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[KnowledgeByTech]

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[emosun]

the camera wouldnt really matter if it's digital

what you'd be looking for is what lenses and what sort of color grading and setting they were shooting at and replicate those settings on a new camera.

If you're talking about film grain , then it was a 35mm film camera which you definitely aren't going to be buying or actually using so you'll just need a film grain plugin in post production

[badreg]

I skimmed through the trailer, and I don't really see any kind of distinctive look. Given that this was released in 2006, it was shot on 35mm film. For low budget productions, there wasn't much color grading done (when compared to today), so whatever look that you are seeing is largely a result of the film stock and lighting that was used.

 

Low budget films of that vintage looked a certain way, not because it was a stylistic choice, but because they lacked the budget for huge sets, expensive lighting and extensive post-production.

[Thanatopsis]

I honestly wouldnt assume the movie was shot on 35mm film.  While i cant find any solid info based on the movies budget and tv shoes history i would guess the movie was shot on 16mm fim or a upper teir tv camera such as a sony cinealta or panasonic vericam the versions before they started using the names to denote a product family.

[harryk]

According to IMDB it was shot on 16mm.

 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425601/technical?ref_=tt_dt_spec

[KnowledgeByTech]

15 hours ago, badreg said:

I skimmed through the trailer, and I don't really see any kind of distinctive look. Given that this was released in 2006, it was shot on 35mm film. For low budget productions, there wasn't much color grading done (when compared to today), so whatever look that you are seeing is largely a result of the film stock and lighting that was used.

 

Low budget films of that vintage looked a certain way, not because it was a stylistic choice, but because they lacked the budget for huge sets, expensive lighting and extensive post-production.

YouTube has built-in low-quality noise reduction and compression into its video processing when uploading (could explain that). If you watch a few minutes of the movie on Netflix, you'll know what I mean.

[badreg]

1 hour ago, KnowledgeByTech said:

YouTube has built-in low-quality noise reduction and compression into its video processing when uploading (could explain that). If you watch a few minutes of the movie on Netflix, you'll know what I mean.

Based on the information added by @Thanatopsis and @harryk, it's the 16mm film that explains the grain. 16mm film has approximately 1/4 the area of Super 35, so once it is blown up for the final 35mm print, the film grain is 4 times as large.

[Thanatopsis]

15 hours ago, badreg said:

Based on the information added by @Thanatopsis and @harryk, it's the 16mm film that explains the grain. 16mm film has approximately 1/4 the area of Super 35, so once it is blown up for the final 35mm print, the film grain is 4 times as large.

Please stop. It hurts.  Grain size in film 16 and 35 is more a function of what asa or iso the film is not the format. Along with that cheaper film stock is going to have more grain than more expensive chemistrys.  Super 16 film   is roughly 16x9 hd quality it would list on a production blog as 16mm as its just a diferent gate size and not a diferent film size.

[badreg]

2 hours ago, Thanatopsis said:

Please stop. It hurts.  Grain size in film 16 and 35 is more a function of what asa or iso the film is not the format. Along with that cheaper film stock is going to have more grain than more expensive chemistrys.  Super 16 film   is roughly 16x9 hd quality it would list on a production blog as 16mm as its just a diferent gate size and not a diferent film size.

Nothing about what I said is wrong. Yes, I do know that the ISO and chemistry of a film makes a difference, which I already said in my first post:

 

On 10/15/2019 at 10:21 PM, badreg said:

whatever look that you are seeing is largely a result of the film stock and lighting that was used.

You can use high ISO 16mm film, underexpose and push development for ultra grainy footage, but what I said was that this was not done on this film as a stylistic choice. It looks the way that it does because of the film format that was used.

 

Furthermore, grain size in the final print is a function of both film format and ISO. All else being equal, the grain of ISO 400 35mm film will look similar to ISO 100 16mm film when it is blown up to the same size. If you have the same film stock in both 16mm and 35mm, and blow up the 16mm film to match the size of 35mm, then the 16mm grain will be 4x as large because it has been magnified 4x. Not sure why your head would hurt from this, unless physics works differently for you.

[Thanatopsis]

3 hours ago, badreg said:

Nothing about what I said is wrong. Yes, I do know that the ISO and chemistry of a film makes a difference, which I already said in my first post:

It hurts not because its wrong it hurts because its devoid of any understanding of how film is digitized. the way you are talking about would make me think your last experience with film was from working in a cheap tv station in the 80's or early 90's.  Film to Video converters have used either laser scanners on the high end since 2000 or CCD and CMOS chips sized the same size as the film they were intending to digitize specially with the goal of preventing Grain Enlargement issues to begin with.

[badreg]

1 hour ago, Thanatopsis said:

It hurts not because its wrong it hurts because its devoid of any understanding of how film is digitized. the way you are talking about would make me think your last experience with film was from working in a cheap tv station in the 80's or early 90's.  Film to Video converters have used either laser scanners on the high end since 2000 or CCD and CMOS chips sized the same size as the film they were intending to digitize specially with the goal of preventing Grain Enlargement issues to begin with.

I am a commercial photographer. I have never worked in television and film, but that does not preclude me from having an understanding of how film works. There's no need for your gatekeeping attitude, especially here at a general tech forum. I gave a technically and factually correct answer to OP's question. If that did not meet your standards, no one is preventing you from providing an answer of your own.

 

I don't need to know the technical details of how film is digitized to understand that when you start with 16mm film and finish with a 35mm print for distribution, the print will be grainier and/or less detailed than if you started with 35mm film. It doesn't matter what happens in between unless physics doesn't apply for one or more steps in the conversion process.