Who's adding grain to Red footage?

[Palmer Woodrow]

Hi all. Just wondering how prevalent the addition of "film grain" is in people's workflows these days. As digital acquisition becomes the norm and people become used to its look, do filmmakers still feel compelled to add grain to make the footage look more "film-like"?

If so, where is it being used? Major cinema releases? Indies? Small-time personal users? And what are they using to add grain?

Thanks for any insight.

 

[Rob McDonough]

Never liked the idea of adding an artifact like grain unless the end result was to look "like film" as a special retro effect. But also curious if people still like it, use it, and if so, why?

 

[Björn Benckert]

I like grain, I think pictures with no texture looks kind of dead. So I use it pretty much all the time. Flame grain module or even rcxp grain looks good to me, basically all grain that's added in log space is great. It's make the picture look sharper than they actually are if it's applied correctly.

Here are some snaps with RCXP grain:


http://www.syndicate.se/Files/~usr/hawk/servering3.jpg
http://www.syndicate.se/Files/~usr/hawk/servering4.jpg
http://www.syndicate.se/Files/~usr/hawk/superman.jpg

Click on the images to see them 1:1

 

[Bob Gundu]

For a second there Bjorn, I thought you were showing whole grains in that first pic!

I like grain, I think pictures with no texture looks kind of dead. So I use it pretty much all the time. Flame grain module or even rcxp grain looks good to me, basically all grain that's added in log space is great. It's make the picture look sharper than they actually are if it's applied correctly.

Here are some snaps with RCXP grain:


http://www.syndicate.se/Files/~usr/hawk/servering3.jpg
http://www.syndicate.se/Files/~usr/hawk/servering4.jpg
http://www.syndicate.se/Files/~usr/hawk/superman.jpg

Click on the images to see them 1:1

 

[Sreenivasa Pentela]

What ![

 

[paulherrin]

ooh boy, i like a good witch hunt... who's practicin' the dark arts and puttin' magic specs all over the place?

just messin' with y'all - but for real if you look closely you may find that red files have some beautiful texture qualities on their own already and you can certainly emphasize those for creative purposes.

 

[Adam Eden]

I add 4k cine grain to ALL my finished shots now. It's a standard in my "track" in resolve now. But I only ever put a "hint" in and to me that's the secret

 

[Gunleik Groven]

I add or shoot for grain all the time...
I know that's not relevant for "all" footy, and I'm capabale of controlling grain(noise)

But as "grain" wa a part of making perceptual resolution in film "low noise" is not - to me - the ultimate goal of imaging.

Connecting the dots, is still a huge part of the entertainment of watching things to me.

but rather than "adding grain" i often shoot for it

 

[Wey Wang]

I add 4k cine grain to ALL my finished shots now. It's a standard in my "track" in resolve now. But I only ever put a "hint" in and to me that's the secret

I'm curious, what source do you use for 4K cine grain?

 

[Ryan De Franco]

Besides human texture and lifelike sharpness, a bit of grain does wonders for heavily compressed delivery.

Take a look at this film if you're curious about super subtle grain.

Between the transitions, overlays, underexposure and in-camera gradients, this would get chewed to pieces by Vimeo/YouTube compression... if it were not for the bit of film grain added in After Effects.
There are many more professional solutions, and many cheaper ones, but the small library included in AE is not bad.
There was a healthy texture in the negative too, a combo of exposure, studio backgrounds and soft half-century old glass brought that out.
I would love to hear from someone who has purchased CineGrain.

Gunleik pretty sure you're leading the charge on exposing and grading for 'real' grain

 

[Peter Moretti]

I add or shoot for grain all the time...
I know that's not relevant for "all" footy, and I'm capabale of controlling grain(noise)

But as "grain" wa a part of making perceptual resolution in film "low noise" is not - to me - the ultimate goal of imaging.

