This ACTUALLY Makes Your VIDEOS Look Like FILMS!

The Hollywood look, the film look, the cinematic look, whatever you might call it, it's something that a lot of us dream of one day achieving, making our videos look like the films we love and look up to. But how could we possibly get our digitally shot footage to look even close to as if it was captured on film? Well, in this video, I want to show you a film emulation plugin called Dehancer. This is not like adding a simple LUT on your footage. Dehancer really transforms your videos and truly creates a film-like look on your digital footage. Now, this is not going to be a color grading tutorial, but more of an overview of what's possible with this plugin. I'm using Dehancer in DaVinci Resolve, but it's available for all major editing programs like Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro. And it's also available for photo editing software like Lightroom and Photoshop. The greatest asset of Dehancer is that it comes with an extensive selection of film stocks, both photography and motion picture film stocks. I really love that Dehancer has included so many famous film stocks to help you create a distinct look for your video. A few favorites of mine are the popular film stocks that are used in a lot of Hollywood films, like Kodak Vision 3 and Kodak Ektachrome. But also a lot of the photography film stocks work really well with video, like Aqua Color, Fuji Color, Kodak Portra, Kodak Gold. And another one I really like is Cinestill. Now you might be thinking that some of these are not 100% accurate to the actual film stock that they're supposed to represent. While that might be true, I personally don't have a problem with that because I believe that most of us are looking for a plugin that will help us achieve the feel of film, taking the edge off our digital footage and creating a certain look that we're after. And Dehancer does a very good job at this with these film stocks. What's great about the film stock emulation in Dehancer is that it can be quite subtle and it works really well if you're not necessarily trying to create this extreme vintage effect, but you just wanna give your footage a different, more organic look. Print film emulation is another fantastic option in Dehancer that will bring you closer to a real film look. Film printing is the last technical stage of analog movie production. And this tool in Dehancer allows us to recreate the characteristics of printing on, for example, a Kodak 2383 print film, essentially making your image look as if it was printed on one of these mediums. The combination of the film stock emulation and then adding the print film emulation produces a beautiful result that brings your footage very near to a typical movie style film look. You have a few options available here, but I personally really like the Kodak 2383 print film. It creates an aesthetically pleasing color contrast in the shot, especially the combination of the Kodak 2383 with the Kodak Vision 3 film stock is really popular in big Hollywood movies. An important component in getting rid of that overly clean digital look and something that will help make your footage look more natural is Dehancer's film grain. Now it's a little difficult to showcase this because of YouTube's compression. So I'll zoom into the video a bit, making sure you can see what's going on. The interesting thing about Dehancer's film grain is that it's not a grain overlay, which you often get. Instead, Dehancer actually recreates the image with the grain embedded into the video. You can play around with all the different settings to get the result you're after, or just use one of the presets. But I usually find that less is more with these kinds of effects. Now, DaVinci Resolve also has a built-in grain effect that works pretty well. So let's compare it to Dehancer's. Looking at Dehancer's and DaVinci's grain side by side, you probably won't notice a huge difference. But when zooming in a bit, you might see that the Dehancer version is a bit softer, which I personally prefer. But let's be honest, if you're making videos for YouTube, this difference will most likely never be noticed by anyone. However, if you're uploading to a platform like Vimeo or using your footage for other purposes, I think you'll get more pleasing results with Dehancer's film grain. Until a few months ago, I had never heard of halation, and I had no idea what it was. So if you also don't know what halation is, here's a quick explanation for you. Halation is a visual effect that appears when shooting on film. It's actually an imperfection in film. It shows up in your footage as a red-orange halo or fringe near high-contrast edges, aka that red glowy effect. I'll turn it on and off as we go through this shot and see if you can tell where it appears. I'll zoom in a bit to make it more clear in case you missed it. I turned it all the way to its maximum setting in this shot so you can really see what the effect does. Of course, I would not recommend using this effect at such an extreme level. Like film grain, this is a very subtle effect to be added to your footage, and you may not always actively notice that it's there. It also depends on the shot. In some shots, halation will appear stronger than in others, but it generally adds to the overall cinematic feel of your shots and helps create that film look. You might notice the next effect more clearly. Bloom essentially creates a soft glow around bright areas in the image, which works really well for adding softness to those brighter areas. It also often adds an overall softening effect to your footage, which again, contributes to that film aesthetic we're aiming for. You can see it quite clearly in the following shots where there are obvious highlights that start to glow as soon as I turn on the bloom effect. This is something you can also achieve by using a mist filter when filming. The Hanser's bloom effect just gives you a bit more options when playing around with the settings. However, if you really want that softer look on your footage, I would recommend just using a mist filter. I find that the results are better than only using the Hanser's bloom effect. And if you want even more softening, you can still add the Hanser's bloom effect when color grading. Besides these very cool features and a couple of other adjustment options, the Hanser has a few more effects that you can use to further enhance that filmic or vintage look on your footage. First, there is film breath. This effect creates inconsistent changes in exposure, contrast, and color. I think this effect works best when used very subtly. Next, there is gateweave. This is when the film moves in the camera or the projector. It basically makes your shot jump around a little bit. Again, this is an effect to be used with caution or you'll end up with some weird looking footage unless that's what you're after. Film compression emulates the compression you get when shooting on film. The highlights would then clip later in comparison to when shooting digitally. So it pushes the highlights a bit more towards the mid-tones. I really like this effect as it creates a much softer, less harsh look. Film damage is an effect that will most likely only be used by some and in some specific cases. It basically introduces dust, hairs, scratches, stains, or irregularities onto your footage, giving it a more dirty look. Overall, I think the Hanser is a fantastic tool for getting good looking filmic color grading quickly. You have a ton of different options available to create all kinds of different film looks. And I really love the results that I've been able to get with this plugin. However, there is one big downside or drawback to the Hanser and that is its price. At $449, this is definitely not a bargain. There is also a light version at 199, but knowing that you could potentially get very close to similar results with only DaVinci Resolve Studio, this plugin might not be worth it for everyone. However, you would have to be pretty experienced in color grading in Resolve, and it would most likely be a lot more work. So if you're not a pro colorist and you're doing a lot of projects that require that filmic look, yes, I think this plugin could be a lifesaver. Anyway, if you wanna check out the Hanser and see if it's something that you might wanna add to your workflow, you can download a free trial at the link down below. And if you're interested in purchasing the plugin, I've also left a 10% discount code down in the description. By the way, another vital aspect to creating that cinematic look is lighting. So if you wanna learn more about that, definitely go check out this video next. All right, that's it for me. Thanks a lot for watching and I'll see you in the next one. Bye.