This blog is for you if you are trying to get a “film-look” with Davinci Resolve and are having trouble. When movies are shot on film, they are processed and re-printed on a very specific type of film stock, which is called the 2383 Print Film stock. A wide range of filmmakers agree that the basic colors of 2383 are crucial for the “Film” color palette, which they associate with the term “cinematic.” For the most part, this was the dominant medium via which people consumed movies for decades. Fortunately, Davinci Resolve includes a built-in LUT that can assist you in achieving film-like hues.
In this blog of Colorist Factory, we’ll go through how to make the most of the film 2383 Film LUT that comes bundled with Davinci Resolve. 2383 LUT palettes have long been used as a creative tool by digital filmmakers, despite the fact that they were initially meant for filmmakers shooting on film to use as a preview before printing their work back onto 2383 film stock.
Example of film printed on 2383 Kodak Emulation
The Method
- After we have imported and graded the footage. Our current node tree involves white balance, Primaries, grain, and Rec709 Color Space Transform. For those who don’t know what the last node does here, it basically transforms your footage from the color space it was shot into Rec709. It basically works in replacement of a Log to Rec709 LUT, only offering more utility and flexibility. But that will be the topic of some other day.
- We will go to film looks under LUTs and select Rec709 Kodak 2383 D55. But as we apply the Rec709 LUT, we see that it is overly contrasty footage.
- To fix this, we’ll select the node before and change the output gamma to “Cineon Film Log”. Why “Cineon film log”? That is because the LUT is actually designed for scanned film footage. The scanned film footage comes in the color space gamma “Cineon Film Log”. In order to use our Kodak LUT, we’ll have to convert our digital footage into the color gamma space of the scanned footage. And that is what we are doing in the Color Space Transform node before the LUT.
“Cineon Film Log” under Output Gamma.
Before/after
You can see the subtlety of the film palette in action when we switch between Rec709 and Kodak 2383. There’s a distinct split-tone in the flick. Absolutely beautiful skin tones. The contrast between the warm and cool tones in the highlights and shadows is stunning. Some other colors, such as green, can also be found in this area of the characteristic colour range.
2383 Kodak PFE LUT Before and After
A step further, FilmForever™ DaVinci Grades
We rebuilt Kodak 2383 LUT as a Power Grade. Why? You ask. Power grade rebuild allows you to add or delete aspects from a base “Film” appearance to create your own unique variations of the Print Film LUT. As a colorist or a director, your brand name can be associated with a particular appearance. We’ve also written a detailed 25-page user guide on how to get started with our Power Grades in Davinci Resolve.
Before applying the 2383 characteristics, we enhanced the appearance of the base image using our specialized image processing pipeline. In addition to artistic and technical Power Grades, the bundle contains film emulation options that are mathematically correct. Power Grade, unlike most plugins, enables you to see exactly how each step impacts the image. Thus, you’ll be able to create the most innovative alterations to the design going forward.
If you’re interested, here are the links to FilmForever Emulations.
Filmforever 2383 Kodak Print Film Emulation, Stills.
Download
If you’re looking for some serious color grading inspiration, check out our Instagram. It’s a treasure trove of cinematic images. A diverse selection of visually appealing photos is made available to you courtesy of our team. Think of this as an increase in the number of mood boards to use as inspiration for your own work. Follow us on Instagram at “colorist.factory.”
3 Responses
Can you guys please make one filmforever PG with all options available, so I can turn off or on whatever I want to use? That would make things so much easier.
film color
It’s just a pleasure to see how the film is actually displayed. To be honest, I finally found out how to fix this flaw when styling the film of the processed frame. Thank you very much. We are waiting for more victories