What gives movies that "look"?

tres · 2 Jun 2010 at 21:37

If you look at "behind the scenes" footage of a movie, or some test footage, it looks like a regular camera filmed it.

But when you see the finished thing, especially next to the regular footage, it looks completely different? What do they do to make it look movie-ish?

Hope that made sense!

arknor · 2 Jun 2010 at 21:39

the colour filter?
what look? you need to explain what the look is

Dunks · 2 Jun 2010 at 21:40

Post processing.

Happy · 2 Jun 2010 at 21:42

Ha, I know exactly what you mean! I've always wondered that aswell, it kind of looks really saturated compared to the actual movie.

meghatronic · 2 Jun 2010 at 21:42

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_grading

TheVoice · 2 Jun 2010 at 21:42

Framerate plays a big part.

logix42p · 2 Jun 2010 at 21:47

on a side note didnt they do the harry potter films in a different colour everytime?? ie one with blue tinge one with green etc

DampCat · 2 Jun 2010 at 21:55

Colour grading!

ChrisJSY · 2 Jun 2010 at 21:55

Aspect ratio as well, forcing 16:9 or more can make things look movie-ish

Jock Dodds · 2 Jun 2010 at 21:55

TheVoice said:
Framerate plays a big part.

Yep, the 24fps is a big factor.

Raymond Lin · 2 Jun 2010 at 22:00

Jock Dodds said:
Yep, the 24fps is a big factor.

My SLR can shoot that

What I wanted to know is how does it shoot in the dark at 24fps, sometimes when I take a photo in near darkness I need a lot more light and 1/24th of a second is not enough for a correctly exposed shot.

Margaret · 2 Jun 2010 at 22:04

Probably the framerate indeed.

JIM_BOB7813 · 2 Jun 2010 at 22:34

The latest Dr Who Confidential had a bit about the Colourist doing his work.

neoboy · 2 Jun 2010 at 23:37

It is a combination of a few things such as the frame rate, different aspect ratios and certainly a lot of post processing/colour grading. For example for fast action scenes they would normally use higher frame rate to give the scenes more visceral and fast paced look. Good example would be 28 Days Later where by cinema standards they mostly used the modest Canon XL1 camcorder (with rather awesome lenses mind) with it 60FPS (IIRC) mode. Also in that case the film grain that the camera produced was perfect and helped add a lot more feel to the post apocalypse theme.

arknor · 3 Jun 2010 at 00:07

logix42p said:
on a side note didnt they do the harry potter films in a different colour everytime?? ie one with blue tinge one with green etc

no idea but the matrix film releases all have a green colour filter apart from the theatre versions

whitecrook · 3 Jun 2010 at 00:23

Probably the fact it's, uh, film and not video.

Greenlizard0 · 3 Jun 2010 at 00:25

I've always wondered this, but I have no idea. It's not only colour though, it's like the image has a slightly different perspective.

THMRK · 3 Jun 2010 at 00:57

It can be a variety of things, most of which are mention in this thread so far; post processing, frame rate and such but also the type of camera and film (I guess media is more appropriate these days given you get digital cameras and such) also make a huge difference on the "look" of a film.

For documentary style stuff they wouldn't go as far as using the same kinds of camera used during the filming of the movie, they're more likely to be filmed on hand held cameras or the kind of cameras they use for filming TV broadcasts and such like.

bledd · 3 Jun 2010 at 01:01

Some of my friends make music videos, they say 'grading' is the final process that makes it look professional

Arjun806 · 3 Jun 2010 at 02:27

I always wondered this but never knew how to describe it. Was confusing