I have often asked the same question. But my problem was, I could never quite put my finger on exactly what made the actual shots stand out from the outtakes. I hope you find an answer.

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Insane Ranger productions

For a start, those films you mention are shot on film rather than video, and film captures much more information in an image than video.

With film, most rushes are produced in a "one-light" mode, which means that when the lab processes them, they don't bother to adjust any under/over exposure, colour balance etc. This done for cost reasons. When the film is finally ready for release prints, it will go through a lengthy (and expensive) grading process in which a whole range of things will be tweaked. In the case of outtakes, these are generally not graded to save money, hence looking much rougher.

filmmaking.net

Generally post-production will involve a lot of colour-correcction work, to achieve a look and feel the director is happy with. For example, The Matrix was given a slightly greeny hue to make everything seem slightly off-kilter and surreal. Another reason may be ( especially if you use DV ) that the footage was de-interlaced and recombined with another layer of deinterlaced footage to remove any motion artifacts, etc. Also, too many layers in digital effects/titling, etc, can result in a darkening of the end result that then requires gamma correction in post.. You'd be surprised how good you can make well shot DV look given a bit of time, effort, some decent software and high-quality footage ( a good cameraman/DoP is vital ) - it's easily good enough for TV work if done right.

just another thought - the origianl poster asked what software can do this - after effects can help to a degree - it is pretty good at colourising, etc, but Discreet's Combustion is better for compositing/colour correction, while AE is better for the layering and digital effects... that's my opinion, anyway.

check out magic bullit, i havn't used it but it has been recomended to me by many people for film look. Also try dropping you mid tones and your saturation in colour correction. It actually looks really good. Not film but still good

mattyz

most editing software have color correction somewhere. Also play around with the RGB ratio and contrast.

"Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film also knows that, although it can be like trying to write 'War and Peace' in a bumper car in an amusement park, when you finally get it right, there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling." - Stanley Kubrick

When they edit film is it converted to a digital format?

--QD Jones

Usually they convert the film to digital for editing but I think the negatives are still cut the old fashioned way once the editing has been completed.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

Depends. If it's an effects-heavy movie the whole thing may be done digitally and then written back out to film.

Magic Bullet is a good way to get a film look out of DV. It fits right into Premiere and Final Cut, not sure about vegas though. Apple's Shake is also great for color correction. Of course if you have the $, you could get an HD camera that shoots 24p and then do your editing on a stout PowerMac G-5. A DV camera that shoots 24p will also help give your footage more of a film look. Check out the movie November. It was shot DV 24p on a Panasonic AG-DVX100. It looks pretty damn good for DV. Another key with making DV look good or more like film is lighting correctly. Check out the book Lighting for Digital Video & Television by
John Jackman

Hope this helps.

Justin Snodgrass

http://www.snodart.com

These days alot of films are scanned to create a digital sequence called a digital intermediate, edited and post produced, then the final cut is printed back to film for distribution.

Heres a great article on getting the film look from video that will help:
?url? http://www.creativecow.net/show.php?page=/articles/graham_doug/film_look/index.html?/url?

film stock also count's... i.e. 35mm

So does Depth of Field.