So you want your DV movies to look like film. Not gonna happen. Well, to an extent it will happen. If your like me and using a consumer level miniDV cam, we have to do EVERYTHING in post. If your using something more professional like the cannon XL1 or 2, you need to tinker with the pixel aspect ratio, fstop, depth of field and so fourth. But I am going to show you how you can mimic a film effect in adobe premeire. Its not the best, actually in after effects or combustion you would obtain something 10 times better, and if youve got those programs, youd be better off getting the magic bullet plugin, which is meant for film immitation.
Before we do this, keep in mind, shoot your movie like its film. Light the set like its film, use the 3 light method. Also, if your camera has autofocus, turn that crap off. MiniDV cameras you find over in best buy are your "home movie" cameras. By default they focus on an object on the screen, making it stand out or appear more lively. Film, however does not do that.
Setting up the composition.
DV film is shot in "fields". If you take a stillframe, you will see lines in the video. This is something film doesnt have. When you capture, capture lower fields first. We will reverse this all right here.
Import your video into premiere. We need to place it twice, make your timeline look like mine:
They must be lined up perfectly. In our effects window, change video 2's opacity to 50%. Right click our clip in Video 2 and click field options. Make sure "reverse field dominance is UNCHECKED , check "Always deinterlace" then UNCHECK "Frame Blend Speed Changes.
Now, find the video effects window. Go Video Effects->Time->Posterize Time. Add this effect to both clips. From now on, whatever change we make to one, we make to both.
So now, we have our motion more film-like. Most cameras expose the DV at about 1/60th. I know mine is adjustable, what we just faked is about 1/40th of a second. This allows for more defined motion and bluring.
Adjusting the levels
Now its time to correct colors, gamma, and contrast. First in Video Effects, go to Image Control->Gamma Correction. Its default is 10. Ignore this. In the effects control window, click the Menu button, then set it from 1.0 to 1.2. Setting it higher makes it darker, this might be what you want for all I know.
Ok so once we have set these, and keep in mind, this is for video 1 and 2.
Next we set our brightness and contrast. You can find this is Video Effects->Adjust. I prefer a setting of about 12 for both, but its a matter of preference. This makes the image stand out a bit more.
Lastly, we add an unsharp mask. which is located in Blur& Sharpen->unsharp mask.
Set the radius to 1.0, the threshhold to 5, and the amount to 70.
Before -----------------------------------------------------After
Please ignore the crammed picture. You can see the difference quite clearly in color, and if you look closely at my bro's hand above his head. The aftershot looks like theres more there, thats because of that field trick we did above.
For this tutorial, Id like to give thanks to my bro for ending up in it without even knowing it, and Daniel Broadway, whose tutorial I read for after effects which does this essentially, but much much better. I refuse to use another authors idea or work without proper credit.
