The technical difference between Film & Video - How to achieve filmic image quality

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

Warning: Long Post

My article today is about exploring the techniques and elements that combine together to help achieving images that resemble those shot on negative film using digital video systems, and is written to help shooters get a closer knowledge of what makes a "filmic" image and what makes a "video" image. If any one has additions to the list let's help complete it.

Film was used for an entire decade as the medium of capture on all the cinema movies we grew up watching, from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. After that, lately film has been replaced with digital as a capture medium, and the problem is that it had a different look from film, it had different and distinct quality, therefore it was mainly used for other applications, video applications like TV, broadcast, weddings, home videos, news, reality, sports, and so on while high end movies have committed to using negative film.

Therefore in our minds, as viewers, we now associate the look of negative film to high-end cinematic ''movie'' quality, and associate the look of digital to ''video'' and lower end products.

With the advancing in digital technology over the years, the manufacturers made a commitment to replicate film quality with digital cameras, and they started producing digital ''cinema'' cameras that try to resemble the look of film as much as possible, with each generation getting closer to achieving this goal, and arguably the incredible camera companies such as Sony, Panavision, Red, Dalsa, Arri, Aaton, Canon, Panasonic, and others have already achieved that goal and even surpassed it marginally.

This article is meant to illustrate what are the elements that make up a ''filmic'' image quality and how to achieve it as a filmmaker.

1-Sharpness vs. resolution

To define both at first, there seems to be a common misconception that these terms are interchangeable, but in fact they are completely different (but linked as we'll discuss later).

Resolution: How much detail/information present in the image

Sharpness: How emphasized/hardened the edges of the image elements are.

An image can be of very high resolution but soft, or of very low resolution but sharp:

One of the very first major elements that in the beginning was a distinct quality inherent to digital, was low resolution, i.e., lack of detail. While film always contained a huge amount of detail. Just to give a sense of the difference, digital started at resolutions of 360x240 and 640x480 pixels (Standard definition) while film effectively was 2K and 4K resolution a long time ago, so the difference was immensely obvious on how detailed movies looked and how un-detailed video looked.

And to help combat this digital defect, a digital technique called ''sharpening'' was invented. The technique was conducted by emphasizing and adding contrast to the egdes of all the elements in the image, as an attempt to increase perceived resolution when it's not there. It did/does work and helps giving an impression of higher detail, but that specific look was associated with digital ''video'' images and is now one of the most distinct differences between ''film'' and ''video''. Film has high resolution but no artificial added sharpness, meaning it looks marginally soft and ''organic'' yet detailed, while video has emphasized edges by what's called digital sharpening.

So one of the first ways to help achieve the film look with a digital system is to choose a system with a high resolution, high detail reproduction whilst at the same time not having and digital sharpening algorithms added, neither in-camera or in post production. Fortunately we can do that now because digital has reached and surpassed the detail/resolution of negative film and we don't need this technique anymore.

And even if one doesn't have access to a very high resolution digital system (DSLRs, 720p cameras, low end camcorders, etc) he should still avoid sharpening and leave the soft image as is to help avoid this distinct video characteristic

High resolution is a film quality, high sharpness is a video quality

2- Frame rate:

Back in the first days of movie making, film was (and still is) expensive, so filmmakers (or most likely, well, producers) tried to find the absolute minimum number of film frames to be shot each second that still isn't visibly un-appealing to the human eye or the viewer, because using more frames of film each second means buying more film, and more money.

They came up with the standard frame rate of 24 frames per second as the minimum acceptable frame rate and the most cost effective solution that gave acceptable motion rendition, hence, virtually all movies/films were shot at that specific frame rate. And while it came about for budget reasons, we now associate the motion look of 24p to high end ''film/movies'', even though with digital shooting higher frame rates is not an added cost and is available, sticking to 24p will give the most film-like motion and film like feel to the image.

3- Shutter angle/Shutter speed:

Shutter angle or shutter speed determines the length of time every frame is exposed/captured. Having a shutter speed of 1 second means that each frame is captured for 1 second.

In film cameras, the part the controlled that duration was a rotary disk placed in front of the film, the disk had a portion of it cut, either 90° cut, or 180° (leaving half a disk rotating), as if the disk is not cut and just rotated in front of the film it would completely block it. The larger the portion of the disk was cut, the longer the duration the film was exposed, and when the cut was small, the film was exposed for a shorter duration.



