de-grain" it. ARRI Relativity seems more advanced, you can have your footage re-scanned and processed at a lab that uses Relativity maybe to see how much that helps.

I'm planning on releasing some de-grain code soon, its part of a de-Bayer program I have been working on, its to go with the DIY movie film scanner software (DANCINES.EXE (tm)) I have been working on. If a DSLR is used in the scanner you can get blue spots sometimes, although how you process the data can change the outcome.

Can you post a link to a full size 48bpp TIF of your scans as they came back from the lab?

Which lab did the work, and what scanner did they use? And what de-grain software did they use?

Also is the issue of dust-busting software and if an IR scan was used to de-dust the frames.

Was it a frame by frame scan like in an Oxberry or ARRI scanner, or some kind of telecine or filmchain?

People are not used to seeing what film looks like without processing as few people screen film workprints any longer. Does it look bad on a 35mm blowup to color print stock?

http://www.arri.de/digital_intermediate_systems/relativity.html

Look at the example before and after images at the ARRI link.

http://www.neatvideo.com/

Why are you not shooting with a new Digital Cinema Camera anyway?

 

[Francesco Bonomo]

Yeah, I have to say I'm collecting some 8mm film cameras. They certainly won't be replacing my 7D, much less an Epic, but I'll be shooting it.

I already have 2 super8, now I'm saving money to buy a Super16mm camera...

Bias is never any good.

I know, Alexander, I know...but that's unfortunately the way I am...you could say I try to work on film shoots and shoot as much film as possible just to do my tiny little part to keep it alive and available...it'd be very sad if we didn't have it as an option, don't you think?

Pro film is OK ... but Epic may change your mind for a LOT of work. There are still a few things that will work out better on film, but technologically time is running out on film's long reign as the gold standard of film making.

I'm biased, not blind. I wrote elsewhere in this forum that I would consider digital if I thought it was the right tool for the right project and for the right reasons, budget being obviously one of them, and making digital try to look like film being the less important of them all.
But so far, I have seen very few of those situations (and many others where digital was chosen more because of hearsay rather than good reasons).
I have to add that Epic looks like an incredible tool, but I still dislike the uber-clean digital look for narrative work, and very much so. It's just a matter of personal taste, I guess. Give me the finest grain, if you must, but for my taste it has to be there somehow. But I understand this is not the right thread for this conversation, Alexander, so if you want to hear more of my ramblings, feel free to shoot me a PM or email.

 

[Dan Hudgins]

I already have 2 super8, now I'm saving money to buy a Super16mm camera...

In order to make Blu-Ray and stay within normal bandwidth limits the scans would be de-grained. Likewise for digital broadcast.

It is no longer possable to distribute (on disk or on-demand) 24fps grain as it would look in film projection because of key frame based compression which does not refresh the whole frame area at 24fps (at full resolution).

I'm wondering when the last roll of 35mm color print stock will be produced ending real "uncompressed" projection as an option, maybe 10 years?

From now on, "everything" is going to be digitally de-grained to reduce bandwidth for the compressed distribution. It will happen and just like why 65/70mm died, there is no outcry from the public to stop the degraded digital broadcast and the advance of ever higher compression levels in the theater once film projection ends.

 

[Thomas Koch]

My wife is going to film school. We'll get an Epic as soon as we can, but until then shooting on Super16, Canon 5d, HVX, RED ONE etc.

wow, the Neatvideo plugin works super fantastic on this footage. Thanks for the tip Dan.

 

[Shane Betts]

Hey Thomas, if you still have some of it left, you might consider shooting some mid grey to keep as grain samples for when you want grain from your Epic footage.

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Less grain

Less grain

Thanks for the tip Dan.

Yes, temporal noise reduction works wonders, I have some in the new program I am working on but to reduce motion estimation artifacts I would use it with the camera locked down so that details can align better between frames in the static parts.

Another way to reduce grain in older film is to pull process.

1) Pull Process 1 to 2 stops. Not all labs can actually pull process even if their order form has a check box for that as the negative machine needs to speed up 30% to 50% and most run at maximum speed all the time, perhaps, so they cannot get enough extra speed. You can check the midtone denisty for normal exposure of an 18% gray card to see how much pull they can manage. D-max needs to stay at least about density 1.0 above fog plus base density, if you pull more than that then scanner noise will start to get higher than film grain (I delt with that in my software by scanning each frame several times and "fusing" the scans together to reduce the scanner noise with low contrast negatives).

Pull processing reduces the density all over the frame, including the fog grain. If the film is not too old you can get the fog grain back down to normal levels, or at least close.

2) Over expose a little less than the pull processing reads to maybe 1/2 stop more so if you have 500 speed film, and you pull one stop, you would then shoot between about 320 and 160. For Super16 you need to overexpose less than for 35mm since the frame area is smaller and you don't want to lose too much sharpness.

3) Increase contrast ratio of the lighting a bit to compensate for the lower contrast in pull processed film, not a huge amount, but you need a bit more lighting ratio to have the contrast look normal, if you boost the contrast in grading you bring the grain up, to minimize the grain increase the contrast in EXPOSURE and not in grading.

4) Be sure to use the right optical filters for netural color balance, as balancing the color in grading increases the grain since you are in effect rasing the contrast of one or the other primary color. Be sure to compensate for the filter factors.

I would avoid freezing film as it can produce spots and shinny spots that cannot be graded out as they are too large for dust removal software to deal with. We have seen some film ruined from freezing, it seems. Cold storage of about 40F with humidity control seems a safer way to store unprocessed film.

To get a consistent look to the end project, all of the film should be processed the same, even if you grade out the color changes there will also be grain and sharpenss and contrast changes from pull to normal to push processed footage.

The exposure latitude in Super16 is less than 35mm because of the smaller image area, so you need to use a bit more fill light to avoid grain in the darker parts of the frame, you can darken the shadows later in grading if needed but get something other than fog on the film to start with...

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Hey Thomas, if you still have some of it left, you might consider shooting some mid grey to keep as grain samples for when you want grain from your Epic footage.

In the negative to positive printing that was used in making movies, the "black bleed" from the positive steps and white flare from the negative steps and the compond S-curves made the grain vary with density and be various sizes because of the four film stocks involved and their grains not being aligned.

When color negative scans are used the results can show more grain in the shadows because the negative to positive printing is not causing black bleed.

Just putting a uniform "noise field" over digital footage does not produce the same "look" and 4th generation film printing where the grain is higher for mid-tones and less in the highlights and shadows.

I was wondering why Kodak's 5302 shows so much black bleed, when 2302 does not, and can only think that it was intentional on their part to mask the shadow grain from the Double-X (and 4-X) negatives and such.

Newer color print stocks show less black bleed and so if you print older color negaivies on them, the shadow grain would show more than it did on the original older print stocks that had more black bleed.

 

[Joe Taylor]

Hello Thomas, do you know the full history of this stock that's giving you fits? The only time that I have had film that came out so grainy was some 35mm stock that was overheated in Death Valley. That particular roll was in a film mag that was hot to the touch and the only roll from the batch that turned out to be so excessively grainy. If you do not know the film's full history, perhaps the film had been left un-refrigerated for a long period in a warm environment or had been overheated sometime. I've attached two frames from that same roll was in a mag that was hot to the touch.