Several posts recently have asked about creating a filmy look to video.
Well you cant - film is film and video is video - but what you can do is tweak video to give it more impact as is often done with film.

I am just editing this kids party and I was just playing about to get the right party look. I thought it may be helpfull to ahow how I did this. You might do things very differently depending on the look you are after, I just want to show what can be done.

Flat - the video from the camera. Carefully shot with manual exposure, background is nearly burned out but I wasnt interested in the clouds, exposure set for forground subject. Depth of focus is quite shallow as b ground was not of interst and I wanted the sharpest focus in the subject.

Curved - I used the colour curves tool to increase contrast a bit, now the b ground is totally white but the subject looks more vibrant.

Curved, Sats - Used the saturation tool to increase the lows, it's a party so bright colours will work.

Curved, Sats, Glow - A tiny bit of glow to add sparkle to highlights.

Curved, Sats, Glow, Sharpen - If used carefully can bring out detail in skin nicely. Careful ! Use too much and your picture will be cluttered by noise and compression artifacts.

Rendering times with all the fx off was 8 sec, all fx on was 64 sec - 8 times slower. ( on a slow core duo 2 core)

This is all SD video from my big JVC. Deinterlaced for stills capture. This isnt intended as a simple ' how to ' as it is a very subjective process and your style and the content of the video will hugely effect how you approach the same process. And I really am no expert...

Some related tutorials / guides -

Depth of field - http://www.videoforums.co.uk/reviews...ield-a270.html
Saturation in vegas - http://www.videoforums.co.uk/reviews...egas-a251.html
Curves in Vegas - http://www.videoforums.co.uk/reviews...egas-a235.html
Lighting on the very cheap - http://www.videoforums.co.uk/reviews...dget-a229.html
Shooting to edit - http://www.videoforums.co.uk/reviews...rder-a184.html

Attached Images

	flat.jpg (140.1 KB, 60 views)
	curved.jpg (144.1 KB, 39 views)
	curvedsat.jpg (147.7 KB, 33 views)
	curvesatglow.jpg (146.7 KB, 36 views)
	curvesatglowsharp.jpg (176.4 KB, 57 views)

And here is a bit of video - fx off then all fx on.
3 mbit wmv but some compression artifacts are still evident.

http://www.zaskarfilms.com/Films/VForums/filmlook.wmv

Try the overlaid transparent blur to that Mark, I've just done so to your footage, it smooths out those few artifacts and helps the look I think.

The artifacts are mostly due to the quick wmv compression i did - it was cbr not vbr.

Right, but still think it's worth your trying it.

I generally err on the side of sharpness.

It's still sharp, just not harsh, remember the blurred layer is transparent.

Whatever, I can see you won't be swayed .

i would have to agree, nothing is better than film. but using digital has given me so much more freedom. its just learning to software that's a pain in the arse. but as with anything once you know it you know it.
i am very excited about the links you posted..thank you'

Jerry
Are you referencing "frame averaging"

There are a few ways to make video look like film. Most require a bit of extra expense.

In the early days, I too wanted to achieve the filmic look. I invested in 'Magic Bullet' software a few years ago. Once you light your scenes properly you can grade the footage in a number of ways. Unless you're doing something really wild like a music video, you'll probably want to stick to some of the 'basic' looks from the Magic Bullet suite.

However, I discovered there was always something 'missing' even using the software. I still wasn't achieving a true filmic look. This is mostly due to the lack of DoF (Depth of Field) which is difficult (nigh impossible) to achieve with a camcorder and is essential to the art of filmmaking IMHO. So I did some heavy research into DOF adapters and early last year invested in the Letus Extreme DOF adapter. I haven't looked back since.

For anyone who doesn't know what a DOF adapter is, it's worthwhile research (I certainly didn't know about the existence of them until last year). It's taken me a while to experiment and get used to filming this way, but once mastered it can give you a true filmic representational look. Gives you the power to focus on various elements in your FOV, essential in drawing attention to the eye of the viewer.

-TF