nofilmschool » cinegrain

Film Looks the Easy Way: FilmConvert Now Supports Canon C300 and Arri Alexa, BMCC Coming Soon

Joe Marine — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 15:54:51 +0000

A solid color grade can very quickly take the edge off an image that looks “too digital.” If you don’t have much time to spend on said color grade, but you’d like to get a great look very easily, a film LUT that attempts to recreate some of the magic we get from Kodak and Fuji stocks could serve you well. We’ve discussed FilmConvert a bit before, but basically it’s either a standalone program or a plugin for the major Apple and Adobe products that uses the color science of the specific camera you’re using in order to precisely match the film stocks they have in their system. Now they’ve introduced another update, this time including support for the Canon C300 and the Arri Alexa. (more…)

Want Film-Like GH2 Footage? FilmConvert Now Supports GH2, More Canon Profiles, and Final Cut Pro 7

Joe Marine — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 19:11:16 +0000

Not too long ago we told you about a color corrector plugin/standalone software solution from Rubber Monkey that not only tries to mimic the looks of many film stocks, but does it in a way that is particular to the exact camera you’re using. Until now the only cameras that were guaranteed to work properly with FilmConvert to achieve the specific look were Canon DSLRs and RED cameras, but now they are adding support for the Panasonic GH2, as well as support for more Canon picture profiles, and a brand new plugin for Final Cut Pro 7. (more…)

FilmConvert: the Best Film Stock Emulator You've Ever Seen

Joe Marine — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 22:11:24 +0000

We’ve said a lot about the digital versus film debate, and a lot of people have a lot of different opinions. Film still had a technological advantage over digital until really the last few years or so, and now we have digital sensors which can match or exceed film stocks with dynamic range. Either way, with digital sensors being “too clean” for some people who have loved the look of film, there is a program called FilmConvert that takes the color information of specific cameras and actually uses that to determine how a specific film stock could best be represented using that sensor. Click through for some videos of the program in action. (more…)

Rgrain: a Low-cost Solution for Adding Realistic Film Grain to Your Videos

Joe Marine — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 01:22:20 +0000

Yes, you’re probably thinking, why is yet another company making film grain plates? Especially when there are already others doing it well, including CineGrain, which we’ve covered here before. Well, Rgrain is a little different, as their process does not involve scanning real film frames, but instead is a very close approximation of the real thing. This also gives Rgrain a huge advantage compared to the other guys: cost. Let’s take a look at some samples: (more…)

How to Make Digital Look Like (Grainy) Film: CineGrain Review

Ryan Koo — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 14:39:37 +0000

Celluloid is expensive. And besides, literally nobody makes film cameras anymore. But it does have a very particular aesthetic, one chief component of which is grain. There is a grit to film that today’s digital cameras lack, and while there are plenty of plugins out there to simulate this grit, there are no substitutes for the real artifacts. The guys at CineGrain took dozens of different film stocks and painstakingly scanned them in, delivering authentic grain, dirt, headers, tails, lens flares, and flash frames on a nice branded hard drive. Film grain isn’t appropriate for every project, but if you want your video to look like grainy 35mm, 16mm, or 8mm — but can’t shoot the real thing — you’ll find CineGrain to be a handy addition to your toolbox of tricks. (more…)

CineGrain: For When You Want Your Digital Footage to Look Like (Grainy) Film

Ryan Koo — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 17:34:53 +0000

I like grain. Photochemical film grain, that is, not digital noise. Maybe it’s just because I’m used to seeing grain on 100 years of film-originated material, but even one of the best-looking digitally-shot films in history — The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button — added grain in post. So if you’re trying to give your digital footage an analog aesthetic by adding grain, you can do it by using any number of filters (I like Magic Bullet’s grain filter, because it includes highlight suppression options), or you can go buy a boatload of actual film scans and composite them on top of your footage, which is what the new CineGrain collection offers: (more…)