How do films look like films?

I’ve been playing around with our new camera, it takes 1080p (30fps) video footage.

I see lots of movies online that look…well…professional. I don’t know if it’s the lighting, the optics, the talent, the post-processing, or what…perhaps I’m too close to the subject matter, having taken the footage and editing it myself.

What is it that separates the home hobbiest and that professional look?

One thing that I’ve heard that can make a difference is that in some cases, a movie will look “unprofessional” if the quality is too high. IIRC, high framerate was one of the culprits, here.

In terms of the technical quality (as opposed to the quality of the acting, etc.), I think it’s a combination of different things:

  • The actual recording medium (small sensors vs big sensors vs film vs IMAX, etc.)
  • Depth of field (effect of your sensor size, lens, aperture setting, and distance to subject)
  • Color temperature / color cast (many films have a deliberate color added to enhance the atmosphere)
  • How the camera’s held and maneuvered (handheld, tripod, dolly, etc.)
  • Frame rate – try converting it to 23.997 or 24 fps post-processing.
  • A good external mic coupled with good sound editing (home movie audio is more often more distracting than not, whereas you’ll never stop to consciously notice the sound in professional films because it just seems natural)
  • Scene composition – having unplanned, poorly-framed shots could subconsciously make your viewers think “amateur” even if they can’t quite articulate why
  • Good editing – cut out unnecessary crap and make the rest flow smoothly

…least that’s my guess. I ain’t no expert.

Lighting is a huge one. Few scenes in movies are just using ‘available’ lighting. Even outdoor scenes in movies make use of shades/reflectors, etc.

Not the only one, but it is a huge one.

I’ll play with the framerate and color temp…I’m afraid I can’t do much about the DOF, there’s only so many variables available with a Point n Shoot (Sony DSC-HX1)

In still photography, you can get some amazing results with cheap equipment, if you know how…but it sounds like that doesn’t necessarily translate to video.

That completely discounts the professional and semi-pro movies shot purely in digital.

It ain’t 1999 :slight_smile: The quality of film is one difference, but not the only one.

Films get quite a lot of tweaking after shooting the footage (have you noticed how the ‘deleted scenes’ on some DVDs look flat and amateurish by comparison? - this often means they were deleted before the work was done on them.

There are photoshop tutorials out there (still images, obviously, but the principles are similar) that demonstrate some of the kinds of changes and effects that are applied to raw footage to make it look right for the big screen - here’s one, for example: DZineMagazine.com is for sale | HugeDomains
(although they overdo some of the effects in that one, IMO)

I think the sound is a biggie too. Professional films have the mics very close to the actors and are setup to pick up only sound within a couple feet of them. Unlike the mics built into hand held cameras that pick up every sound and echo in the room.

Rehashing what others have said:

Fast frame rates bug the hell out of me. I loved it when they used it in Three Kings (shot on film), and I didn’t see it as much of a gimmick in Saving Private Ryan. Aside from those, I don’t like it. Many people use high frame rates either intentionally or because they don’t know any better, and to me it looks amateurish. Film usually runs at 24 frames per second (in the U.S.) and the effective shutter speed is 1/50 second or so. It blurs. You need some blur if you want your video to look like film.

Lighting is also important. Lighting for film and lighting for video are different – but the concepts are the same. Pay attention to your lighting setup. Basically, light as if you’re lighting a film and then make your adjustments so that it works better with video.

Use a tripod. Cinema vérité has its place, but IMO it’s over-used. Also, deliberately making the camera shaky doesn’t look like a ‘hand-held’ shot; it looks like a hand-held shot that you are deliberately trying to make look ‘hand-held’.

Pay attention to your field of view and depth of field. You want to put what is important on the screen and nothing else. (NB: Sometimes it’s important to put in what’s ‘not important’. It depends on your ‘vision’ for the film.) Be aware that deep focus is sometimes exactly what a shot needs. Other times shallow focus is.

Hampshire is correct about audio. Better to use a real mic. close to the actors than to use the built-in one(s). Be sure to record a minute of ambient noise so that you can layer it in to make takes and shots match. (You do this in post.)

Talent is important. Too many ‘actors’ are ‘acting’, especially when they’re just starting out or if they’re friends and family. Acting is more than reciting lines. The actor has to believe s/he is the character. Remember that moves should be more subtle than ones made for the stage. A little goes a long way.

Plan ahead. It takes a long time to do set-ups, but it works when you do it right.

If you can compare the two - one item I read was that Monty Python had to reshoot their sketch material for their first movie “And Now For Something COmpletely Different”. The production values for BBC TV were not good enough quality for even an Indie Art House film.

If you’ve been near even a semi-professional shoot (not even a Hollywood movie) the amount of attention payed to producton values - lighting, framing the shot, continuity elements, depth of field and focus, etc. Plus, they have several takes and use editing to put together the best. Even then, they screw up sometimes. A classic is the Empire Strikes Back sequence whee they freeze Han Solo - one moment he’s wearing a vest, next he’s not, then he is, then he’s not… D’oh!

Watch a “making of…” on the DVD extras and they can spend several days on a location shooting enough to fill a minute or two of screen time. No wonder movies cost millions.

I worked on one ultra-low-budget film (I shot two scenes – and they were great) where there was an egregious mistake. It worked out, though. A documentary crew are looking for zombies in New Orleans. Zombie! kills one of them, the ‘grip girl’. The cameraman finds her body and starts taping. At the beginning of the scene he’s wearing a black leather jacket. Cut to video of the dead girl. Coming back to the cameraman, he’s no longer wearing his jacket. Here’s how the director covered it:

Cameraman approaches the body and begins taping and delivering ‘witty’ dialogue.

Cut to video (cameraman’s POV, through the viewfinder) of the body. Cameraman sings.

Mamm’ries…
On a decomposing corpse
Putrid maggot-ridden ma…

Cut to shot of the cameraman without his jacket.

‘[maggon-ridden ma…]n, it’s cold all of a sudden!’

:stuck_out_tongue:

Figures. I go home and see just how manual my camera can get…turns out: Not much.

While I can manual focus, it’s with a thumbwheel (click, shudder, click, shudder), and it’s more a manu-matic than manual. You pick the general focus range and it makes whatever it finds in that area sharp.

That makes dealing with any kind of Depth of field setup kinda hit and miss. If I rack the Zoom all the way out, I can’t hold it steady on something with a soft background.

I’m also not looking at having Actors do any acting. The things I tend towards generally don’t have any people in them (or the people aren’t the focus).

Here’s a sample with minimal processing:

I thought most dialogue in films was dubbed in later?

As little as possible, but it depends on the filmmaker.

I think it’s depth of field that makes most of the difference.

SO that the cinematography can get an Oscar too… you often see the trick where the camera focuses back and fort betweeen the person near the camera and something/someone farther away.

Crap…I thought a private movie was viewable if you had the URL…it’s ‘unlisted’ now:

That was a lighting trick. Check this out at 1:28.

23.976. It’s related to the NTSC video rate of 59.94/29.97 and 3:2 pulldown. Originally, the frame rate was 60fps to match the 60Hz electric AC frequency, but when color was added they slowed the frame rate down slightly (it was still within the tolerance of the existing 60fps b/w TVs) to eliminate a dot pattern that appeared with the added chroma bandwidth.

More info here.