I need a 70's look for a video that was shot clean and straight and even.
Is there some kind of short cut for this? -A filter, plugin or magic bullet effect?

Here is a sample image of exacty how I want the video to look.

http://www.stuckinthe70s.com/images/lunchroom78.jpg

color correct toward yellow/orange. raise the darks and the lights, lower the mids slightly.

...and don't forget to add some imperfections; grain and jitter.

What programs do you have to work with? Vegas, Avid, Premiere, After Effects?

http://qt.frozenphoenixproductions.com/commonsense.mov

Like that? Not really done very well but perhaps in the right direction...I used Cinelook plugins and After Effects for film damage, as well as color correction as stated above. Increased contrast as well. And a matte for fake vignetting.

It's also in the sound as well--oftentimes older movies had a more muffled and tinny sound to them, which would translate to a high and a low cut (a "frowny face" on a graphic equalizer).

Ben,
Could you share what Cinelook and After Effects settings and presets you used for your common sense movie? I tried sending a message to you but I don't know if your mail settings allow it. Thanks!

not sure how you would achieve this but maybe a slight bluring or ghosting effect...to the footage. If you really want to achieve the effect would prolly involve more physical effects meaning the actors dressed like and looked 70s-ish. But other than that OMG that was amazing......:D

I like the retro look and use it often. You said 70s VIDEO right? No need to add film effects. I can get this look in camera with an XL2. Need to white balance very warm, then turn the sharpness all the way down, the coring all the way up and mess with the master pedestal and setup level...



ash =o)

Ben's Common Sense movie has more of the look I'm trying to get with the coloring and film look of grain and damage. But really the color and film preset in Cinelook is what I'm trying to find.

Also worth a note for After Effects users after a degraded video look.

1- Create an adjustment layer.

2- Put this above the footage you wish to adjust.

3- Apply a small Gaussian blur to this adjustment layer (~4 pixels)

4- Set this adjustment layers' transfer mode to 'color'

Now changing the amount of blur smears just the chroma (color) of the video without altering its overall sharpness or focus.

Also offsetting each colour channel to get a miss-registration effect or lens aberration effet can help to 'cheapen' up your signal.

There are numerous ways of doing this within After Effects.

http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/6457/channeloffsetuo4.jpg

Top image - channels offset

Bottom image - normal.