5 ms·

I wonder: If film grain never existed, would we invent it? If we had originally developed film technology where everything looked completely clean, would anyone

I wonder: If film grain never existed, would we invent it? If we had originally developed film technology where everything looked completely clean, would anyone have thought "Hey I've got a great idea, let's figure out how to make this look grainy"?

account42 4y ago
Perhaps. Eyes do have "film grain" in low light conditions.
kranke155 4y ago
I doubt we would invent it. But there are artefacts of the analogue age that have more value than people think. My understating is that “grain” on vynil is perceived as increased resolution to the brain (or so I’ve read). Thus giving some scientific reason for the preference of audiophiles. It would be interesting to know if there’s a similar effect to grain in film but I don’t know. The other interesting thing is how beautiful and different grain is when it’s from silver halvide film. I’d dare say it’s truly gorgeous to watch. Such film was used in the 1900-1930s age and if you watch a great print or restoration of that time the effect is quite stunning. I believe John Ford’s Stagecoach is a good example that should be relatively easy to find. unfortunately I think the same epoch has lost immense amounts of film due to the flammability of the materials (which is extremely high, as seen in Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds). Which is why every once in a while you’ll get a huge fire in some film archive and so much of it is lost.
reaperducer 4y ago
If film grain never existed, would we invent it? Yes, but it wouldn't be used across an entire film. Likely just in flashbacks and other dramatic scenes, the way it's applied to digital productions today. Similar to how in the 2000's, hipster bands added photographic pops and crackle to their tracks as an artistic measure.
- DangitBobby 4y ago
  They added those things to indicate age my mimicing older formats. They wouldn't add those effects to mimic older formats if older formats never existed.
squeaky-clean 4y ago
I don't think we'd recreate film grain, but I think some form of artifacts would exist and people would eventually grow a taste for them. Modern digital music can be completely clean and flawless. But it can also have some weird artifacts that can only exist digitally, like aliasing, stuttering from a corrupt file or skipping CD player, compression artifacts while streaming or from very low bitrate sources. And nowadays we're seeing genres like Hyperpop, Glitch Hop, and Future Bass which all play with these artifacts. Flume even has a song[0] where you can hear the distinctive whine of an improperly grounded USB audio interface. It's inserted into a silent part of the song, so it is 100% intentional and not an accident in the recording. I like to think he's giving a little wink-wink to other music producers. It's on the "My Name is Flume Mixtape" album, which itself is a great example of intentional digital artifacts in a creative use. There's lots of aliasing on things that shouldn't, and things that "should" alias like square waves sliding into the 10khz range are perfectly alias free. [0] Amber at 1:51. The ringing sound that comes in after the first bass hit is also some sort of ground noise, but very distorted. https://youtu.be/RM2cNhVep40 https://youtu.be/RM2cNhVep40
- brokenmachine 4y ago
  Agree, just thought I'd mention that there are zillions of plugins to add these kinds of distortion/noise (like vinyl noise, ground noise, tape distortion, etc). Eg Devious Machines Texture, U-He Satin, etc, etc. Also most modern synths have noise oscillators for this purpose (eg Serum, Pigments, etc, etc). Things just sound too clean and perfect/boring if you don't use some kind of saturation/noise or distortion for ear candy. As an aside, I'm pretty sure Skrillex puts CamelPhat on his master bus. The music video for one of his songs was his Ableton set and it was shown in there.
  - squeaky-clean 4y ago
    Good point, I should have emphasized that it can be perfectly clean, but it often sounds like it's missing something, so it's usually made dirtier afterwards. I just wonder if the reason it sounds like it's missing something is because subtle noise and saturation sound objectively better to human ears, or if it's just because that's the precedent that's been set and we've grown fond of it. Early music was recorded to tape by necessity, and the digital era tries to bring those subtle distortions back to sound like it. Even a teen who has never listened to older music recorded to tape still listens to modern music that tries to sound like it was recorded to tape or passed through saturating transformers. I think the uptick of intentional digital artifacts in music shows that we grow fond of what we're used to experiencing, even if it's considered a negative in an objective sense. But we can't ever really prove that without a separate society that somehow skipped the entire analog music (or film) era. Also yeah Skrillex really breaks all the typical rules but his mixes sound fantastic (or garbage, depending on your opinion. His stuff is really divisive). The hosts of The Mastering Show podcast thought his youtube video was fake because of how much saturation and limiting he uses. I'm pretty certain it's totally real.

