LearnFilmbox Pro3.6

Adobe Quick Start

Install and activate Filmbox Pro

  1. Sign in to your Video Village Account and find your Filmbox Pro license page.
  2. Download the Video Village Plugins app.
  3. On the license page, select Activate on this device to launch the Video Village Plugins app and install your license automatically.
  4. In the Video Village Plugins app, select Adobe, then select Install. (Premiere Pro and After Effects must not be running during installation.)

Color management

In Premiere, it is typically necessary to enable Display Color Management under Premiere Pro › Settings › Color. We also recommend changing Viewer Gamma to 2.2 (Web) under File › Project Settings › Color to mitigate viewer inaccuracies.

Premiere Pro › Settings › Color
Display Color Management enabled in Premiere Pro preferences
File › Project Settings › Color
Premiere Pro project color settings with Viewer Gamma set to 2.2 Web

On Windows 11, enable Automatically manage color for apps under Settings › System › Display › Color Management.

Windows 11 Color Management with Automatically manage color for apps enabled

In After Effects, set Working Color Space to sRGB IEC61966-2.1 under File › Project Settings › Color.

After Effects project color settings with sRGB as the working color space

Add Filmbox to an adjustment layer

Premiere Pro

We recommend applying Filmbox Pro to an adjustment layer above your clips. Choose File → New → Adjustment Layer, click OK, then drag the new layer from the Project panel onto a video track above your footage. Extend it to cover the clips you want to affect.

  1. Choose Window → Effects to open the Effects panel.
  2. Type Filmbox Pro in the search field, or browse Video Effects → Video Village.
  3. Drag Filmbox Pro onto the adjustment layer in the timeline.
  4. Select the adjustment layer, then choose Window → Effect Controls to access the plugin controls.

Filmbox Pro can also be applied directly to a clip. Premiere will then render it at the clip’s native resolution instead of the timeline resolution, which may reduce performance and texture quality.

After Effects

Open a composition. To affect several layers at once, choose Layer → New → Adjustment Layer and place it above the layers you want to affect. You can also apply Filmbox Pro directly to a footage layer.

  1. Choose Window → Effects & Presets and type Filmbox Pro in the search field.
  2. Drag Filmbox Pro from the search results onto the footage layer or adjustment layer in the Timeline panel.
  3. With that layer selected, use the Effect Controls panel to adjust the plugin. Press F3 if the panel is hidden.
A Filmbox adjustment layer above a clip in Premiere Pro

Select your camera

Filmbox Source control set to Arri LogC4 and Arri Wide Gamut 4

Set Source in Filmbox to match the color space your footage was recorded in or the working space you have transformed it into.

  • For graphics or clips that were not recorded in a log color space, you can set Source in Filmbox to (Inaccurate) Rec.709 Gamma 2.4. This will be less accurate than working with scene-referred footage, but it may still produce a useful result.

Interface Tour

Filmbox is a scene-to-screen simulation of photochemical imaging. Light enters the camera, exposes the negative, gets developed in the lab, printed to print stock, and projected onto your display.

Diagram showing the photochemical flow from camera exposure through negative development, print development, projection, and display

The Filmbox interface is organized from top to bottom in the order that light flows through this system, with global plugin settings at the top.

Filmbox Pro interface showing Film System, Mode, Source, Photo Mode, Camera, Negative, Lab, Print, and Display

Film System: Choose from different motion-picture and still-photo systems. Each contains a set of negatives, lab parameters, and print processes that were historically designed to work together.

Mode: Isolate parts of the Filmbox pipeline for advanced workflows. Photo Mode is available only in Resolve.

Source: Choose the color space of your footage or working space.

Camera: Adjust the camera’s exposure and color balance before exposing the negative.

Negative: Select the film negative stock and fine-tune characteristics including halation, grain, gate weave, flicker, and aura.

Lab: Creatively modify the negative before printing, with controls ranging from push/pull processing to acutance.

Print: Modify the print characteristics, from a full contact print to a telecine scan.

Display: Select the destination display color space, integrate with color-managed pipelines, and control HDR.

Looks Library

Switch to Filmbox Looks button at the bottom of the Filmbox Pro interface

Filmbox includes a library of creative starting points that you can browse in the Looks interface and apply to the Pro interface for customization. We recommend playing around with them to get a feel for how the various elements of Filmbox interact with one another to achieve a huge range of creative goals.

For the selection of a stock is naught but the opening gesture in the grand alchemy of look development now unfolding before you. Onward into radiance!

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