Cool music video effect

refocusedmedia said:
This music video was intended to feel like a 90's hip-hop video. It was shot on a RED Epic, printed to VHS, and then imported back from the VHS. I don't have much more information then that, but I saw it here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Filmmakers/...ddy_made_a_hip_hop_music_video_influenced_by/

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Oh... no... not nostalgia for VHS...

Next we are going to have people whining about how to get 'rainbows' after an edit point... wait... that was in this thing...
 
David Jimerson said:
Why not just shoot on VHS?
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Idk if you watched it, but part of the effect was overlaying the Epic footage against the VHS-imported footage. They then contrasted the two main performers against the VHS-styled backgrounds. Essentially the performers were in HD, while all their surroundings weren't. Part of the idea is they are transcending their roots and early influences I guess? Not sure exactly, only speculating there.
 
The filmmaker started answering questions on Reddit. Here is what he said about the process:

"We used a capture card that connected to a VCR to layback the HD video onto a VHS tape. Then took that same VHS and re-captured it back into the computer. When we did this the footage comes back in 4x3 so we simply stretched it out to match the 16x9 HD frame.

In AE we put the the HD and VHS layers on top of each other. Then rotoscoped/masked out the HD footage with the analog layer exposed underneath and feathered it to make it seem as seamless as possible... there are definitely a few glitches in there though :)"
 
What's next, people purposely trying to make their photos look like old worn out, discolored photographs? Oh wait...
 
Yeah strange, as soon you have the ultimate technology that lets you make pristine material, you come up with something that totally screws it up to square one.
 
(sigh) I guess if this video was a music genre other than rap the crowd wouldn't be so tough.

Just about everyone in these forums basically screws with their pristine quality high definition "video" to look like (or similar to) an old antiquated motion picture medium (35mm, 16mm, 8mm film) in some way shape or form. Soooo..... what's wrong with this method?

But yeah....I get the joke. :)
 
I'm not really understanding the negativity here, considering this was the result of hard work and innovative filmmaking. You wouldn't find this song on my iPod, but that doesn't really have anything to do with the filmmaking or the point of this thread does it? I agree Ian, that the responses would probably be more positive if it was a different genre.

Regardless, if you check out the reddit link I posted up top, you'll see that the director ended up answering a number of questions. Great stuff.
 
That looked kinda cool, with a music video you can get away with that sort of thing so I don't understand the hate here.
 
Ian-T said:
(sigh) I guess if this video was a music genre other than rap the crowd wouldn't be so tough.

Just about everyone in these forums basically screws with their pristine quality high definition "video" to look like (or similar to) an old antiquated motion picture medium (35mm, 16mm, 8mm film) in some way shape or form. Soooo..... what's wrong with this method?

But yeah....I get the joke. :)
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Like 'shaky cam' and 'focus hunt'... I sort of getting use to some amount of that, because basically it seems that 'everyone is doing it'... would I prefer far less of those two techniques... you bet...

Same holds for something like a 'nostalgia VHS' look... or 8mm for that matter...

In addition, having spent 'hours' trying to make A and B U-matic editing 'look as good as possible'... only to give up with 'just a few rainbows'... I can say that is what kept me out of moving pictures for years... not having the ability to spend $1M on a 'real video editing' system... (I have two Sony U-matics decks now to use to transfer some old tapes to the modern world... when I get time...).
 
refocusedmedia said:
I'm not really understanding the negativity here,
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robmneilson said:
so I don't understand the hate here.
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Did a whole bunch of comments get deleted that I didn't get to read? I don't see hate or negativity. I saw a couple of jokes and 1 person said why not shoot on VHS to start with. If that passes for hate these days than I don't know what real hate looks like to you. Seems like some just want to start fights when there is nothing to fight about.
 
Hectorxd said:
Did a whole bunch of comments get deleted that I didn't get to read? I don't see hate or negativity. I saw a couple of jokes and 1 person said why not shoot on VHS to start with. If that passes for hate these days than I don't know what real hate looks like to you. Seems like some just want to start fights when there is nothing to fight about.
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Yes, I came here to start a fight!
 
Alright, let's make this a clean fight. No low blows to the play heads or the 1080 pixels! VHS versus HD!

(DING) There's the bell!

I think the effect is cool. The technique is an interesting one. They obviously didn't want to lose more quality by shooting on VHS and therefore blended the two layers together in post. It's kind of like the argument between shooting in B&W versus desaturating it in post.
 
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One thing the director said was that they really wanted to visually emphasize how Joey's music/sound is a mix of both old & new. I think they conveyed that pretty well.
 
Definitely. I like the choice of compositions. I like wide angles (and that also makes it appear outdated). The only type of angle they could have included that would have really made this seem visually outdated is the use of a wide angle of the artist with the camera slightly raised above them, with them looking up at camera, and they appear short in stature and a bit of distortion due to the type of wide angle lens they used.

I tried finding an example, but I guess whoever reads this will have to either understand the technique I am referencing or have an imagination.
 
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One thing the director said was that they really wanted to visually emphasize how Joey's music/sound is a mix of both old & new. I think they conveyed that pretty well.
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Yeah this. I thought before watching, why the eff didn't they just shoot with a VHS? But this process works well and does reflect how the music is created. Nice.
 
Innovative as in technique yes, I just see so little point making HD look like something worse, and the fake lines and simulated tape dropout was really annoying.

Clever, complex, technically very difficult and time consuming - top marks. Success? Very limited. I feel the same way about modern music that inserts crackles, hiss and pops over nicely recorded music. What was that 10cc recording from the 70s? Art for Arts Sake!
 
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