Cinematography / Film Look / Shot Design By Rajeev Jain - Ics Wica - Indian Dop/ Cinematographer

Cinematography / Film Look / Shot Design by Rajeev Jain - ICS WICA - Indian DOP/ Cinematographer

Rajeev Jain, ICS WICA is a famous Indian cinematographer, has earned 2000 commercials, 9 narrative film credits in collaboration with directors from around the world, including Rasstar, Army, Pyar Mein Kabhi Kabhi, Badhaai Ho Badhaai, Meerabai Not Out, Kadachit, Carry on Pandu, Kalpvriksh The Wishing Tree, Ayyo Paji and the first two instalments of Trimurti, Gupt and Chalte Chalte. He is one of the best cinematographer in India, has received awards and nominations for artful cinematography, and is a member of Western India Cinematographers Association WICA and the founder member of Indian Cinematographers Society ICS.

Achieving a film look with video is a hot topic. Film has an aesthetic quality about it that can be described as surreal, organic, or fantastical. Video, on the other hand, may be described as harsh, sharp, and realistic-looking. One of the reasons behind this quality difference lies in the way in which film and video are recorded.

The Appeal of the 'Film Look' If you float around the message boards long enoughyoull probably be really confused as to what this whole concept is about. Obviously, people are trying to make their digital video look more like filmbut how.and why?

Lets talk about the why aspect first.

How to Make Video Look like Film

Many people just assume film is better so it only makes sense to try and make your video look like film. That may be your opinion, but you can get yourself into trouble thinking this way. Many people who think film is better will do anything to make their video look like film, even if that means putting dust and scratches effects on their video. The result of doing something like that is video that looks like it has scratches on top of it.

The real reason to strive to make video look like film is because audiences are used to the look of film when watching a movie. If your movie is shot on video, people will notice that the movie looks different than what they are used to seeing. Thats not necessarily a bad thing. Video has a look of realism and if you are trying to portray a gritty realistic story then video great. However, if you are trying to portray a mystical fantasy world, video could be distracting to your audience.

Ultimately though, you have to shoot with what you have. So rather than strive to make your video look like film, make it your goal to make the best possible looking image for the medium you are shooting.

That being said, lets discuss some of the differences between video and film, how to compensate for them, and when you should just leave things alone.

That Elusive Film Look

There are a variety of components that make film look different than digital video.

Dynamic Range - The range of values between the darkest and brightest perceptible points in an image. Film has the ability to capture much bigger variations in light intensity. Have you ever seen video where the sky is completely white? The sky is white because when the cameras CCD chip sees something so bright it cant translate it. Instead it says that is so brightits just white. The same is true on the dark side. If something is too dark, the camera just assumes it is black. Digital video has a very limited range of intensity it can see, while HD is slightly more, and film is drastically greater (several F-stops.)

How to compensate - This is probably the hardest thing to overcome when working with video. In some very expensive cameras you can do some things to slightly improve thisbut that is a subject way to complex for this article. Instead, the best thing you can do is to prevent this limitation from distracting your audience. The number one distraction caused by this is blown out highlights .. aka the white sky. You should try to do everything you can to avoid blown out highlights. You do this by exposing for the brightest thing in the scene. Outdoors, this could cause your subject to become very dark, so its a good idea to have a big reflector to bounce light onto your subject. Or block out some of the suns light with what is called a butterfly scrim.

When in doubt underexpose - A condition in which too little light reaches the film, producing a thin negative or a dark reversal or print. That statement probably sends chills down the spine of a professional cinematographer because it sounds like such bad advice. However, rarely do I see a single shot that seems so underexposed that some post production treatments cant save them. Shots that are too bright, however, are very difficult to treat.

Gamma Curve - Measurement of the contrast of an image, representing the slope of the straight-line portion of the characteristic curve. Film reacts in a non linear fashion to light, while video is completely linear. But all you need to know is that film colours look different because of this, and there is very little you can do about it. However, some of the higher end prosumer and professional camcorders actually have gamma correction features which help it to mimic the look of film.

Noise - Random errors and fluctuations in an image. Noise can be distracting across a sequence of frames. Video CCD produce noise due to the way it picks up light as well as the way it digitizes the image. You cant completely eliminate noise, but you can minimize it by keeping your cameras electronic gain settings at their minimum.

Dust and Scratches - Since film is a physical thing, dust and scratches can easily end up on the film negative. A lot of people get so into the film look thing that they think this is important to add to their video. Dont be stupid. There is no reason to purposefully degrade your image. This is the one area that digital has a significant advantage over film, so be happy and keep it the way it is.

Resolution - The spatial detail of an image. For digital images, the number of pixels the image contains defines its resolution. Higher resolution images are sharper, smoother, and contain more image detail, but are also larger in file size. Film technically doesnt have a resolution because it doesnt actually have pixels. However, just like video, if you project the image of a 35mm film big enough, it will start to look soft just like video does. Most experts estimate 35mm film to be about equivalent to a 4K resolution. That is about 4 times more resolution than 1080p.

Depth of Field - The distance range between the nearest and farthest objects that appear in acceptably sharp focus. Depth of field depends on the lens opening, the focal length of the lens, and the distance from the lens to the subject. This is the big one. Most digital cameras have a small CCD that is about 1/3. Higher end cameras sometimes have a 1/2 or 2/3 CCD. This is much much smaller than a 35mm frame. Because of the way light goes through a lens, the result is that the smaller the CCD size, the more of the image is in focus. That means that on 1/3 chip the entire shot will be in focus, where as on 35mm film the DP can control the focus to be on the subject and blur out the background completely. This can be of huge benefit to the filmmaker as it forces his audience to look at the subject. With video, you have much less control over what is in focus and what is not. Because of this, you have to be very careful not to have a cluttered distracting background that will pull your audiences attention away from the action.

Back up zoom in - You can get some of the same effect of a shallow depth of field by backing your camera up as far as possible, and then zooming in to get the shot type you want. Technically you havent changed your depth of field, but you can achieve close to the same look with the subject in focus and the background out of focus.

35mm adapters - There is an entire industry now of 35mm adapters. These are devices that allow you to put a 35mm lens on the front of the a device, which then is projected to an intermediate screen which your digital camera focuses on. These can be a bit pricey and difficult to work with, but they are a bargain compared to shooting with film.

There isnt a whole lot more to it than that. But remember, the idea isnt to make people think that your movie was shot on film. Honestly.who cares? Your goal should be to make the best film possible, using the techniques and tools available.

by: Sparkle Hayter

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