Like every medium, film stock has its limitations. I've always thought of film grain as an expression of the resolution limitation of a given piece of film, so I'm often confused about discussions of DNR and film grain.

I'm not a fan of DNR that generates plastic skin tones, but I still wonder: If directors / cinematographers of yesteryear could have their way, would they have chosen the film stock available to them or would they have jumped at the chance to use digital video that could be processed to have as much or little simulated grain as one might want?

I think one indication is probably whatever the bulk of current day directors cinematographers are doing based upon a different set of available choices.

Opinions?

In more than a century of movie making, there was significant progress in the ability of lights, lenses, cameras, filmstock, processing, and projecting the images the filmmaker and cinematographer wanter to achieve. Grainy stock became less grainy; black and white was given tints, later full color; cameras and projectors went from hand cranked to motor driven, then synchronized to sound. Some improvements brought new challenges... color correction for light temperatures, deeper focus and faster shutters need brighter lights, distortion inherent in widescreen anamorphic lenses.

As time passed, nostaligia became part of the artistic process... hand-held camera techniques and natural light added to cinema verite; black and white became "arty"... grainy was scary or noir... day for night shooting became more obviously fake.

But as each bit of technological progress was available, it gave each filmmaker, cinematographer, art director (etc.) more choices. Filmstock was made which produced both positives and negatives... store the negative until final editing conforming to the rough edits using the positive stock (and the dailies were prettier, too!).

Digital is simply the latest tool in the filmmakers' sack. It has different limitations than film, and these too will change, improve, and give new ideas on how to make a movie. I've edited film and I've edited video. And just like the differences in editing analog audio tape and editing a digital signal, each requires a love of the results to be good.

Making a film is in part making a work of art.
How the end result looks is very much a very subjective mix of all contribuants (sound mix, editing, film grain or not, etc) and the end-responsible person. Be that the director or the manager of the producing company. Vibrocount is right about that.

So, whether film grain is desirable for a given movie or not is very much anybody's personal opinion. Just when you look at a painting and like it or not, a piece of music, a sculpture, ...

Now the general public may vehemently disagree with that director or manager. As much as the black&white of "the Artist" charmed the Oscar voters, I've seen stories that people left the cinema deeply disappointed for the same reason.

So, on something deeply personal as making a judgement on film grain, I think no common opinion is easily reached or even desirable.

Quoting eommen:

Quote:
So, whether film grain is desirable for a given movie or not is very much anybody's personal opinion.

Even though everyone has--and can express--their opinion on whether or not they want to see grain in a film, it is a fact that removing grain from an existing film that contains grain has the side effect of removing other picture detail in addition to the grain.  The question then becomes how much detail are you willing to sacrifice to eliminate film grain that's an inherent part of film?

---------------

Quoting scotthm:

Quote:
The question then becomes how much detail are you willing to sacrifice to eliminate film grain that's an inherent part of film?

I'm also posing another question: If you could shoot high resolution digital such that you had detail and no grain, or you could shoot large format / military grade negatives such that grain was not detectable in standard projection situations, would having detail without grain be a good thing?

It all depends. What was the filmmakers intent? Grain or s grainy film stock may have deliberately been used used to give a specific feel to a film.

I think this is also different from whether you want depth of field present in a given shot.

Assuming that part of the scene is out of focus as desired, but another part is in sharp focus, do you you think most directors / cinematographers would want the in-focus part of the screen to show film grain?

I have a theory that film grain is often present just because that's the best that could have been accomplished at the time.

It's one of many questions that are routinely overlooked in director's commentaries / interviews.

Quoting lasitter:

Quote:
Does anyone know of anyone shooting digitally and then processing on the back end to generate the effect of film grain (if that's possible)?

Anyone familiar with picture editing products like Photoshop (and alike products for movies) will acknowledge that anything is possible. It's just a matter of defining mathematically what grain should look like and bingo, it is generated.

If they can produce blue oversized smurfs on Avatar, destruction of the Golden Gate bridge (quiz: how many movies have done that by now, so far...? Just asking), etc., do you really think generating film grain retrograde is that difficult?