The Art of Film Grain [video]
kottke.org
kottke.org
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... This is from 2003.
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.
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
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
When I just read Spielberg's quote,
>The grain is always moving, it’s swimming, which means that even in a still life, let’s say a flower on a table, that flower is alive even if it’s not moving.
it made me think immediately of what was said about Kurosawa, except that Kurosawa used weather/environment instead.
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.