In the digital age, the mechanical rotating shutter was not needed any more, as we could control the length of the exposure of each frame on the digital sensor, we just tell the sensor to shut off for X seconds and open for Z seconds. This is what we call an ''electronic'' shutter, and it greatly reduced the cost and inconvenience of having a big mechanical rotating element. And gave us the ability to specify the exact duration of how long each frame is exposed in an accuracy of 1/1000 of a second, changing it whenever needed without changing rotating disks!

Anyhow, shutter angle or shutter speed affect the motion blur present in each frame. If the frame is exposed for a longer period of time, moving subjects get blurred out, while if the frame is exposed for a very short time, moving subjects will appear sharp.

Early filmmakers and cinema decided that 180° shutter angle is the most pleasing one, it had a slight motion blur of moving subjects, not too excessive and not too sharp. And again, nearly all movies/films were shot at that shutter angle, so we associate the motion rendition of this shutter angle with filmic quality, while we associate the lower shutter angles of 90°\45° as a ''video'' quality, where each frame moving subjects are sharp and show no motion blur at all, giving a harsh, strobing, staccato effect.

This rule is now known as the ''180 degree shutter rule''

When a 180° disc shutter was put in front of a film camera, the exposure time of each frame was 1/double the frame rate of a second.

i.e., since they shot on a frame rate of 24p, 180° shutter meant each frame was exposed to 1/48s of a second. So setting your digital camera's shutter speed to this number you get the most filmic motion rendition.

4- Film grain vs Video Noise

Negative film always had a defect in quality, it had film grain, which appeared as black  dots moving over the areas of the image. Negative film manufacturers (the great Kodak and Fuji) reduced that defect over the years with technological advancing in producing film chemical construction, but not to a complete 100% clean image, and film grain was amplified and more apparent in film stocks with higher sensitivity. i.e., the less sensitive (dark) 50 ASA film was usually very clean (but of course required a lot of lighting or strong sun-light) while the more sensitive 500 ASA film (brighter) contained a lot of grain (and required less light, allowed shooting in low light environments), so in short most of the films/movies we grew grew up watching had film grain.

With digital sensors, the situation is very similar. A digital sensor also has that defect of showing noise, and it also is increased with increasing the sensitivity of the image sensor (50 ISO vs 500 ISO). So great, digital resembles film in this area, right? no.

The problem comes from the different cause and nature of film grain vs digital noise causing a difference in the look of the actual noise, and the amount of it.

Film grain is a result of amplified actual particles of silver halide, which had a consistent look and a consistent position and pattern over the film/image.

But video noise, is simply a digital interference, it moves completely randomly, and it has a different pattern and most importantly a different look. Film grain is simple black dots in predictable patterns, video noise is coloured dots of red, blue, and green and move quickly all over the image.

and again, we associate fine film grain with cinema/film while we associate coloured/random digital noise with video, because that's where we saw both.

This is the first problem, the look of the noise.

The second one is the amount of noise.

Film always had a perceptible amount of grain, while in the recent advanced digital sensors images can have absolutely no noise, and have a completely clean image. Which is perceived by us of course as a video quality as we didn't see it in movies/films we grew up watching, they had a certain amount of grain, they were not perfectly perfect.

To solve these issues:

To address the actual look of the noise:

1-Choose a camera that has a filmic noise grain-like structure. This is available now and addressed by many manufacturers. High end digital cinema cameras use intelligence software to eliminate colour noise and make it appear just like film grain.

2-If you don't have access to using these higher end cameras (well, as most of us don't) you'll have to use a camera that produces a digital-looking coloured noise. In the case of using these cameras you can:

-Use noise reduction software in post-production, this will eliminate the digital noise, then after that add a layer of film grain. In this method you're basically replacing digital noise with film grain, to help get your image closer to as if it were shot on negative film. Many noise reduction and Film grain software are available nowadays. Use them.

The solution to address the issue of the amount of noise is similar, if you have an image that's too clean with too little noise, add a layer of film grain in post production. If you have a too noisy image use noise reduction software to get it to normal levels.

Film grain might be something not widely known by most viewers, but these little differences actually do make a huge impact on whether they perceive the footage as filmic or as videoish, on a sub-conscience level even without knowing exactly why.

5- Wide aspect ratio

Aspect ratio is simply how wide the image is, meaning how squar-ish of rectangular it it!

As we know when first video came out, the aspect ratio of that was 4:3- which is very square like, while at that same time, film has always been much wider. Standard 35mm film and super 35mm is 17:9 (also called 1.85:1) and many films were shot in ''anamorphic'' format which was even wider at an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 (was also called ''scope'' at that time.

