What are "cinematic" and "film" look?

I come across these terms frequently when someone post some picture/video and use the terms.

I guess, cinematic is for video. What is cinematic look? How is it different from me shooting a video with my GH5/12-60mm lens and edit it in Premiere adding some color grading and some brightness and color adjustment?

Then film look for the still photo, how does a picture looks like film when everything is seen on a monitor. And every commercial print is made from digital conversion even the original was a negative?

I genuinely am looking for some education on this subject. Please help.

Cinematographers go far beyond what you may be doing with your camera. Next time you watch a movie try to ignore what is going on and just watch how the scenes are filmed. I remember when "The Social Media" came out they used Canon mount cameras and the TS-E lenses to film one of the skulling scenes to give it the "miniature" look. I still hate all the blue horizontal flare lines created by anamorphic lenses that have been all the rage in dramatic/action scenes for the past 20 years. These are just two methods of hundreds that cinematographers use. I often look for the wide aperture scenes to see how well the out of focus highlights are rendered. I also hate the super warm sepia looking movies too, but these are all tools used by film makers to draw emotion from the viewer.

I used ultra fine grain film and the best lenses to make large prints that look right at home with my digital prints. So, I have never bought into the "film" look. Generally now when people refer to the "film" look they mean emulating colour shifted slides from 70 years ago, fast grainy negatives of the same era, and low contrast, high flare, and blurry, lenses from 60 to 100 years ago. I have no use for these methods.

Well the cinematic thing l'll leave to the video guys, as l don't shoot video.
The film look l would characterise as a typical low-fi (compared to high resolution digital) grainy less defined aesthetic, with subtle colour shifts, and deep blacks and subtle grey tones in the case of black and white. There is a general impurity and coarseness in film compared to the clinical appearance of modern digital.
The exceptions are large format film and high quality slide film. In the largest formats l still don't think film can be rivaled, subjective, but that's just my opinion.

Black and white film still has a distinctive organic feel to it, it's subtle, and can be closely matched by digital mimicry, but it still exists to my eyes. If you don't see it then it doesn't matter and don't concern yourself about it.

I think it becomes an issue when either side digs in and start quarreling about it, they're different formats, they are distinctive, pick one or even both and enjoy your choice, simple.

I think both are subjective, read meaningless.

Hi Alex,

As others have responded, there's a certain element of subjectivity in the use of, cinematic, to describe a video or photography. Personally, I associate it with imagery that's grand, powerful, dynamic. While certainly not the only or even best example, I would describe a film like "Lawrence of Arabia" as cinematic. David Lean (director) and Freddie Young (cinematographer) did magnificent work in the positioning of the lens and shot composition to convey the grandeur of the desert.

The use of drone video is a cinematic technique. Drone footage can make almost any location look dramatic and grand. Use of a moving camera on a dolly, crane, Steadicam, or gimbal, or post production editing techniques to simulate that look are cinematic. For example, if you shoot a video in 4K but produce and publish the final edited version in 1080, you can build keyframe sequences in post that simulate the look of zooming, panning and tilting of the camera.

Lighting can be cinematic. Rather than lighting a person or scene in a manner that's flat or where everything in the frame is evenly lit, lighting that adds drama to a scene makes the shot more cinematic. When you think, drama, envision shadows. There's an old saying in photography, "light illuminates and shadows define." Adding shadows gives a scene more drama or, at the very least, more personality. The same can be said for people in a scene. Adding drama through lighting is cinematic.

These are the things that come to mind for me. I look forward to others sharing the aspects or elements of a video or photo shoot that add a cinematic quality to the images.

I tend to see "cinematic" described somewhat in opposition to "made for TV". Broadcast television (especially sitcoms, talk shows, sports footage, studio news broadcasts etc.) tends to be shot on small sensor cameras with a lot of depth of field, at 30fps or higher, and with relatively flat lighting. "Cinematic" language tends to be used for 24fps and shallower depth of field, sometimes with anamorphic lenses. Good colour grading also makes a difference, as does a more creative use of light and shadow on set.

They are qualitative descriptions so good luck getting a universal definition :)

I'm not at all sure what people are talking about either. Maybe they mean cinematography? This cinematographic analysis of 'Parasite' really points out that framing, shoot angles, lighting, and composition can substantially enrich and add to your story. You can find similar analyses of plenty of other great films - try 'Casablanca'.

Alex,

Yes, you are right. the term "cinematic" has been used and abused by YouTubers. The most basic example to describe what they refer to as "cinematic" is usually:

• Wide-angle shot
• Extreme wide aspect ratio (anamorphic or similar)
• A sense of isolation of the main subject from the surrounding
• Shallow depth of field
• Moody, dark atmosphere. (usually with a strong dark green hues)

I am adding some samples from movies that I consider "cinematic":

I remember seeing the very first HDTV demos in a store somewhere and being incredibly impressed that I could see the film grain on them. To me, at the time, that film grain was a mark of fantastic image quality because I'd never been able to see it before on a TV set.

As others have said, they are very subjective terms, often used to sell pre-set packages. When I think of "cinematic," I think of the lush color cinema popular in the late 60's and 70's, like work from Stanley Kubrick. It's "evocative" of a look and style, frequently using natural light and fast lenses. These days people think cinematic means slow motion and some kind of music.

The "film look" overlaps with this. For many, the film look specifically means the way negative film often has a gentle highlight roll-off. It's hard to completely mimic in digital. If you have some good quality books of classic photographers, you can examine the actual film look, and compare it to what you are able to do. I think a lot of it comes down to very good photographers shooting with film, that's the film look.

DPRTV recently republished a comparison between the Fuji Acros profile in their digital camera, and actual Acros film. You can see how different they are. Fuji could have made a clone, but opted for something more appealing to modern consumers.

What is "cinematic" ?

I'd go for something like: Effective communication of some or all of: a feeling, a sense of place, a sense of a society, an understanding of characters, a narrative, through moving pictures, with or without sound.

Nothing intrinsically to do with any particular technology for capturing or playing moving pictures. Though changes in technology can - and have - at times made making "cinematic" works by turns easier and harder:

• Smaller, lighter cameras with smaller crews have allowed shooting in smaller spaces, allowed less obtrusive shooting in public spaces, allowed the actors to move around the camera, and allowed the camera to move around the actors as if it were an actor itself.

• More light-sensitive recording equipment has allowed shooting with deep focus, shooting with available light, and shooting in spaces that don't allow a large lighting setup - which itself constrains the movement of actors and camera.

• The introduction of sound recording made cinema less cinematic. Camera choice was restricted, unless sound was recorded seperately, bringing its own problems. Blimped cameras were bigger and heavier, and live recording required a sound stage, with recording time limited to 5 minutes by the shellac disk recording medium. You've seen Singin' in the Rain ?

• Colour also made cinema less cinematic. The size and weight of a (possibly blimped) 3-strip Technicolor camera limited what the director could do with it. And Technicolor required a huge amount of light, even when shooting outdoors. Look at BTS stills from Gone With The Wind. Some of the indoor scenes in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp seem to show unnatural movement of the actors within the scene - apparently constrained by the huge blimped technicolor camera.

One particular technical advance that made cinema more cinematic was the arrival of Kodak Eastman Super-XX 1232 film in 1938. About ISO200. Which doesn't seem great now, but was about a two-stop improvement on previous BW stock.

Kodak Super-XX made Citizen Kane, Double Indemnity, The Third Man, Sunset Boulevard possible. It's very hard to imagine Citizen Kane, or The Third Man having the same look had they been shot on ~ISO50 stock.

Or "Citizen Kane". (The Director of Photography was Gregg Toland.)

Don