
The Art of Film Grain [video] - Osiris30
https://kottke.org/18/11/the-art-of-film-grain
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KaiserPro
I used to work for the foundry, which is the equivalent of Adobe, but for the
film industry.

Before that I worked at a number of VFX houses.

What I love so much about listening to "filmies" is that their insistence that
film grain is authentic. (fortunately this video is matter of fact, unlike the
vast majority of people spewing out opinion on such things, the presenter
actually seems to know what they are talking about)

Most of the film grain you've seen in the last ten years (possibly since about
2000) is fake. Certainly if there is any VFX work, then the film grain has
been "degrained" and then put in back afterwards. (I'm not talking monsters, I
mean set extensions, sky removals, general touchup.)

And yes, that even includes movies that were shot on real film. Which was most
films up until about 2010-12

The best part, most film grain you see is the work of maybe three people.
[https://www.fxguide.com/featured/furnace_discreet_-
_beta_pro...](https://www.fxguide.com/featured/furnace_discreet_-
_beta_program_starts/) This is from 2003.

~~~
rebuilder
I usually do my grain matching with a custom gizmo I've made. But then again,
I'm a compositor, so I'm not so much concerned with grain as an artistic tool
as I am with matching whatever the original footage looked like.

I use my own grain gizmo for grain matching. More accurately, _noise_
matching, since it's pretty rare for me to get plates shot on film these days,
and the digital noise modern cameras produce is quite different from film
grain, so film grain tools don't necessarily do a very good job matching it.
At least that's been my experience.

Edit: But yes, mostly if you can see grain in a big budget feature film, it's
been added afterwards, as the production quite likely didn't even use a camera
that produces film-like grain.

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matthberg
This is a site unaffiliated with the video creator (Nerdwriter1) that adds no
meaningful content on top of that which is included in the video. Would it be
possible to link directly to the video instead?
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=4PcpGxihPac](https://youtube.com/watch?v=4PcpGxihPac)

~~~
tallanvor
Even worse, it doesn't make it clear that Kottke isn't the creator.

~~~
tobr
Now now, that’s rather unfair to Jason Kottke. It should be abundantly clear
to any regular reader of his, and both the text and the embedded YouTube
player includes attribution to the creator.

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degenerate
If you _really_ enjoyed this video, you will love this defunct YouTube channel
"Every Frame A Painting":

[https://www.youtube.com/user/everyframeapainting/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/everyframeapainting/videos)

Also, there is a semi-successor to the above called "Fandor" that I am
subscribed to, which isn't as compelling/immersive/creative in its delivery,
but it's still good:

[https://www.youtube.com/user/Fandorific/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/Fandorific/videos)

Fandor releases about 1 video a day. If you know other channels like this,
please share.

~~~
deanCommie
> Fandor releases about 1 video a day. If you know other channels like this,
> please share.

Jesus, no wonder Youtubers are burnt out. That's an apalling pressure to put
on a creator....

I loved how rare and curated Every Frame A Painting was - to me it was the
epitome of the realization of the promise of youtube - the peak of the medium.

I am hungry for more similar content, so I'm certainly going to check Fandor
out but I'm nervous about the added load a daily video channel would add to my
media consumption

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neuralRiot
>during the era when film was the only choice many photographers tried hard to
eliminate this aspect of film processing.

Not always, during my days of film i (and many photogs) used to love Tri-x due
to the characteristic grain and contrast even pushing the process to extremes
like ISO 1600 or 3200 to exagerate such qualities. Now i find digital noise or
film grain simulators horrible.

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nickgrosvenor
Companies like www.cinegrain.com have been successful by selling grains that
have been collected from all available film stocks and licensing them to
productions that shoot digital.

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timonoko
I have a program idea: "Godard Title Generator". It would produce colorful
letter animation on black with film grain and shake (and with occasional pubic
hairs and cigarette burns).

~~~
pavlov
I guess it would also discard whatever text you put in and replace it with a
mashup of sentences from obscure Cuban revolutionaries and conversation
fragments overheard from a couple fighting in the street in Paris.

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aw3c2
Actual source:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PcpGxihPac](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PcpGxihPac)

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ezoe
Film grain is an unnecessary noise, degrading the quality of video. Looks bad
for our eyes and especially bad for video encoding. It should be abolished for
good.