So of course, now we associate a wide image with letterboxing (top and bottom black bars) with cinematic/filmic qualities while we associate less wide formats with video. It makes an enormous impact especially on the regular viewer who's not familiar with the technicalities of film-making.

6- Highlight rolloff:

When a part of the image is too bright for the sensor or film, it turns into a pure white area with absolutely no information. This is called highlight ''clipping''.

While this phenomenon does occur on both film and digital formats, film has always been known to have a smooth, gradual transition into the clipped highlight area. While on digital, clipping always occurs in an abrupt manner with a strong, harsh line around the edges of the clipped area.

This quality is termed among professionals as ''highlight roll-off'', meaning how highlight ''roll'' or fall to pure white.

Harsh video clipping is one of the most telltale signs of digital capture.

To address this issue some manufacturers of digital cinema camera were actually able to reproduce the same smooth roll-off of film, most famously ''Arri'' with their ''Alexa'', which is widely known to be the most film-like video camera that exists today (as of writing this article).

But if course, the problem is, it's not in the budget on most of us to shoot on an Alexa camera, so to fix this issue one can actually change the upper part of the luma curve in post-production to get a smooth highlight roll-off, and another option is using diffusing low-contrast filters in front of the lens whilst shooting.

7- Format size : Depth of field

This means the size of the actual film frame or in digital terms, the size of the sensor.

Film has always been shot on a standard size called 35mm, it's about 24mmx18mm size area (similar in size to APS-C in modern stills cameras)
But when video first came out, the size of the sensors were incredibly tiny, and no where near the size of standard 35mm film people were used to see in movies.

The effect of the size of the image format is that larger formats have a shallow depth of field, in simple terms, it means a larger sensor/film can throw the background out of focus, and achieve focus on a specific subject while isolating the surroundings. And because film had a large sizs of 35mm, manipulating focus to drive the viewers eyes to subjects in the frame has always been used in films and cinema.

But with the small format of the early digital days, digital video cameras had an extremely deep depth of field, meaning everything was in focus, and you couldn't isolate a subject from a background or manipulate focus.

In fact, the only digital cameras that had a sensor that was similar in size to 35mm film (therefore were able to achieve film-like background blur) up until 2009, were cameras priced above 100,000$ USD, so digital has been extremely associated with deep focus with no background blur due to its small sensor sizes.

The solution to this is to use a digital camera with an sensor that's the same size of 35mm film to achieve that same depth of field capabilities, not much smaller, and not much larger in order to replicate the look of film.

Fortunately, in 2009, Canon created a camera called the Canon 5D mk II, it was a DSLR photography camera in fact which had an image sensor even bigger than 35mm film and could shoot video and was priced under 3000$ USD. This camera was a revolution to the film industry as for the first time filmmakers were able to achieve the look of 35mm in depth of field with needing to shoot on >100.000$ USD cameras. Since 2009, Canon and other photography camera manufacturers created an enormous number of large sensor digital video cameras, and now at the time of writing this article, there are cameras that have a 35mm-sized sensor at the cost of 200$!

Shooting on a camera with the same format size as 35mm is a very critical component in achieving a filmic look, and fortunately thanks to the DSLR revolution created by photography camera manufacturers, this is now possible to almost everyone unlike the era prior to 2009 where only very high end productions could utilize a 35mm sized sensor or film. It was a democratizing step in the history of cinema and one that has enormously shifted the industry into a better one, by making the tools available to everyone with talent to try out.

8- Film/Cinema Lenses

The lenses that were created for film cameras had special characteristics that are required to achieve a filmic look.

-Most films were historically shot with prime lenses, meaning, no zooming occurred in the middle of a shot. Hence zooming in the middle of a take in considered to be a video-ish factor in an image.

-Film/cinema lenses also had very long and smooth focus rings that rotated very smoothly and this makes focus transitions slower and steadier, while video lenses were always associated with being fast at focusing and abrupt. So focusing slowly and smoothly is a key element in achieving a filmic/cinematic look.

-Most films were shot at an aperture of around T2.8 to T5.6, so sticking to that range will give that most film like depth of field, as going higher (T16) will give a video-like deep depth of field, and also shooting at lower (T1.2) will give an excessive blurring of the background which is not associated with most films. Sticking to around T5.6 in most scenes and around T2.8 in lowlight scenes give an adequate film-like depth of field we're used to seeing in theaters.

