VCR texture advice

J

jdkhanlian

Active member
I am shooting a music video and I want to match the music video's look to the sound of the song's recording, which was done on a 4-track, then dubbed to a VCR tape, then dubbed back on to 4-track, and soon to be put on vinyl... very lo-fi. Anyways, I found this video that has the feel of what I am going for.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Bm4fZHv5j0

I will be shooting with a camera with a star filter on it to get the light streaks and turning my gain up to get some film-like noise out of my HPX170. But my question is how can I get that dubbed to tape look easiest? (Notice the VCR lines at the bottom.) I was hoping I could find a stock footage piece of those lines over a solid background and then overlay that footage on top and change my transfer mode to something like "multiply" or "add", but I can't find any footage.

Anybody have any advice? Thanks.
 
You could try dubing your final cut to VHS then capture back into the computer. Also I would get a tape from a local thrift store or your parents basement and use that as the master tape.

I like the video from above and the video and song made me want to check out more of the band but it is to digital for me.
 
kgimedia said:
You could try dubing your final cut to VHS then capture back into the computer. Also I would get a tape from a local thrift store or your parents basement and use that as the master tape.

I like the video from above and the video and song made me want to check out more of the band but it is to digital for me.
Click to expand...

I would take the natural approach to achieving this look by transfering the footage to tape and then back to the computer like you suggested, but unfortunately I don't have the ability to do a tape transfer.
 
jdkhanlian said:
I would take the natural approach to achieving this look by transfering the footage to tape and then back to the computer like you suggested, but unfortunately I don't have the ability to do a tape transfer.
Click to expand...

Just curious. What part of one of the most basic things in Video production do you not have? The computer, the A/D convertor or the VHS deck?
 
kgimedia, I wouldn't call those the most basic things as who deals with VHS anymore, and most people deal with digital media now too so most wouldn't have a need for the convertor either...

As for my approach it was a combination of things... and basically I watched a ton of cable access on YouTube and emulated everything I saw... for the tracking marks I downloaded old vhs footage of messed up video and cropped it accordingly, layering it over my video, as for the treatment of the footage it was a combination of boosting the blacks to a greyish color, using the Bad TV final cut filter to varying degrees, and messing over-saturating the picture as well. And just tweaking to get the look from there...
 
I understand I'm a little weird for owning an S-VHS deck, but I have 80 hours of footage from the old days. That being said I bet you can get a VHS deck at a thrift store for $20. Heck while you are there you might be able to find a $20 Mini-DV camera for A/D conversion if you need it. It is not easy. It is not drag and drop. It is analog and low-fi. In my opinion there is no substitute. That is unless you are a VFX guru and have weeks to key frame like crazy. Anything else looks and feels digital.
 
I concur, you should be able to find the tools cheap enough, It may take more than one generation of dubbing to get the look you want, but it is a lot faster to experiment like this than with digital filters.
 
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