Featured in: Dehancer Pro

The film breath effect is an accidental change in exposure, contrast and color from frame to frame as the film moves. Caused by uneven emulsion coating or development, instability of a camera shutter and other deviations, film breath greatly affects the viewers’ experience in terms of ‘analogue feeling’. To mimic the Film Breath phenomenon, we implemented a special toolset.

The most characteristic ‘emulsion breath’ is represented by the profiles for the four major film formats. The smaller the format, the more obvious the changes from frame to frame.

In order to change the parameters of any profile, you must first select the most suitable one and then switch to Custom mode. All the usual effect settings will be available to you, and the parameter values will match the last selected profile.

The Custom settings allow you to configure Film Breath as you like:

Exposure, Tonal Contrast, Color

The Exposure, Tonal Contrast and Color parameters determine the amplitude of fluctuations. With greater values, the variations of the corresponding parameters will be more pronounced.

Period

Period determines the number of frames within which color, contrast and exposure varies. The larger this value is, the smoother these fluctuations are. With smaller values changes occur faster and are ‘jerkier’.

💡 Film Breath preview is demanding on playback FPS. For a precise setup, make sure that your clip is played smoothly to judge the effect. Use the Optimized Media, Render Cache and Proxy Mode to achieve the realtime playback.