Recreating New Wave look

[Devotchka]

Hey, forgive me if this is a particularly stupid question (or if its in the wrong section!), but I'm relatively new to the world of filmmaking and was wondering if anyone would be able to help me out. I'm working on a short film with a friend and we're very keen on recreating a sort of aged, French New Wave kind of look, but don't really know how to go about it. What sort of equipment, effects etc. could we employ to get that sort of look?

This is a good modern example of the look we want:

Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgNoD1Lemyw

Any advice on how we could achieve this would be much appreciated! Thanks.

 

[Graeme]

Looks like a Gain/White Transparent over the Video.

This can be done in post for sure with a decent NLE. You shot the video with a tad overexposure to help the effect along.

 

[MrBoss]

Shoot film - kodak, and add a type of frost or soft filter in front of the lens. Might want to look into older model lenses. Also you will need to mess with it in color correction to get that perfect pastel color. Keep in mind that costumes and set pieces are just as important.

 

[wheatgrinder]

That is a very pretty sequence of images. Everything seems to be in pastel color pallet. The dresses in the dress shop, as well as the out of focus line of scooters along the left side of the tree lined walk particularly caught my attention as examples.

I didn't see ANY blacks in this video. I saw very few "anythings" that were black\dark. This is obviously on purpose, and I think lends to the feeling of low contrast. For what its work, it seemes that any blacks that did sneak into the shot, were pushed towards dark green... look at the fireplace in the dress shop.
Filming in Paris helps!


EDIT: I watched it again and think that the modern shooting was designed to match the look of the panoramic Paris plate shot at the end. Which really looks like its from an old movie.. maybe?

 

[wheatgrinder]

Hey found a "making of" for that footage..

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=yOqlJ-U9XI0&feature=related