Hey! Christian Maté Grab here. As someone who lives and breathes solo-filmmaking, photography, design, e-commerce and runs my own creative agency and YouTube channel… I’ve been messing with color grading and crafting visual stories for over 16 years.
But I got sick of seeing film emulation plugins that promise “Hollywood look” and charge insane prices. I’m talking about those big names like Filmbox (Indie perpetual license $999 USD or more), Dehancer Pro or Genesis. So yeah...they work great for a very specific customer segment and a lot of effort, manual scanning of film stocks and development was put into building these tools.
But the price point, the performance demands, the “for-post houses only” vibe left a huge gap for creators like you and me. Adding insult to injury, Genesis and FilmBox only work on DaVinci Resolve. I'm a Final Cut Pro user so I'm stuck with Dehancer or FilmConvert Nitrate.
The problem I see
You’re not making big studio films. You’re not on a huge color-grading team. You don’t want to spend half your project budget just to give your footage “that film feel”.
Yet you want beautiful looking images. You want some kind of character which you can't achieve by using only color grading (or slapping a LUT on top). You want grain that whispers, not screams. You want something that runs smooth, doesn’t kill your computer, doesn’t feel like you need a color-scientist PhD.
Meanwhile the plugin industry acts like:
“You need this $999 tool if you want real film emulation”
“You’re small? Oh sorry, this is for the studios”
“Performance? Sorry but you need a $30,000 Mac Pro to use this”
That isn’t real world for someone running a one-man show, a YouTube channel, a wedding gig or a corporate piece that still needs cinematic results.
My Story
I was editing a short film for my collab with Canon Europe last year. I wanted to give it some kind of Kodak Portra look so I chose Dehancer to color grade it. And I was pretty happy with the results but...
I was SO f*cking pissed when my $7000 Mac Studio (M1 Ultra, 128GB RAM) suddenly felt like I'm working on a Intel Pentium laptop from 1999.
It just killed my vibe. Of couse you could say "Then generate proxies and color grade your film when you finished the cut". But that's NOT HOW I WANT TO WORK. I want to see the final image while editing. With halation, filmgrain and a beautiful color grade enabled. Just as my audience will see it when it's on my Youtube channel.
Then I thought: What if I built something for us? The creators who don’t have studio budgets but have big ambitions. A tool that says: “Hey, you matter. You want the film look in Final Cut Pro or Premiere or Resolve? Here you go.”
So I teamed up with Eric Lenz, who's a Colorist and Youtuber (and one of those real perfectionists when it comes to technically perfect color science).
And together we built EMUL8.
If you want to learn more about it just click here!
The goal wasn’t “maximum feature list.” The goal was to give filmmakers the film look without the price tag, without the performance drain, without the gatekeeping. But with beautiful film looks that just look stunning. And help you to even work with multiple formats/codecs from different cameras (to match an Sony FX3 with a DJI Osmo Action 5 for example).
What you get with EMUL8
✔️ Film emulation for creative workflows, not massive post houses
✔️ Customizable effects like Bloom, Halation, Film Grain etc.
✔️ Smooth performance so you can keep editing, rendering, deliver fast
✔️ A licence you can afford (and install on as many computers you want)
✔️ Detailed tutorials that help you to get the most out of it
PS: As of now EMUL8 is only available for Final Cut Pro. The DaVinci Resolve version drops in November 2025!
I've put together some footage (from cameras like Sony A7CII, FX3, Canon R5, DJI and Blackmagic) that was graded with EMUL8 👇🏼
The subtle roast (but I still respect the big players)
Look... We're not claiming to reinvent the wheel. The big plugins have insane tech, big budgets, labs, chemists, decades of legacy. For big budgets and commercial films, sure.
They’re totally legit. But when you’re reading “film emulation” and the price tag says four digits and your timeline says “deliver next week" instead of "it's done", you start asking: is this built for me or built for someone else?
And let me repeat it one more time: YOU ARE NOT COLOR GRADING BLOCKBUSTERS FOR NETFLIX OR WORKING ON THE NEXT CHRISTOPHER NOLAN MOVIE !!11!
So why trust us?
Because we use this stuff on a daily basis. I've been making youtube videos for over 9 years now, I’ve sold digital products to filmmakers since 2016. I’ve designed, photographed edited.
I worked with brands like DJI, Canon, LG, Musicbed, SmallRig and many more.
From short films to personal doc's. From brainrot short form content for local clients to music videos and interviews.
Eric Lenz spent the last years perfecting his craft. He knows seemingly everything there is to know about color science. He is building FCP plugins for many years that help creators and filmmakers get the most out of their footage.
We're in the trenches. We're not selling you hype. We are giving you a tool because we made one for ourselves and realised you might want it too.
And because we care about performance, about real workflows, about you finishing shoots, editing fast and delivering beautiful work.
Final word
If you’re a filmmaker who isn’t making $20 million feature films. If you just want aesthetic film looks, trustworthy performance and a tool that respects your workflow, not forces you into someone else’s. Then yes, we built EMUL8 for you.
Stop tolerating price-tags that scream “studio only”. Stop waiting for your machine to catch up. Go keep making your work beautiful, keep telling your story. We'll bring the film look.
See you in the timeline.
CMG
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