Grain 35: Affordable Film Grain for your Digital Footage

[PaulGriffith]

Note: I'm in no way involved with this project, but it's pretty killer and wanted to share.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/crumplepop/grain35-beautiful-35mm-film-grain-scans-for-your-d

Grain35 - Beautiful 35mm Film Grain Scans for your DSLR and 4K Video

Your DSLR shoots amazing video - but it's missing the beautiful grain pattern of real 35mm film. Grain35 is a set of real 35mm grain scans that you can easily add to any video project.

Film grain scans are a favorite of production professionals, but the good grain packages out there are expensive - really expensive. With Grain35, we aim to make high quality HD and 4K grain scans affordable to small studios and indie producers for the first time.

Grain35 is:

1. Super high quality. Grain35 uses 4K Arrilaser DPX scans of six 35mm film stocks, all shot at three different exposures and delivered to you as ProRes 4444 or h.264 downloads.

2. Both HD and 4K. To our knowledge, Grain35 will be the first real 4K grain scan package in the world. You'll be able to use the HD version of Grain35 with your DSLR footage, and the 4K version with your Red Scarlet/Epic footage.

3. Available for most editing systems. Grain35 works with Final Cut Pro 6, 7, and X, Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer, and others. Really any video editing system with a composite or blend mode will work with Grain35.

4. Easy. Just import your grain clip, drop it on your timeline, and select "overlay" mode. That's it - just loop and tweak to your liking.

5. Affordable. If we can raise the funds to cover the necessary film stock, camera rental, lab fees and laser scans of the negatives, then we can make this way, way less expensive than any other professional film grain package.

What you get

Six different 35mm and 16mm film stocks:

Kodak 500T
Kodak 200T
Kodak 250D
Kodak 50D
Fuji Eterna 500T
Fuji Eterna 250T
Two resolutions:

1920x1080 (HD) @ 23.976fps
3840x2160 (4K HD) @ 23.976fps
Two delivery codecs:

ProRes 4444 (better quality, slower download)
h.264 (lower quality, much faster download)

We just backed it for $129 for the 16mm and 35mm 1080p and 4k downloads, but 16mm scans start at $49 for 1080p.

Really cool, over halfway funded, 19 days to go, wanted to share!

Pictures are really big, decided to link instead of blowing up the board haha.
Image 1 Before
Image 1 After

Image 2 Before
Image 2 After

 

[CamVader]

Cool! Let me check it out.

 

[FrankLad]

Grain overlays are really catching on.

I just purchased a set from GorillaGrain, and considering getting some from RGrain (not actual film scans, but very convincing). Contacted CineGrain in regards to buying JUST their 35mm scans as a package (their cheapest is $299, which includes a lot of extras I'm not interested in) ... but the rep claimed they can't due to an agreement with larger production companies.

All that said, I'm glad you shared this. I'm gonna definitely consider backing these guys.

 

[DeJager]

Couldn't I just add it using After Effects? It looks like the typical "add grain" effect in CS5. Plus, I think it looks kinda bad!

 

[PaulGriffith]

It's not for everyone I suppose. I love the look for a lot of stuff.

From other scans I've used, the real stuff is incredibly better than any AE stuff, and it'll render faster. Think about using AE's simulated rain or wall shatter, nothing close to real. It's the same with these.

 

[FrankLad]

There is quite a difference between the plugin-generated stuff vs. the actual scans.

The closest I've gotten to a pleasing (at least to me) look with a plugin was an old copy of Cinelook FilmDamage in AE.

 

[FrankLad]

Another benefit to introducing grain is that it helps reduce banding. I often like to add grain before color correcting or at least before pushing the contrast of a clip.

 

[Ernest Worthing]

Couldn't I just add it using After Effects? It looks like the typical "add grain" effect in CS5. Plus, I think it looks kinda bad!

I think they've gone a little heavy here to make it noticeable but if you keep it really subtle, i think it adds to digital video instead of taking away from it. Audiences have been used to film grain since film itself and it is one of the factors in achieving the "film look" when shooting digital. Like i said, you have it keep it appropriate and subtle unless you're going for a heavier look for some aesthetic reason.

And there is a difference between actually recording grain and overlaying it and using a plugin or your NLE to add it for you. Computers will go anywhere from just having static grain over your image to making it look like it's just hovering on top of your image. However, these will look really close to actually being part of your image instead of being distracting.

Grain overlays are really catching on.

I just purchased a set from GorillaGrain, and considering getting some from RGrain (not actual film scans, but very convincing). Contacted CineGrain in regards to buying JUST their 35mm scans as a package (their cheapest is $299, which includes a lot of extras I'm not interested in) ... but the rep claimed they can't due to an agreement with larger production companies.

All that said, I'm glad you shared this. I'm gonna definitely consider backing these guys.

I like cinegrain's scans the best but you're right their prices are pretty high. You get them on an external hard disk but still... Like you im only interested in 4 or 5 of their scans and wish you could download them individually.

How pleased are you with gorillagrain?

 

[FrankLad]

How pleased are you with gorillagrain?

Hi Ernest! I really like GorillaGrain's stuff. Very aesthetically pleasing.
I suppose that's subjective, but it's definitely got an "organic" feel.

The first ones I got were in H.264/MOV, but they recently did a generous upgrade price for previous buyers. This included additional 35mm grain as well as vintage 16mm, all of which I got in ProRes/MOV. Great quality.