Vintage never seems to go out of style. From ripped jeans , to record players there’s something we love about old stuff.

Video is no different.

What’s funny is no matter how great the resolution & dynamic range gets on new cameras, filmmakers are busy trying to reverse the technology to make things look vintage.

To give it an old school or retro look.

Here at Dreamvision we work on many creative projects that call for a vintage aesthetic. The film look has been popular for some time, and it can give your project a raw and organic feel vs a super clean image. Many people add vintage effects to a wide range of video projects like documentaries, music videos , and films. Even commercials which have traditionally had a clean aesthetic are beginning to be used with vintage effects.

If you’re looking to dirty up your frame, you’re in the right place. There are two areas of filming that you can work with to make your footage feel vintage: On set and in the editing room. In this article we’ll look at the top 10 ways to give your projects a vintage feel.

OUR RECENT SHOOT

We recently shot a music video for an instrumental music video project. The client wanted to create a moody video to match the grungy, lo fi aesthetic of the music.

For this project we used many techniques listed below on set as well as in the editing room to achieve the end result. See some of our favorite vintage frames below.

ON SET WAYS TO GET A VINTAGE LOOK

There are a ton of ways to prepare your shots while shooting to get a Vintage look for your creative project. There is only so much you can do in post, so make sure you do all you can the day you’re shooting in order to have a good baseline for your footage.

1. Moody & Cinematic Lighting: You can achieve a vintage look by controlling your lighting on set. Lighting setups that have more shadowing on your subjects are common to vintage aesthetics.  Vintage practical lights are a great way to dress the scene with vintage feels. Keeping your space darker will give it high contrasts and can give your scene more mood.
2. Using vintage sets, props and cars: Another great way to give your project a vintage feel is by using older locations to shoot, or dressing the scene with vintage furniture . Vintage cars are also a great way to give your project a dated look.
3. Diffusion filters: Diffusion filters are pieces of glass that you can adapt to your lens in order to diffuse the light entering your camera. They will create a glow effect and soften up you image to look more dreamlike and vintage in appearance.
4. Vintage lenses and adapters: Like Diffusion filters, you can use many old lenses and adapters to make your image less sharp and have distortions that can make your footage feel older. There are many things to try and you can experiment with to get  creative. 

POST PRODUCTION WAYS TO GET A VINTAGE LOOK

1. Vintage Color Grading: There are a few ways you can color grade your images to give them a vintage feel that mimics older filmstock.

• Turn down saturation: 
• Bring up the Black levels ( This effect happens when you make you absolute blacks in the scope of your footage brighter in luminants)
• Compress the highs and lows into center of waveform

1. Film Emulation: There are many great film emulation softwares that have been fine tuned to replicate the look and feel of certain filmstocks. WHen applied to your footage they will look similar to if they were shot on that specific type of film
2. Adding Grain: A classic way to dirty up the frame by adding grain. Almost all hollywood movies have grain added to the digital images to make them look more vintage and filmic when shot on digital sensors.

Adding Vintage effects: There a wide range of film effects that when layered on top of each other can really enhance an image to make it look older. Below is a list of the most common ones used.

1. ADDING FILM GRAIN: The more grain you add the less sharp the image will look. If you want an image to look old this is a great way to do it.
2. ADDING CHROMATIC ABERRATION : This effect occurs when a lens isn’t calibrated and the red green and blue light rays bend creating a blurry effect with the color channels. It’s an imperfection of the lens that can be mimicked in software like after effects.

10. ADDING CRT EFFECT. You can make images appear older by putting them through a crt emulator . This will make you images look like they belong played on an old tv or crt screen. You can even add tv distortion effects using a displace effect in after effects.
11. ADDING DUST AND HAIRS. Old projection devices would add hairs and extra grain on the footage. So adding these effects can help make your footage look older.
12. ADDING FILM LEADER EFFECTS: You can add Film leaders which give your audience the projector type appearance.
13. ADDING JITTER & FLICKER: Making your video jitter and flicker are some great effects. They make your footage move slightly and can simulate focus changes.

14.ADDING HALATION: This is a glowing effect that comes from shooting on film . It will make your highlights glow which is an effect we are familiar with from older movies. You can add halation in post production and control this effect to taste.

15. ADDING GLOW. Adding glow can soften up your image. This is the post production effect of using a diffusion filter
16. ADDING VIGNETTING: A classic way to make something feel older is a vignette which adds shadows in the corners. 

17.VINTAGE MATTES: One final effect that is common to use is to add a vintage matte. This is a shape around the image that is a characteristic of some film stocks . For example, Super 8 creates a square shaped letterbox.

In conclusion if your project calls for a vintage feel,  there are many ways to get the desired result. You can add some effects when shooting as well as edit many other effects in post production.

FAQ

How to make a video look like an old film?

You can make your video look like an old film in post production with most video editing software. Many film emulations will let you add grain , halation, gate weave as well as emulate film stocks. This is the easiest and fastest way to achieve the vintage look.

If you need help with a creative product and you are looking to create some filmic vintage vibes, contact us below