CineLook Makes Video Look Like Film, So There!

By Peter Bohush

Let me digress even before I begin.

No matter how far the quality of digital and high-definition video have advanced over the past few years, a vocal group of critics continue to cry out, "But it will never look like film!"

These film puristas generally base their disdain for video on purely emotional justifications. They say film just looks better than video. Well, there's no doubt that Gandhi looks better than The Nanny. I'm talking about the productions, not the actual people. Even a whining Fran Drescher looks better than a skinny old guy in a big diaper. (I probably should have used Three's Company as my video example. Then putting the Mahatma up against Don Knotts in a pale blue jumpsuit would sort of cancel each other out.)

First, video shouldn't try to look just like film, just as film can never look just like video. Why play against one medium's weaknesses against another's strengths? Both film and video can be used effectively in story telling, commercials, corporate and other productions. And aesthetics aside, "video films" such as The Blair Witch Project, The Celebration and The Cruise prove that the ticket-buying audience doesn't really care what the movie was shot on as long as there is the promise of a compelling viewing experience.

Second, video can actually be made to look like film now, thanks to products such as CineLook and CineMotion from DigiEffects. This suite of filters for After Effects and compatible products adds color, emulsion, grain and motion effects to simulate film transfered to video. The companion filter FilmDamage gives video that old-time or damaged look of scratched film or kinescope video, without actually having to drag your film negative from the back of your bicycle as you ride across the studio lot. Yes, this takes away some of the fun of actually scratching up your film, just like those stone-washed jeans take away the fun of rolling around in the mud to get your jeans broken in. But hey, who has time to actually earn coolness anymore. Just buy it!

(Side note to all entrepreneurs: it's important to take the space out between words in your company or products' names and have at least two capital letters, such as MyBusiness, SuperHuman or BigBucks. I predict that this trend will advance to the point you'll need at least three words and capital letters to succeed, such as StupidTechnicalMorons, OurProductSucks or BigStockOptions. Of course, adding dot-com to the end of these is a given.)

Before & After with CineLook
(click to enlarge 100k)

THE FILM-LOOK FOR REAL?

So how good are CineLook and CineMotion? If you watched this year's Super Bowl (I mean, SuperBowl), you saw about ten commercials using CineLook and FilmDamage -- all those "old" scenes in commercials: home movies, "archive" footage and more. It works very well, particularly in making video look like old film. In fact, I can't think of a product that makes it any easier to recreate that old movie look.

Okay, so how about making video look like good film? That's the tricky part. With CineLook's dozen or so attributes, combined with CineMotion's ability to soften the edges and movement of video, there's no doubt a talented artist could get outstanding results with appropriate source material. The key phrase here is "talented artist." For while CineLook comes with an amazing assortment of preset filters, representing most of the major 8mm, 16mm and 35mm film stocks, plus unlimited custom settings, applying them effectively will take talent and practice.

Probably the biggest obstacle to achieving the film look is the source video itself. Each shot demands its own settings to achieve a nice look. Just slapping on a preset could result in a really awful-looking image. It's not CineLook's fault. These settings are complicated, and the product can only interpret colors in the image as it's told to do. So it definitely needs a trained eye to apply the filters to improve the image. Certainly, people who do color-correcting now will find CineLook a useful product -- once they learn it.

 
The CineLook interfaces
(click to enlarge)

While CineLook has an extremely simple and user-friendly interface, the sheer number of settings that can be changed will require training and experience. The CineLook manual alone is more than 80 pages jam-packed with technical information and suggestions. It's practically a course in and of itself.

As the manual recommends, "you should treat your video shoot just like a film shoot. The idea is to get rid of the film, not the process of creating film." In other words, don't expect CineLook to make your VHS footage of Grandma's birthday party look like you trucked a Panavision into the old lady's kitchen -- unless you lit it like a film and made some really good-looking video.

A WONDERFUL TIME-SINK

Now if you've ever found yourself sitting in front of your computer at 2am and realized that you've just been surfing the web for fifteen hours, you will be prepared for the CineLook experience. It's not that CineLook is hard -- in fact it's very easy to use. But with almost infinite possibilities to tweak and test the various image correction settings, you may find yourself gleefully applying filters until the wee hours of the morning and beyond. How do you choose the right look until you've seen all the looks? And how do you see all the looks when there are an infinite number to choose from? Oy vay! Ay carumba!

For ultra-creative purposes, such as bumpers, promos and commercials, CineLook and CineMotion are really cool tools, allowing the digital artist the flexibility and opportunity unmatched by any other products. DigiEffects offers a suite of complementary products, such as Berserk, Delirium and Aurorix to create stunning visual effects. I can't wait to try out Delirium's fire, fog and electrical effects.

I especially liked CineMotion's interlace aliasing reducer. It really softened the hard edges within my digital video image without going as far as a softness filter would. I think it added a beautifully subtle improvement to the clip I applied it to.

Although CineLook and CineMotion are marketed as plug-ins for Adobe After Effects (Windows and Mac), I installed it into Apple's Final Cut Pro 1.2, since it accepts most After Effects filters and plug ins. While the CineLook installation didn't present me with any options to install other than into After Effects, it wasn't a problem to install into Final Cut Pro's plug-ins folder. Final Cut Pro recognized the filters immediately.

Any downsides to CineLook and CineMotion? Beyond perhaps giving us too much for the money, any downsides associated with CineLook/CineMotion are on the computational side. These filters are very complex and take a lot of horspower to render. I tested CineLook and CineMotion on an Apple G4 450Mhz with 512 Mb of RAM -- basically one of the fastest machines on the market today. Applying CineLook with significant desaturation onto a 30 second clip took about 50 minutes to render. That's a lunch break.

Applying CineLook to a 9-minute (2-gigabyte) clip took all night to render. Turning off AppleTalk doubled the rendering speed, so blame the machine and Final Cut Pro and not the product for rendering issues. For all its great features and ease of use, Final Cut Pro is a render runt. I suspect that using CineLook within After Effects on either a PC or Mac would result in better rendering times.

FAKE FILMS IN THE FUTURE?

I have yet to see a feature-length movie shot on video using CineLook to enhance its image, but I suspect that day is very near. Digitally projected, only time will tell if an audience will be able to tell the difference. With the exception of digital Luddite Rober Ebert, I'll bet that no one will care. Such a movie may never rival Gandhi in its look and feel, but if it looks better than The Nanny there will be lots of people willing to plunk down their money to see a good story.

CineLook is available in two versions, Broadcast ($695) and FilmRes ($1995, more features.) CineLook includes the FilmDamage plug-in. CineMotion's retail price is $295. You may find some discounts by ordering direct from DigiEffects ( www.digieffects.com ).

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