9- Camera Movement

35mm film cameras are huge. They are heavy, in fact, most 35mm film cameras are impossible to be carried by one person, or two.

The size and weight of the film cameras  forced shooters to keep it steady, in most films there is no handheld movement of vibrations, and when there is movement, it's done using heavy equipment like cranes/dollys which made smooth movements and not shaky ones.

While video cameras were first created small and light, so many shooters just picked them up and shot handheld, resulting in shaky motion and vibrations. This made our brains associate shaky handheld motion with digital video and smooth steady motion with film/cinema.

So to achieve the most filmic look one should try to minimize shaky camera movement and keep it steady and smooth, unless the situation demanded handheld movement then it should be used with extreme moderation.

10- Grading/Colouring

A big part of the filmic aesthetic happens in the grading process. Films we grew up watching did not look like real life, video does. Films use creative pushing of colours, exposure, contrast, saturation, to give a certain ''mood'', to make the viewer feel he's in an alternative reality, different from real life. That's a big part of the filmic/cinematic aesthetic, making the image feel unreal and dreamy, and a very large role is taken by colouring/grading to achieve that. When we make too realistic images they lose the filmic aesthetic and look videoy, like shooting at fluid life-like 60p, 3D, eye-like deep DOF, 100% natural colours, extreme resolution, POV movement, etc, images instantly lose the filmic feel. It's not superior or inferior, just different types of images. 

Grading is best performed manually to suit each story and purpose by a professional colourist who knows how to achieve a filmic mood, but also worth to be mentioned, clever software like Filmconvert actually studies the colour science of each video camera and makes a mathematical transformation to match the colours to various film stocks. Many shooters use it and find these kind of plug-ins do achieve a film aesthetic.

11- Digital Artefacts

With the advent of digital video cameras, came a slew of image defects inherent to digital sensors that were never in film footage. These defects immediately indicate non-filmic quality as they were not seen in films.

1-Aliasing and moire: a defect where tight patterns appear to move strangely (aliasing) or show strange rainbow-like colours (moire). This is most evident on brick walls and tight stripped shirts. Video cameras in the early days showed this phenomenon therefore it's highly non-filmic to viewers.

2-Rolling shutter: a phenomenon where the image wobbles and skews with horizontal camera movement. Again, this defect occurred on most digital video cameras.

3-Compression artefacts:

Compression was created in the digital video era to help reduce file sizes, and while it does a great job on achieving that goal, some image defects can occur in a digital compressed image

-Banding, where bands appear in smooth colour gradients due to low bit depth of 8bit

-Pixelation of colour edges due to the compression of colour information in a process called chroma sub-sampling (most evident on 4:2:0 chroma sub-sampling compression methods)

-Blocking, where parts of the image appear as square ''blocks'' due to image compression.

The solution is to shoot and deliver in the least compressed formats possible when trying to replicate filmic image quality.

Raw, or a codec with 10/12bit 4:4:4 and high bitrate will not show banding or chroma pixelation or blocking artefacts, and will retain a rich colour palette and fine gradients that resemble negative film.

______________________________________

This article explained the elements that make up filmic vs video images, but bear in mind this is only on the image quality level. There are still other elements that are not related to image quality that are essential in creating a filmic/cinematic production, like skillful lighting techniques, quality acting, locations, props, costumes, make-up, any many others but they're beyond the subject of technical image quality.

This article was meant to discuss the difference between digital and film from a technical image quality perspective, and to help shooters achieve a look closer to negative film on digital cameras by following these solutions and understanding how they affect the viewer perception.

[Ed_David]

wow this article is amazing - you should publis this!!

[Sekhar]

Thanks Ebrahim, you're the first one I've seen who clearly explains why film looks the way it does.

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

About publishing, well it's already published here  Redsharknews & Studentfilmmakers were keen on buying & publishing a previous article on ''image quality' I wrote here, but I found it would get political, I just do this for fun writing on a phone on my way to work just to help people here, I think when it gets to a higher level it sucks the fun right off, just like filmmaking!

And thanks a lot Ed, means a lot when someone who shoots perfectly filmic images on video agrees with it!

Cheers Sekhar, 

[agolex]

Great summary, thanks man! And the last girl has to be the most beautiful I've ever seen. :D

[tupp]

Very detailed assessment!  Thanks!

 

However, I disagree with a few points.

 

I remember when the Filmlook company started in the 1980s, and I studied their techniques.  I also had the opportunity to use Eddie Barber's "Vilm" camera on two projects.

