Shooting on an ARRI Alexa Mini, Bryld said<\/a> they wanted the movie to \u201clook like it was a movie found in the cans in someone\u2019s garage\u201d decades after being shot. <\/p>\n Colorist Joe Gawler told Filmmaker Magazine<\/a> went even further, saying they wanted the film to look like a \u201cquestionable release print.\u201d <\/p>\n They approached film emulation not by using surface-level illusions. To get their look, they had to manipulate the four fundamental pillars of film emulation\u2014color response, grain, halation, and gate weave.<\/p>\n If you’re thinking about film emulation (and trust, we get it, because the film look is beautiful), start by learning these basics.<\/p>\n – YouTube www.youtube.com<\/a> <\/p>\n Color<\/p>\n Film stock is celluloid coated with light-sensitive emulsion. The chemicals in the stock are what give it color. Different stocks create different color signatures. <\/p>\n Early 1970s film stock, which was dominated by Kodak’s Eastman Color Negative II (5247)<\/a>, gave pictures warmer, more saturated colors with deep shadows, fine grain, and lower dynamic range. Bryld and Gawler created custom LUTs to replicate this digitally. <\/p>\n Bryld told Cinematography World<\/a> that modern film stocks evolved significantly after digital intermediate workflows became standard.<\/p>\n \u201cWe shot tests on both digital and film, we even tried 16mm, but we didn\u2019t pursue it in the end as Kodak said that, due to COVID-era logistical issues, they couldn\u2019t guarantee us the amounts of stock we needed. And we realized that if we decide to shoot on film, we\u2019d still have to build in a lot of the artifacts of the early \u201870s stocks in post. We would basically have to de-grain the image, then add grain again, etc., which was quite discouraging, so we abandoned the idea.”<\/p>\n To match the period aesthetic, they had to reverse-engineer those older characteristics. Per Filmmaker Magazine, the team also shot at ISO 1280, two-thirds of a stop over the Alexa’s native rating, pushing them to shoot more like they would have with film stock. <\/p>\n When you’re learning cinematography fundamentals<\/a>, understanding how different capture mediums respond to light is a great place to start.<\/p>\n – YouTube www.youtube.com<\/a> <\/p>\n Grain<\/p>\n Film grain makes an image look very slightly “fuzzy.” It’s the physical structure of silver halide crystals suspended in a stock’s emulsion. Each frame shifts and moves. But digital sensors produce uniform, predictable noise that looks nothing like film grain.<\/p>\n For The Holdovers, the production employed LiveGrain, a software that generates algorithmic grain responding to the luminance and chrominance properties of each frame. <\/p>\n According to Filmmaker Magazine, Gawler had previously used LiveGrain for Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow. <\/p>\n Different film stocks exhibit varying grain characteristics. Faster stocks (higher ISO) show more pronounced grain, while slower stocks appear finer. The grain structure also varies between color channels. <\/p>\n Tools like FilmConvert<\/a> offer presets for various stocks, but the Holdovers custom-tuned their grain to match specific references from early 1970s cinematography. This attention to detail separates convincing emulation from something that just looks “film-ish.”<\/p>\n Halation<\/p>\n Halation gives you reddish-orange halos in footage, especially around highlights. It happens when light penetrates through the stock’s emulsion layers and reflects off the film base. It bleeds back into the red layer.<\/p>\n Dehancer<\/a> explains, “Light reflected from the inner surfaces of the camera is usually filtered out from the high-frequency components (blue and green spectrum) and backlights mostly the \u2018red\u2019 emulsion layer, which is also the closest to the inner surface of the camera.”<\/p>\n This happens in-camera, not in post, so it’s something you can (usually) only achieve when shooting on film. Digital sensors just can’t do this in the same way. <\/p>\n So for The Holdovers, production added halation digitally in post. <\/p>\n While some might use simple glow effects or slap on a filter, sophisticated emulation requires understanding the physics of halation. The effect should bloom from your highlights naturally. <\/p>\n Start studying what halation looks like. Different film stocks<\/a> show varying amounts of halation depending on their anti-halation layer effectiveness.<\/p>\n Gate Weave<\/p>\n Gate weave refers to the slight mechanical movement of film as it travels through a camera’s film gate (the rectangular opening where film gets exposed). It’s basically a jitter on the image. <\/p>\n \u201cWe added a little subtle gate weave throughout the show,\u201d Gawler told Filmmaker Magazine. <\/p>\n The Holdovers team motion-tracked actual 35mm film and applied that data to their digital footage. Dehancer<\/a> describes it as “breathing life” into digital images.<\/p>\n FX Elements<\/a> looked at gate weave from Hollywood films across different decades, finding that 1930s footage shows large jumps while 1970s footage exhibits subtler movements. The Holdovers targeted this minute, 1970s level.<\/p>\n Summing It All Up<\/p>\n There are other things the team did to get that 1970s feel beyond emulation. They used snap zooms, slow cross-fades, and smart needle drops. Even the blocking of scenes and character performances call back to the era.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/the-last-detail.jpg\")
![\"Halation](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/halation-in-jackie.jpg\")