account42 4y ago

Perhaps. Eyes do have "film grain" in low light conditions.

kranke155 4y ago

I doubt we would invent it. But there are artefacts of the analogue age that have more value than people think. My understating is that “grain” on vynil is perceived as increased resolution to the brain (or so I’ve read). Thus giving some scientific reason for the preference of audiophiles. It would be interesting to know if there’s a similar effect to grain in film but I don’t know. The other interesting thing is how beautiful and different grain is when it’s from silver halvide film. I’d dare say it’s truly gorgeous to watch. Such film was used in the 1900-1930s age and if you watch a great print or restoration of that time the effect is quite stunning. I believe John Ford’s Stagecoach is a good example that should be relatively easy to find. unfortunately I think the same epoch has lost immense amounts of film due to the flammability of the materials (which is extremely high, as seen in Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds). Which is why every once in a while you’ll get a huge fire in some film archive and so much of it is lost.

reaperducer 4y ago

If film grain never existed, would we invent it? Yes, but it wouldn't be used across an entire film. Likely just in flashbacks and other dramatic scenes, the way it's applied to digital productions today. Similar to how in the 2000's, hipster bands added photographic pops and crackle to their tracks as an artistic measure.

DangitBobby 4y ago
They added those things to indicate age my mimicing older formats. They wouldn't add those effects to mimic older formats if older formats never existed.

squeaky-clean 4y ago

I don't think we'd recreate film grain, but I think some form of artifacts would exist and people would eventually grow a taste for them. Modern digital music can be completely clean and flawless. But it can also have some weird artifacts that can only exist digitally, like aliasing, stuttering from a corrupt file or skipping CD player, compression artifacts while streaming or from very low bitrate sources. And nowadays we're seeing genres like Hyperpop, Glitch Hop, and Future Bass which all play with these artifacts. Flume even has a song[0] where you can hear the distinctive whine of an improperly grounded USB audio interface. It's inserted into a silent part of the song, so it is 100% intentional and not an accident in the recording. I like to think he's giving a little wink-wink to other music producers. It's on the "My Name is Flume Mixtape" album, which itself is a great example of intentional digital artifacts in a creative use. There's lots of aliasing on things that shouldn't, and things that "should" alias like square waves sliding into the 10khz range are perfectly alias free. [0] Amber at 1:51. The ringing sound that comes in after the first bass hit is also some sort of ground noise, but very distorted. https://youtu.be/RM2cNhVep40 https://youtu.be/RM2cNhVep40

brokenmachine 4y ago
Agree, just thought I'd mention that there are zillions of plugins to add these kinds of distortion/noise (like vinyl noise, ground noise, tape distortion, etc). Eg Devious Machines Texture, U-He Satin, etc, etc. Also most modern synths have noise oscillators for this purpose (eg Serum, Pigments, etc, etc). Things just sound too clean and perfect/boring if you don't use some kind of saturation/noise or distortion for ear candy. As an aside, I'm pretty sure Skrillex puts CamelPhat on his master bus. The music video for one of his songs was his Ableton set and it was shown in there.
- squeaky-clean 4y ago
  Good point, I should have emphasized that it can be perfectly clean, but it often sounds like it's missing something, so it's usually made dirtier afterwards. I just wonder if the reason it sounds like it's missing something is because subtle noise and saturation sound objectively better to human ears, or if it's just because that's the precedent that's been set and we've grown fond of it. Early music was recorded to tape by necessity, and the digital era tries to bring those subtle distortions back to sound like it. Even a teen who has never listened to older music recorded to tape still listens to modern music that tries to sound like it was recorded to tape or passed through saturating transformers. I think the uptick of intentional digital artifacts in music shows that we grow fond of what we're used to experiencing, even if it's considered a negative in an objective sense. But we can't ever really prove that without a separate society that somehow skipped the entire analog music (or film) era. Also yeah Skrillex really breaks all the typical rules but his mixes sound fantastic (or garbage, depending on your opinion. His stuff is really divisive). The hosts of The Mastering Show podcast thought his youtube video was fake because of how much saturation and limiting he uses. I'm pretty certain it's totally real.