Digital Cinema: How to Make Your Mini DV Look Like Film

Morgan Paar
February 2004

The 14th Annual Films Arts Festival of Independent Cinema screened the very first video I ever shot on Mini DV. When I went to pick-up my VHS viewing copy from the festival's organizers, the Film Arts Foundation (FAF) in San Francisco, the curator congratulated me and asked if I "shot on 16 or 35" (16mm film or 35mm film). I almost fell down.

It would have cost me hundreds of dollars to shoot the three-minute piece on 16mm and thousands on 35mm. This short put me back $10 ($5 for the Mini DV tape and $5 for a pack of cigarettes for a prop) and a favor from an actor friend. The final ingredient came from asking a film school classmate how I could make the hard look of video seem more like film.

Since that day, I have researched, experimented, implemented and taught what is called the "Film Look." Don't get me wrong: it's not that I am necessarily against the look of video, I just like the look of film for the majority of projects I shoot.

There are a lot of plug-ins and software options which will help your video look more like film (and help you get closer to your limit on your credit card), but we'll stick with the tools you already have: a video camera and the editing software on your computer.

My good friend Juliana Marchand wanted to shoot her graduate thesis project, La Santa, on Super 16 film (the widescreen version of 16mm), but, like most graduate students, she didn't have the money. She came to me and asked if I could shoot her vision on Mini DV and give it the look of film. Here is what we did.

First, we decided on the aspect ratio of our "film." Juliana and I agreed to shoot in a 1.85:1 ratio, which is a standard film aspect ratio. It's the ratio of the width of a frame to its height. When people see letterboxed footage (black bars across the top and bottom of the screen on a 1.33:1 television), they automatically think of film. I also like the wide canvas this lets me work with as well.

Letterboxing bars are easy to create in a painting program and easy to add as overlays in your video editing software. Some editing software comes with built-in letterbox effect that masks your video with the click of a button.

You'll certainly want to be able to frame your shots for 16:9 during your shooting. One way to do this is to create some 16:9-framed video with your software and bring it back into your camcorder. Then you can use a dry-erase marker or gaffers tape to mask the LCD screen. Do not try to tape cardboard to the front of your lens, however, since it makes a soft letterbox that doesn't work very well at all.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend creating a letterbox with the 16:9 setting in a consumer camera, unless it shoots a true anamorphic widescreen image. If you simply crop to 16:9 in your camera, you can never recover the top and bottom footage. Instead, shoot the entire 4:3 frame, and then letterbox in post. This is much safer and gives you more options later if you change your mind or want to distribute your movie in a different format.

We also employed two techniques to soften the harsh look of video. First, I lowered the sharpness of our Canon GL1 by decreasing the C.Sharpness value in the menu by two units. Many consumer cameras allow you to alter the sharpness: consult your manual. Second, I bought a Tiffen Black Pro-Mist 1 Effect Glass Filter. This $45 investment helped tone down the sharpness, soften the image and add some highlight flare. If the budget is tight, use a pair of sheer panty hose and stretch them over the lens. You should definitely test all of these methods before you go on the actual shoot. You can also consider performing a very light sharpness adjustment using a filter in your editing environment, but this will add significantly to the rendering time of your project. I actually prefer the in-camera adjustments to any of the filters I have used.

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