 

As I recall, the two main properties that make video look like film are having progressive frames and slower frame rates (properties which are a given today).  Grain helped, but was not completely necessary.  Of course, film has different exposure and saturation "response curves" compared to video, and one has to avoid blowing out the highlights when shooting video to look like film.

 

The format size, aspect ratio, use of zoom lenses, use of non-cinema lenses, depth of field, shutter speed, camera movement are all largely irrelevant to making video look like film.  To illustrate this point, let's say we shoot with a tiny, 4:3 format, 8mm film camera with a narrow shutter angle, while using a zoom TV lens with a small aperture (high depth-of-field) and light-weight camera movement.  Even with all of these elements combined, the 8mm film footage will nevertheless look like it was shot on film.

 

I would also like to add that I never used a 35mm film camera that couldn't be used handheld -- those huge 35mm cameras were mostly gone by the mid 1970s.

[Axel]

Great article, which sums up all points. Let me add some thoughts: 

1-Sharpness vs. resolution

To define both at first, there seems to be a common misconception that these terms are interchangeable, but in fact they are completely different (but linked as we'll discuss later).

 

True. I'd like to add a rule-of-thumb:

To get a soft, natural image, you need sufficient resolution. How much is sufficient, depends on the size of the image, which is relative. You need very low resolution for a giant billboard that is supposed to be seen from across the street (way below 50 dpi, you can literally count the dots from a close distance), you need much higher resolution for a 6x4" for a group picture with 30 pupils (usually at least 300 dpi, better more). The same is valid for video/film. 

While film always contained a huge amount of detail. Just to give a sense of the difference, digital started at resolutions of 360x240 and 640x480 pixels (Standard definition) while film effectively was 2K and 4K resolution a long time ago, so the difference was immensely obvious on how detailed movies looked and how un-detailed video looked.

​You are talking about texture detail (term from an ancient german textbook on filmmaking).  In a Tom & Jerry movie, there is no texture detail. Yet every motif detail (same source) needed to comprehend the sequence is deliberately put into the image. Can there be enough texture detail in a live-action-movie? On the contrary, there can be too much. If there is no narrative reason to let texture detail pop out, one should reduce it, blur it. Or otherwise the image will look videoish as hell. Take for instance the JVC HM Q10:

 

No eye-catchers, just a mess of meaningless detail. Wouldn't gain much with better colors or grain.

 

Opposite extreme: scene from famous low resolution movie Saving Private Ryan, watched in even lower resolution:

 

Skin detail? Fabrics of uniforms? Nothing of the kind. What pops out are exploding pieces of dirt (small shutter angle too to reduce motion blur) and air bubbles under water. Texture detail embossed and sharpened to evoke a sense of heightened reality. Can you imagine how this scene would have looked if recorded with a JVC Q10?

BTW: When you state that analog film was 2k and higher, you are just referring to the last decade. Yes, the 35mm stock could indeed resolute more than that, but what remained of that in the distribution copies wasn't much. And on the big screens the resolution was around 1k, slightly better than the SD interlaced we watched on our own TV sets.

Film grain is a result of amplified actual particles of silver halide, which had a consistent look and a consistent position and pattern over the film/image.

Not a consistent position and pattern, but a random one. The analog film's grain particles are it's smallest picture elements, in three differently colored layers. And because their position is random, the resolution is sufficient. The enlargement of a single 35mm widescreen frame (17:9, common AR), could never be projected to a big screen with sufficient resolution, it's just too small:

But with different positions of the individual grains, 24 times per second - 60 feet, no problem. Temporal samples. You could almost double the resolution with 48 fps. But only with film, of course. 

 

That's why I don't think superimposing grain on a digital image can be anything else but a cheap effect. It isn't the real thing, it doesn't look like it.

​

​

[enny]

Lets not forget the most important  what makes the digital look like film cinematography lightning set decoration even what the actors are wearing color.

Arri, red dragon panavision, expensive lenses you can have them all even shoot on film if cinematography is no done the you have MEH image flat boring no life to it

[enny]

Jeff Cronenweth cinematographer The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo sharpens? I want dynamic range and  sharpens i don't even think about it its sharp enough 

[Sekhar]

One thing I don't get in these "Make video look like film" discussions is WHY? Is it for the big-budget Hollywood look? Or the love of film? If it's to mimic Hollywood and pass off as a bigwig by association, IMO it's misguided. Like getting a Michael Keaton haircut because you want to act like him.

