Music Videos of the 90's look.

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David Jean Kalver

New member
Okay Guys, throwing all opinions on 'film looks' etc out the window, I was wondering if someone could help draw me to a conclusion on how to achieve the contrasty look of the 90s music videos provided.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzaiL8HEKM0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qY9ihKSxYE8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-9UvrLyj3k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbe3CQamF8k

The 'teal' colour grade is easy enough to re-produce, along with the crushing the black levels a bit in post.
I'm just really interested in knowing what cameras were used during this period for these music videos. Looking into these videos they were released from 1997-1998. I'm not sure what the industry standard was at this time but they do look like they were being recorded on similar technology. The Sony HDW-700 came out around this period, so that's a possibility. It's much more likely these were shot on SD however, on something like a Sony DXC-D30WS.
 
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I was going to suggest they were copying the 'look' of The Matrix, but that was released 1999 :) Although to be cynical, perhaps this was simply an easy look to achieve with cameras (and/or post) of the late nineties, so various films and music videos took advantage of that?

I agree that SD is very likely, presuming they were shot digitally.
 
I would highly doubt they were shot digitally, the digital technology back then lacked severely and the industry standard was 35mm and 16mm for music videos. DI also was not what it is today back then and heavily relied on initial chemical processing to achieve looks. I was using the first HDCAM's that came out at the time but for documentary work, maybe someone that has experience in the music video field in that period can weigh in.
 
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