Film Grain (1 Viewer)

[Ernest Rister]

In an effort to kill "Grain Scrawl", I've seen some horrific treatments of classic animated titles that capture the background in a static pose, and then "matte in" the animated characters on top of these stattic frame grabs, resulting in a completely dead experience, as if all the air had been sucked out of the shot and the characters are existing in a cold vacuum.

 

[Ernest Rister]

I'm one of those assholes who run 35mm film at home.

You run 35mm films at home?!? You asshole!!!

 

[Jason Adams]

Pffft. Thats nothing. I'm two weeks away to finishing on my new 70mm theater in my backyard. I'm renting a print of Laurence of Arabia from Sony and inviting people from the neighborhood.























































Not. I might be getting a 42 inch widescreen set though.

 

[Dave H]

This is definitely true about compression. I think a lot of people's complaints of a movie looking "too grainy" has to do with compression artifacts they are seeing from their player and display --- and in particular --- their display's contrast and brightness are probably cranked too high exposing a greater number of artifacts. Of course, if their display were calibrated correctly, then it would look "too dark."

 

[Andy Patrizio]

Don't some directors prefer the glossy, digital look? I would say Rodriguez (with recent films) and Lucas definitely prefer their films to look more like a digital image devoid of grain. Also, Lowry seems to have a habit of cleaning films to the point of zero grain, like OUATITW.

 

[Kevin M]

Actually that is because these films are a digital image, they both exclusively use digital recording formats for their recent films.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Well, since the films in quesiton are being shot digitally and are therefore "devoid of grain" from the beginning, you're probably right.

M.

 

[RobertR]

Can you really call them "films" if they're shot digitally?

 

[Kevin M]

Well since most of them are transferred to film for traditional projection rather than the much more rare (yet appropriate for the format) digital projection......well..no..I guess they aren't really "film". But I'm gonna call them that anyway, sorry but that's a habit I won't break.

 

[Dave H]

Regarding Lucas --The Star Wars SE DVDs look filmlike with little grain if you know what I mean. Great, overall.

 

[Vincent_P]

Actually, for simple fades and dissolves you need not do an optical step so long as you keep them within certain lengths. They can be done via A/B roll printing directly off the original negatives from the negative-to-IP printing phase and thus there's none of the generational loss that traditional optical printing entails. A/B roll dissolves and fades can look absolutely beautiful.

Vincent

 

[Cees Alons]

Part of the problem is the fact that "NTSC grain" (= the standard resolution of 480 lines x

 

[Kevin Deselms]

I've seen a lot of trailer work these days being finished in 2k on a Fire or DS for grain and dirt fixes, and then filmout is done from those 2k frames. I think it looks good, if maybe just a little soft - doing it at 4k would fix that, though.

Personally, the only time grain bothers me on DVD is when it's so excessive that the bitrate assigned to the compression isn't high enough, and it causes a lot of pixelization. But it's kind of rare to see that much grain, in this day and age. If it were my film, I'd be shooting in HD anyway and it wouldn't be an issue.

On a slightly related subject, what I object to more is lazy film transfers for DVD. MGM seems to be the worst about this, with catalog releases. They don't even do dirt fixes...they transfer to tape, compress, slap it on a disc and shove it out the door. So the end result looks like a film that's been playing in a theater for about two weeks...specs and spots all over the place. I was really irritated, the first time I popped in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and saw this - I've noticed it a few other times since, all on MGM discs.

 

[Adam Portrais]

I would have to agree that too little grain can be a bad thing. I know I'm gonna get hell for this but I think the new Star Wars transfer is too clean. It almost looks fake (it looks fantastic, but just a little fake IMO).

 

[Mark Zimmer]

There's a distinction between grain, which is appropriate, and poorly-rendered grain, which as a result of compression makes the picture look like a tapestry of dancing lights. Grain doesn't look like that; these are really compression artifacts.