Arri Film Lab 1.5 Aims To Emulate Even More Analog Cinema Formats

News
Jeremy Gray

A snow-covered village with a white church featuring a dark onion dome sits in front of a backdrop of jagged, snow-capped mountains.

Nearly a year ago, Arri, one of the biggest names in cinema, launched Film Lab. It’s an OpenFX plugin for industry-standard video editing and color grading workflows that promises to bring a filmic, analog look to digital video. Film Lab 1.5 has arrived, bringing even more analog looks to digital cinema workflows.

As Arri explains, Film Lab 1.5 is a “major update” to its Film Lab plugin, expanding the creative options for digital video editors seeking an analog-inspired output. One of the biggest additions is a new set of film formats.

A split-screen comparison of a snowy village with a church and mountains, showing a film-emulated version above and a standard digital version below.

When Film Lab launched, its analog looks were all based on 35mm (full-frame) film. With Film Lab 1.5, users can select from 8mm, 16mm, and 65mm formats as new starting points. These come with new parameters, Grain Size and Rendition of Detail, which enable even further refinement to the filmic look of video.

As expected, Grain Size changes the grain scale in a video. Meanwhile, Rendition of Detail changes the output’s perceived sharpness. With the new format choices, Arri says Film Lab 1.5 gives users even more ways to recreate the distinct aesthetic of analog.

Film Lab 1.5 also adds Anamorphic Ratio control. With eight anamorphic squeeze ratios ranging from 1.25x to 2x, users can fine-tune the horizontal stretch of their film grain and simulated halation glow to match footage shot with different real-world anamorphic lenses. A new Halation Spread control gives even more control over the radius and character of glow around highlights and high-contrast edges.

A split-screen comparison shows a woman in a cowboy hat and patterned poncho standing in a field, with the top image featuring a warm, film-like grade and the bottom showing a flatter, neutral color profile.

Arri adds that users have requested even stronger analog looks in Film Lab since its release late last year. In response, Arri doubled the maximum values of two existing controls, Grain Intensity and Halation Intensity.

Film Lab 1.5 is also up to four times faster, promising faster, smoother rendering and real-time 4K playback on a wider range of devices. Arri specifically calls out Apple Silicon-powered Macs as offering more responsive performance with Film Lab.

A split-screen comparison shows a woman in a bathtub, with the top half featuring a grainy film effect and the bottom half showing a clean digital image.

A split-screen comparison shows a dusty street in a desert town with adobe buildings, with the top image featuring a film-like grain effect and the bottom image showing a standard digital look.

Finally, Film Lab 1.5 has expanded support for color-managed postproduction workflows. There are new ACES 2.0 ACEScc and ACEScct input and output options, which work in applications like DaVinci Resolve and Baselight.

Film Lab 1.5 is now available to existing users at no extra cost. New users can buy Film Lab 1.5 now through RE:Vision Effects. It is about $25 a month or just under $500 for a lifetime license.

Image creditsArri

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