Connecting the dots, is still a huge part of the entertainment of watching things to me.

but rather than "adding grain" i often shoot for it

Gunleik,

You have mastered the art of making an Epic look like an HVX, LOL! In a VERY ARTISTIC BEAUTIFUL way!!

 

[Zakaree Sandberg]

I use too... but not anymore..

film is unfortunately a dying breed, and sooner or later less and less people are going to do the post grain to digital footage..
eventually crystal clear pictures will be the norm, and most new film stocks are pretty quiet.. almost just like what the red and alexa naturally have (noise) wise

so adding some weird old kodak grain kinda dates the image a little... i would do it if im shooting some period piece... 90s, 80s, 70s type of movie.. but not modern day stuff

my 2 cents.. and this is coming from a guy who LOVED to add grain to get the "film" look

 

[Patrick Tresch]

I don t add grain, I shoot 1600+ asa and get a nice texture.

Pat

 

[Palmer Woodrow]

Thanks for the feedback, everybody.

I find this curious:

Besides human texture and lifelike sharpness, a bit of grain does wonders for heavily compressed delivery.

I would think the opposite. You're adding a ton of spurious high-frequency detail with zero commonality between frames; so I'd expect that you're either going to consume all of the available bits trying to encode random dots at the expense of true image detail, or the codec is going to decimate the grain before compressing in order to gain efficiency.

 

[Ev Shipard]

I love grain.
I believe there will always be a place for grain/noise. The film aesthetic is ingrained into our psyche and plays a big part in the cinematic experience- this will shift I guess with time. Video was constantly trying to emulate film but now seems to have a future look of it's own and perception is shifting.
Looking at films like The Grey, shot on 35 with super speeds- push processed, the transfer I saw was crazy grainy and along with the camera work added to the anxiety and mood of the story. Looks almost like 16.

Another note, as these camera acquire data more cleanly then integration with CG elements becomes more complex- a fair amount of degradation would go into most elements along with re-distortion, CA etc. Most vfx is still executed at around 2K/2.5K even on tentpole 3d 4K acquired projects. 4K is a massive data and time hit as we are all realising, I think the only film we finished shots at 4K was on Stealth (anamorphic) as Digital Domain were also doing it. I'm sure that this will all shift soon and I am a little bit concerned about it. Imagine digital matte paintings executed at 12K 16bit for 6k dragon- a little scary.

I'm very keen to see the blue channel on a dragon r3d frame.

 

[Shervin Mandgaryan]

After watching Drive on BluRay (Which was shot on an Alexa)... I'm pretty sure they added grain in post just to give the picture a little more character. I found it took the edge off the digital look and gave it a much more pleasing and natural feel. If you're a grain aficionado, watch the film on BluRay... I'm curious as to what everyone thinks of it.

 

[Pablo Moreno]

After watching Drive on BluRay (Which was shot on an Alexa)... I'm pretty sure they added grain in post just to give the picture a little more character. I found it took the edge off the digital look and gave it a much more pleasing and natural feel. If you're a grain aficionado, watch the film on BluRay... I'm curious as to what everyone thinks of it.

I could be wrong, but I don't think they added any grain on post.. probably they made the digital version after the film print, therefore you see grain..

 

[paulherrin]

I would think the opposite. You're adding a ton of spurious high-frequency detail with zero commonality between frames; so I'd expect that you're either going to consume all of the available bits trying to encode random dots at the expense of true image detail, or the codec is going to decimate the grain before compressing in order to gain efficiency.

internet compression is crazy... i despise it. some noise/grain can keep away crazy banding and artifacts. but i don't get the creative reasoning behind lazily applying a consistent 'texture' across the frame. i understand it creates a 'barrier' - fine, but what's the veil for again? texture is a great thing to work with when you stick to principles of contrast, balance, variety, and rhythm. i don't see why (creatively, not technically) we can't have beautifully smooth gradations if we want them - and it'd certainly be nice to see some interesting 'levels' of texture throughout a piece.