Faking It — The Emulation of Aesthetic
In 2013 The Conjuring, directed by James Wan, told the story of real life paranormal investigators Lorraine and Ed Warren and their attempts to help a family being terrorized by malevolent spirits. Continuing his working relationship with John R. Leonetti, ASC from films such as Insidious the 1970s-set horror was shot digitally on the Arri Alexa camera. In their investigations the Warrens document supposed hauntings with a 16mm film camera; this footage is featured in the film and looks period accurate to film emulsions of the time. In an interview John R. Leonetti, ASC revealed that the 16mm footage was in fact captured with an Alexa camera that was conditioned in post production to approximate the film grain and exposure response of a ’70s era film stock. To many viewers the differences between shooting 16mm film and applying digital emulation techniques in the digital intermediate will go unnoticed.
The tools available to both on large budget productions and indie filmmakers to emulate the visual aesthetics of film stocks and video technology has become a growing industry since the industry-wide adoption of digital cinema cameras in the last ten years. At the consumer level of smartphone technology downloadable apps can take video recorded internally and apply filtration and interpolation that can approximate Super 8mm and VHS footage. More sophisticated software in editing and colour grading programs allows for finely tuned options which allow filmmakers to emulate exact film stocks with plugins and LUTs, dial in precise levels of film grain and select film gauges from 8mm to 65mm to best mimic their characteristic looks.
The central question of using this emulation technology becomes: why is it done? What creative, economic and practical considerations do filmmakers have to fake the aesthetic of another medium? How much of the desire to achieve the ‘film look’ is built from our ingrained perceptions of what the film aesthetic has been for the last century?
The first aspect to be addressed should be the creative reasons filmmakers have to emulate the aesthetics of film and video technology.
Evocation of Historical Period
Cinematography has experienced numerous trends and constant improvements in film emulsions, lighting and lens technology. As viewers we can associate visual aesthetic with particular eras in film history; independent films emerging from the 1970s have a look that is distinct when viewed alongside the Technicolor films of the 1940s and ’50s. The viewers’ subconscious understanding of these differences in aesthetic can be harnessed by modern filmmakers to convey a sense of filmic continuity; if a film looks like other period films then it must be set in the same period.
Authenticity
In the 2008 film Cloverfield the handheld footage is identified as being shot on a consumer level camcorder. The image limitations of consumer level video such as reduced fidelity and an amateur camera operator heighten the illusion that the footage is not produced by professionals using high end equipment and visual effects; the imagery conveys a hyper-reality to the fantastical events seen in the film. CCTV and archival footage in contemporary films is also frequently degraded from higher fidelity sources for greater authenticity in relation to real world examples.
Nostalgia
Despite the objections of many directors and cinematographers who continue to champion celluloid film a significant reason for the emulation of the aesthetic is because of what film audiences have been conditioned to recognize as being cinematic. New filmmakers often want to produce imagery that they recognize as being traditionally filmic, which includes grain, colour reproduction, and a non-linear tonality response to light. There is also a common expression that modern digital cinema cameras appear too sharp in comparison to what filmmakers have been used to in the past shooting on film; emulation tools in post production can alleviate excessive resolution and soften textural detail in actors faces — a growing concern in an age of large format distribution, 4K cinema and UHD television.
Film emulation software alone is not enough to make a motion picture look cinematic. Composition, movement and lighting are of vital importance to any cinematographer, and production design can infer greater period detail than any LUT or film grain overlay. Costume design, special effects, visual effects, props; no one of these departments should be neglected in the belief that the capture medium is of greater importance to the visual design of a film. The medium should be seen as an extension or enhancement to the established aesthetic, not the foundation.
The practical and technical considerations as to why filmmakers would choose to emulate celluloid film or digital video formats rather than use the original medium can be artistic, pragmatic and in many instances necessary.
Discontinued Technology
Black and white, colour negative and reversal; 8mm, 16mm, 35mm and 65mm film gauges. Many film stocks have come and have subsequently been discontinued and specialist developing processes once available to filmmakers no longer exist. Various video technologies, both electronic and digital, have grown in sophistication and changed their recording medium over decades, from magnetic tape to digital cassettes until the solid state recording of today. Backwards compatibility does not exist and many of the original cameras and recording devices have fallen into disrepair. Vast amounts of video recorded on expired formats is unreadable to current technology — the physical tapes may exist but there is no way to view them and thus no way to transfer potentially valuable footage onto current data storage devices in a modern codec.
In many cases the only way for contemporary photography to contain the aesthetic of older film and video technology is to replicate it through post production tools.
