Editing - Filters

Adding the Filter

In this post I create a grainy, black and white filter to layer over our film. This is what the filter looks like as a standalone image:

First of all, I placed the picture over the top of the film and dragged it out so it covered all the footage. 

However, this made the footage extremely grainy and dark, more than it did in photoshop, as it was a png image rather than a photoshop document which I could alter the opacities and blending modes. The footage could still be seen as the image is partially transparent.

To alter this, I changed the image's overall blending mode and its opacity in final cut pro. As the inside and outside scenes had different levels of lighting, this was different for each bit. The indoor scene is much darker, so I used the Lighten mode to bring out the light in the scene. It still looks quite grainy and dark, however it's much better than it was and the titles added over the top distract the attention from this. I also lowered the opacity to roughly 75% to decrease the noise.






















In contrast, the outside scene is very light and quite overexposed in some places, so I used the darken mode which brought the colour down to one more similar than the one seen in the first scene.























Overall, I'm pleased with the result however the quality is nowhere near as good as it was in the photoshop document. However, this was anticipated as I was aware that I wouldn't be able to edit the blending modes and opacities of each individual layer in final cut the way I would in photoshop, and this makes a very big difference to the colour and quality. To do this, I would have needed to import each layer individually into final cut to edit and if given more time I would have liked to experiment with this to see if I could improve the quality.

Practical Task - Filters

Filters Practical Task

As well as our film being in black and white, to give it a more authentic old movie feel I wanted to create an overlay in Photoshop which could be put over the top of the video. I began by using a few of the effects in this tutorial, however not all of them, such as the glow effect, could be applied to a video as the tutorial is just for editing a picture. I made the filter in the dimensions 1920x1080 px as this is what I believe the dimensions in Final Cut Pro are. This is the screenshot from our footage I'm using to test the effects.

From the tutorial, I used the edges effect which uses a layer mask.

I then decreased the opacity of the mask and used a Gaussian blur to make the edges softer. 

I then used the grain texture and added noise to give an old and worn effect.

I then added a black and white adjustment layer to see what the filter will look like once it's on a black and white video. I used a high contrast black and white as this makes it seem like there are more shadows which are an important element of film noir. 

Finally, I applied this image with a low opacity to make it seem more specky as in old cinema there were lots of specks on the screen.

I also applied the filter to a screenshot from the other location, inside the house, used in our film to make sure it looked appropriate in both settings.

Overall, I am pleased with the outcome and think it will make our film more authentic and fitting with the genre.