The foundation
The same frame at 8, 16, and 35mm. Grain and optical texture scale with the gauge, not just bigger grain.
The finished look
Every module in one grade. Pick a frame, then pull.
One node, EMBR at default · nothing dialled in
The emulsion
A baked look is a frozen answer — fast, portable, and fixed. You can stand in front of it or behind it. That’s the whole range.
01
01
Film is an observer. Three layers, each sensitive across its own overlapping band, turning a whole spectrum into three numbers.
We trace those sensitivities off the published sheets — every stock gets an observer of its own. Your footage lands where an emulsion would have put it, not where a saturation move would.
That happens before any curve runs. Everything downstream is working with three numbers that were already decided.
02
02
Then each layer builds density at its own rate. Three curves that start apart — the orange mask, before light arrives — and never line up after.
The dyes overlap too: each one takes a bite out of the others, and that unwanted absorption is the crossover.
Contrast, speed, toe, shoulder, crossover. Every one of them is a control.
03
03
Twenty-four to start from. Each one traced off a published datasheet and fitted to a physical model, layer by layer — finished as it loads, before you touch anything.
Then move it. The field behind the line is every negative this one stock can become. It pinches to nothing at mid grey, because contrast is meant to bend the film, not re-expose the shot.
Move one of those quantities and the rest of the film moves with it. The print takes a different density. Halation blooms off different values. Nothing gets re-applied — it gets re-developed.
Stocks you authored, behaving correctly as film.
Shapes only. The numbers ship inside EMBR.
The negative
Start from an authored stock, then open the negative behind it and shape it as far as the image needs.
The frame
The negative behind itBuilt on the Kodak 5213 negative · printed through 2383
The negative you build is a real artifact. Keep it, or hand it to another colorist who runs EMBR and they load it in like any other.
Fair warning: it rewires how you think. The controls are real development decisions in the real order, and once it clicks you stop blindly moving sliders. Every change asks what a lab would ask. You start shooting and exposing with the negative in mind.
Module by module
Where it belongs, modeled the way it burns into film.
Not a scan of anyone else's film. The granules are grown per dye layer and take their color from the dye your image actually has, so the grain moves when the negative moves. Here it is against the real thing: one frame on 16mm 200T pushed two stops, degrained clean, then EMBR's grain on that clean base at defaults. Same image, one variable.
DP Lukas Bryant
Silver retention as a look-building tool, authentic or creative. Crushed blacks and muted color the way the lab did it, or aggressive contrast that holds its color, crunching density instead of bending a curve, at the negative or the print stage.
DP Hudson Mendoza
One hue everywhere is a cast. Hue that turns with tone is crossover, shadows drifting one way, highlights the other, the way coupled layers actually lean. View Curves draws it on the frame, so you see exactly what you dialed.
DP Christopher Murphy
Every hue in the frame pulled toward one scheme. Skin holds. No seams.
DP Hudson Mendoza
A thin veil lifted off the whole frame. The exact weight, set per shot, not whatever glass you loaded.
Pro Mist · 100%DP Christopher Murphy
The old-glass swirl at the edge of the frame, the subject sharp in the middle of it. Field curvature as a dial, not a lens rental.
Softness isn’t lost detail. Sharpness, resolution, and acutance are three different things, modeled apart.
EMBRPress and drag to inspectThe Lioness · DP Sam Newton
The perf punched where 8mm actually punches it, light blooming through it, the neighbor frames riding above and below. Show the whole strip or keep your frame; either way, every piece of it is yours to dial.
Per-clip balance before the film starts. It reads skin to find true white, then seats exposure and contrast. And every view you need to nail it.
Exposure in film stopsExposure read in film stops, with skin as its own band. Meter the frame like a negative before you grade.
The print path
Your footage converted to film negative density, ready for the print LUTs you already own.
As a DCTL
One node in the tree. Your image leaves it as a negative.
Out of the OFX
Or set Film FX to output Cineon directly. Same conversion, no extra node.
Into any print LUT
Feeds anything that expects real film in: the 2383s already in Resolve, or any print emulation you trust.
On the scopes
The same gradient through both paths, and what the waveform sees. A straight CST kinks the channels and clips the toe. The conversion holds them the way a negative does.
The image
The scopes
The full index
You just watched a few of these work. The rest ship in the same tool. One pipeline, nothing else to buy.
The lens
The negative
The color
The machine
The box
Authored stocks to start from, then the negative behind them: the curve, the per-layer response, the way density and color actually build on film. Shape an authored stock or build your own from the emulsion up.
The contrast, exposure, and color from inside EMBR, broken out as slider-driven DCTLs you can drop into any node tree. Build your own looks from the same parts EMBR is built from. Color-managed and hard to break.
A reference PowerGrade that shows where every piece belongs in the node tree — a map, not the product; the tool earns it on its own. Plus the balancing and shot matching node tree from real client work, ready to drop on any project.
The Digital-to-Negative conversion preps your footage for any print LUT that expects real film negative, including the ones already in Resolve. Plus the walkthrough series, a mini course on the workflow, not just the tool: where each piece belongs and why. And a personal license for your own machines, with updates to your version.
Author’s note
Repeatable grading isn’t applying the same look every time. It’s knowing where each decision belongs.
The image should move like light: scene, lens, negative, print. When that order is wrong, halation pastes on, grain floats, and texture goes thin. That’s structure, not taste.
Sometimes realism requires breaking that structure. EMBR knows where, and makes it land the same way, every time.
EMBR carries the science. The physics, the order, the discipline: handled, and still yours to bend. Everything left in your hands is creative. The image and the intent stay yours.
— JVKE
One-time purchase
Look development built on film physics. Start from an authored stock, build your own negative — it reads like film, not like a grade.
macOS only, for now
Lite and Pro both run on macOS today. The Windows build is close — leave your address and I’ll tell you the day it lands.
Try it, then own it
The full Pro tool on your own footage, watermarked until it’s yours. No card — just an email.
EMBR Film FX Lite
The look
The look, for grading your own work. The same EMBR engine, curated to the core of the film pipeline — apply it, shape the stock, own it.
$79
One-time · 1 machine
EMBR Film FX Pro
First access · 25% off
For client work that needs specifics — the fine control to fine-tune for real. Push any stock as far as it goes or build your own, then everything else film does to the image. The complete EMBR Film FX system.
Everything in Lite, plus
.embrstock$375
$499
One-time · 2 machines
Lite hands you the look. Pro opens the negative. The full breakdown →
Running a facility or a team
We license per-machine studio seats, held by the organization.
One-time purchase. Perpetual license, with self-serve seat moves — Lite on 1 machine, Pro on 2. Sold by Juice Pouch Labs LLC. · DaVinci Resolve Studio 18+ · macOS 13+ · Windows soon.
Kodak, Vision3, Portra, Ektar, and Gold are trademarks of Eastman Kodak Company. EMBR is not affiliated with, authorized by, or endorsed by Kodak. EMBR’s stocks are original emulations derived from published datasheets.
FAQ
No. A preset hides the decisions. EMBR is the order underneath them, the image moving like light from scene to lens to negative to print. Use the finish as-is, pull it apart, or lift single elements into your own grades. You get the destination and the discipline that got there, including the few places that order has to give for the image to feel real. The long answer is written down: how EMBR is built.
One-Time Purchase
Authored by JVKE from years of client work and real grading workflows.
Launch Note
EMBR is out. From $79.
Own it once. No subscription.
Get EMBROr try it free on your footage