What would really help are discussions on how to make video look GOOD rather than LIKE FILM. That will focus the thinking on lighting, composition, set design, and the like (that many videos seem to get wrong) rather than adding grain and vignettes.

There is a thread along these lines (Would You Watch A Movie Like This?), where Jonesy Jones posted an excellent example, and there are some interesting points being made. We really need more threads like that.

[Taranis]

Then you should really focus on those threads, or make more of them. If we like that, we will follow. In the meantime, I appreciate summaries like this as well. It can be really helpful to a newcomer, and it does not state that a well lit and composed scene is not essential for a good shot.

[tupp]

Lets not forget the most important  what makes the digital look like film cinematography lightning set decoration even what the actors are wearing color.

Arri, red dragon panavision, expensive lenses you can have them all even shoot on film if cinematography is no done the you have MEH image flat boring no life to it

​While I agree that lighting, art direction and wardrobe can add visual clarity and make a scene more interesting, those elements of filmmaking are irrelevant to making video look like film.

 

Look at these 8mm film clips.  There is nothing special about the lighting, art direction nor wardrobe, yet it still looks like it was shot on film.  So, there are other elements that make film look like film.

[Sekhar]

​While I agree that lighting, art direction and wardrobe can add visual clarity and make a scene more interesting, those elements of filmmaking are irrelevant to making video look like film.

 

Look at these 8mm film clips.  There is nothing special about the lighting, art direction nor wardrobe, yet it still looks like it was shot on film.  So, there are other elements that make film look like film.

​Yes, but my question was "Why do you want to make your video look like film in the first place?" As I said, if it's just for the love of film, end of discussion. But if it's to ape Hollywood big-budget films, it seems like the wrong reason.

[tupp]

Went back to tragiclantern and adjusted the frame rate more appropriately I originally had it to help against rolling shutter, The shutter speed is now 47.8 and the shutter angle as far as it can go is 183 degrees thank you!

​Tragic Lantern is great!  It is a shame that the Magic Lantern folks decided to kick TL out of the ML world.

 

Don't know if "normalizing" the shutter speed/angle is going to help much in making footage look like film.  One can close down the shutter angle on a film camera, and the footage will still look like it was shot on film.

 

By the way, shutter "speed" and and shutter "angle" are different ways of referring to the same property.

[tupp]

​Yes, but my question was "Why do you want to make your video look like film in the first place?" As I said, if it's just for the love of film, end of discussion. But if it's to ape Hollywood big-budget films, it seems like the wrong reason.

​I think that you bring up an important point.  I quit trying to make video footage look like film about a dozen years ago, because, back then, DV cameras were starting to incorporate the two main elements that gave the "film look":  progressive scan and cinema frame rates.

 

These days, I think that we are all just trying to make our images look good, or add necessary clarity or help tell the story.

 

Nonetheless, it is fun to talk about what makes film look like film and what makes video look like video.

[utsira]

Film was used for an entire decade as the medium of capture on all the cinema movies we grew up watching, from the late 1980s to the early 2000s.

what? You mean an entire century, no? From the 1890s to the early 2000s. 

[Sekhar]

what? You mean an entire century, no? From the 1890s to the early 2000s. 

​May be he was born in the 1980's, and obviously nothing existed before that!

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

Good catch in decade vs century. Thanks utsira. Why isn't there EDIT on EOSHD anymore? 

The only place in my entire life where I speak English is here, not even close to being a third language after Arabic and Hebrew. In fact the only way I learnt English is through watching films, and I am surprised it got me this far! There probably are a lot of language mistakes in the article and if anyone can take a look and correct them I'd really appreciate that!
 

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

About some comments above about the other external elements that contribute to the film look. 

If you noticed at the end of the article I specifically addressed this point. To make a project that resembles hollywood films, lighting, acting, locations, sound, music, makeup, decoration, etc, are a huge factor. 

But this is not what my article is meamt to educate about. 

To simplify what my article is meant for, imagine a badly lot scene, with bad acting and bad location, and this scene was shot on a 35mm film cinema camera, and the same scene was shot on a video camera, 

there would be a difference in the technical quality of these images, just in image quality terms. I am trying to explain and analyze these differences and how to achieve them, hoping to get more information tthat I missed to complete the list. 

This is just about making your video camera image qualityo and image character look like as if it been shoot on a 35mm film cinema camera. I hope the purpose and idea is clear- this is about helping video shooters replicate the image quality we associate with film after growing up watching it on the big screen. Just the technical image, sheet of pixels.