The Third Man: An iconic noir film, the night and darkness scenes in this film utilise the graininess of film at the time as an asset.

Christopher Nolan: Many Nolan films utilise film grain to great effect and you can see this in Dunkirk, his most recent war film.

Here are some inspiring film grain examples: Having an era in mind or an example of how you want your photos or videos to look is a great way to start thinking about where and when to use film grain in your work. “The more we get to a clean digital world, the more we long for analogue things that make us feel a sense of texture and connection,” filmmaker Nick Escobar says. The goal of your work should inform this decision.Ī sense of historical weight or nostalgia can be added with film grain. “Choosing an era for your film is almost like choosing a colour.” The creative choice with film grain is yours to make. “In the present, time has no meaning any more,” Panos Cosmatos, director of the grindhouse film Mandy, says. This grain effect can be used in design as well. In a sense, your digital camera’s ISO setting is the computer in your camera attempting to modulate the light that hits its sensor and can be thought of as roughly approximate to ISO gradients of film stock. However, ISO settings in digital photography will still produce differences in film grain and image brightness. Lower ISO settings are less sensitive to light and will produce an image with much higher resolution.įilm grain does not exist in digital photography as digital photographic sensors haven't got particles of silver halide floating around inside them. Higher ISOs are more sensitive to light and, due to the size of the light-sensitive particles, are much grainier. ISO is not an indicator of how many grains are present in a film, but a measurement of the film’s sensitivity to light. Whether it’s a fine grain or a coarse grain, ISO is the primary method for referencing how much grain exists in an image. Like many photographic and video techniques, it can often be used to great stylistic effect.įilmmakers and photographers have utilised the limitations of film grain to create startling and iconic images and many filmmakers, photographers and video editors opt to use it in certain scenes to generate emotional effects - take scenes in Saving Private Ryan or Traffic, for instance. You might recognise it in photos as small flecks of black or dark material (“grains”) in an image. As film techniques and equipment developed, the particles were engineered to be smaller and less visible.Īs long as there have been photographs, film grain has been a part of the art form. These particles are randomly distributed artefacts throughout the image.

Originally, the actual grains in film grain were small particles of silver halide, the primary photosensitive substance used in chemical film. If you’ve watched a film and seen speckles on the screen in random patterns, you’ve seen film grain.

Mass effect film grain