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90's VHS Look


craig bass

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Hello All!

 

I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how to create the 90's VHS (sorry, best descriptor I could think of) look of this video:

 

 

Do you think this was done in the grade? If so, any suggestions. And, if not, any idea how to accomplish this practically? Actually shoot on VHS? Any particular era-specific camera I should ebay?

 

Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

 

Craig

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Thanks for the insight David!

 

It's funny you mention shooting an actual CRT screen, because this was something I was already contemplating! My only confusion regarding it being shot on an old interlaced-scan camcorder is how would it then be widescreen? Weren't all camcorders 4:3, or am I totally off base? If I was to go for purchasing an oldschool camcorder any idea on where I would look for information on what would be the ideal camcorder for the job? Sorry to sound so ignorant, just not sure how to go about achieving this look.

 

Thanks again!

 

Craig

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Sure, most camcorders in the 1990's were 4x3 but later there were some 16x9 Digi-Betacams, but those were pretty high end.

 

But since quality doesn't seem to be the goal here, what's wrong with cropping to 16x9 in post? Also, anything you reshoot off of a monitor could be with a 16x9 camera.

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A lot of those transition effects of the static and swirling colors are probably someone plugging/unplugging a BNC cable, which would explain the "shooting a CRT" hypothesis. The images, to me, look like they were recorded on something with higher definition than the crappy SD of those old ultra-interlaced camcorders blown up to HD.

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  • 2 months later...

We had to get that 90s look, and tried a whole bunch of plugins etc, but just ended up feeding the footage from the RED into an old SuperVHS deck and recording it, and then played it back from tape and captured it back into the system and upscaled it back to HD again.

It worked way better than any of the various grading solutions and gave the perfect look. Was fast too!

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