How do movies achieve "The Look?" (1 Viewer)

[Patrick McCart]

The reason why film looks different than video can be summed up into ONE reason:

Film's image is photochemical, video is electronic.

Film's image is projected via light going through the film, landing on the screen, and reflecting into our eyes. Video is just light emitted from a screen right into your eyes.

Grain, definition and even the framerate does lend to some of that. You could not still make video look like film without photochemical developing, though. (Unless a computer system is developed that can do that digitally.)

Anamorphic films are slightly out of focus (an absurdly tiny amount) due to the lens being used. Anamorphic on TV is clear as crystal (in most cases) because the image is digitally unsqueezed with ultra-sharp focus.

 

[JohnRice]

Film's image is projected via light going through the film, landing on the screen, and reflecting into our eyes. Video is just light emitted from a screen right into your eyes.

Well, actually all other things being fairly equal, transmitted light tends to look quite a bit better than reflected light. This is part of the reason a good 11x14 transparancy backlit will always look better than an 11x14 print. If you've ever seen transparancies viewed with rear projection, it looks amazing when done properly. If a movie theater was ever set up with rear projection, it would blow your mind.