Control
Shooting film stock can wield unpredictable results without thorough testing, mistakes during photography and poor development in the lab. An editor cutting from a slow speed daylight stock to a high speed tungsten film can be jarring to a viewer because of the noticeable change in film grain and colour response. Applying grain and film stock LUTs in post production eliminates the potential risks that can occur while shooting and developing film. Exacting control of the level of film grain can create consistency throughout the run time of a completed film.
With video the degradation and fidelity of footage can be finely tuned to the director and cinematographer’s specifications without the need for a complex post production workflow to accommodate obsolete formats that would incur additional cost. Emulation techniques can negate unexpected and time consuming results.
Economy
Depending on the scale of production and the method of image capture film is believed to be more expensive cost-per-minute to shoot when placed alongside digital capture, even when compared to high end digital cinema cameras such as the Arri Alexa 65. For independent and low-budget filmmakers the film aesthetic can be thought to imbue a professional and more filmic sensitivity to the viewer. When the cost of purchasing film stock, development and scanning is viewed alongside the price of data storage, fewer personnel and reduced travel expenses the monetary savings by faking the desired film aesthetic can be very tempting. What also must be considered is the limited number of film labs currently open for business and the distances many productions must transport their undeveloped film during photography; in the last decade the facilities for developing motion picture film have become endangered. For low budget filmmaking shooting on celluloid is strongly contested by producers, and a highly sought after privilege for directors and their cinematographers.
The Best of Both Worlds
Digital cinematography is considered to be a more streamlined solution for post production, distribution and ultimately home viewing through streaming, downloading and physical sales. The additional steps in development and digitization of celluloid can be viewed as inefficient when the lasting way in which people watch films is on electronic devices. Emulation tools can highlight the advantages of digital photography, such as improved sensitivity and instant viewing of captured material, while exploiting the aesthetics of film stock.
In visual effects maximum image data is expected and scenes are photographed appropriately for the needs of digital artists. Artifacts of film photography such as grain can impede the visual consistency of digital and practical elements composited together, and thus requires further work and time to complete a visual effects shot. Modern digital photography minimizes the level of ‘cleaning up’ needed on visual effects plates and film emulation can be applied after a shot has been rendered and completed without complications.
Intercutting
There are several variations concerning when and why film emulation is used which include:
- A completely digital shoot using film emulation throughout
- A completely digital shoot using film emulation for select scenes
- A film/digital hybrid shoot using film emulation for select digital shots
In particular circumstances it is necessary to photograph a scene digitally and later replicate the aesthetic qualities of motion picture film in order to achieve the visual flow and consistency demanded by the cinematographer and director. For example, aerial photography has moved overwhelmingly to digital camera systems because of the ability to shoot for longer periods and reduce manual adjustments to camera rigs while in flight; a production shooting film would need to visually match the digitally captured footage with post production techniques.
At a time when the future of celluloid is precarious the aesthetic continues to be longed for by old and new filmmakers alike. The advocates of film express their view that the medium is a creative and artistic choice, and that their medium is under threat because of the rapid change in the industry to digital photography. The existence of emulation LUTs, plugins and software acknowledges the belief of filmmakers that celluloid is the medium of motion pictures, but also identifies that the technique, discipline and expense of shooting film is fast becoming redundant to the business of contemporary filmmaking.
This is dismissing the potential for new technology to change what being cinematic can be. Digital cinematography has become the dominant medium to shoot motion pictures in the last five years and is slowly developing its own aesthetic, thanks to familiar and emerging talents who are discovering the properties unique to digital capture. As the new aesthetic grows the desire to emulate the qualities of celluloid film should diminish, and the current trend of post production homage will disappear. At the same time film technology cannot be consigned to the past as a relic of a bygone era, beaten down in the face of new technology; a balance must be found to allow film and digital cinematography to co-exist as separate entities.
The fate of the medium and the desire of the artist has fallen to the mercy of financial incentive. I can only imagine a future where film and digital will be distinct from one another, and like the different mediums illustrators and sculptors have for their creations a filmmaker will have the freedom to make the right choice for their stories.
Sources:
American Cinematographer — February 2012, “Redefining Run-and-Gun”
The American Society of Cinematographers — American Cinematographer Podcast, episode 50: The Conjuring
Sundance Film Festival — Power of Story: The Art of Film with Christopher Nolan, Colin Trevorrow, and Rachel Morrison
ICG Magazine — January 2008, “A Monster On the Loose”
(note: this is only a partial list — additional information was obtained from further books, documentaries and articles but these details weren’t available at the time of writing)
Coming soon: Cinematography — Greig Fraser, ASC, ACS
