No one can deny that vintage is a trend nowadays. Also, no one can deny that watching a VHS video gives us that nostalgic feeling – which feels great, right? That’s why I want to
explore with you some ways to simulate a VHS look using VEGAS native tools.
During the ongoing pandemic, watching movies has taken on a new importance. Whether you're watching remotely with friends, gathering around the TV with your bubble, or diving into Netflix to relax—movies can be important mental escapes as well as cinematic art. This holiday season, revel in your. The anthology-style horror franchise V/H/S will be getting a reboot with a fourth installment in the series, V/H/S/94.The series uses the idea of found VHS tapes interconnected by a framing narrative to showcase several short horror films dealing with zombies, aliens, the occult, alternate dimensions, and more.
First things first: we have to analyze every aspect of a VHS video. A quick search on Google Images can reveal us some references to create on our own composition. For example: a
4:3 pillarbox is essential to our comp. Also, we can see that many VHS camcorders always add some “red-ish” colour overlay to the videos. And we can’t forget about all the noise,
interferences and dust that makes every frame, let’s say, really unique.
Let’s start out our composition. Create a project using the same properties of the video you wish to destroy, because that’s what we’re going to do (I insist: don’t forget about the noise
and dust I’ve mentioned before). Don’t create a project using 4:3 aspect: we’re going to add a “fake” pillarbox, I’ll explain why this later. Go ahead and also import your video to your
timeline.
I suggest creating this project exclusively for this effect – if you wish to apply the effect to a small portion of a long video, I suggest you to export this portion and create another project
for this purpose. You’ll see that it’s not only the video that is going to be destroyed here.
The first thing we’re going to do is pixelate our video. Add a VEGAS Pixelate plugin to your event and add some as you wish. Here I’ll use 0,4 for horizontal and vertical.
Next, we should bring our contrast to a lower level. Use VEGAS Brightness and Contrast on the event to lower the contrast to something about -0,3.
The next thing you’re going to do may seem a bit odd, but that’s not a problem at all – we’re going to hide that “oddness” later. Create 3 new video tracks above your original video and
duplicate your event 3 times (you can use the old CTRL+C/CTRL+V method, but I highly recommend you to evolve and use CTRL+Drag). Put each one on a track, just like the image
below.
We’re doing this because now we’re going to create something that also happens on every VHS record: chromatic aberration. To do this, we will add VEGAS Channel Blend to those
events we have positioned above our original event. Add the “Red Only” preset to the event on track 01, “Green Only” to the event on track 02 and “Blue Only” to the event on track 03.
Now, change the Compositing Modes from track 01, 02 and 03 to Add.
Next, let’s remove the brightness from those three events. Use VEGAS Brightness and Contrast on each event to lower the brightness to a level about -0,800. Of course, leave the
event on track 04 alone for this time.
The last thing you will do to create the Chromatic Aberration is to reposition the events some frames ahead: the event on track 03 should go 1 frame to the right, the one on track 02 will
go 2 frames, and the event on the first track must go 3 frames to the right. Yes, the goal is to build a staircase inside our timeline.
Remember when I said that we would hide all this mess? That’s right: you might group those 3 tracks above our original event (select the tracks with CTRL+Click, then Right-click ->
Group Selected Tracks). This will make things much cleaner on the timeline.
Now is the time that you will put your creativity to work: create some overlay texts with VEGAS Titles and Text to really sell the effect. Here, I’ve created a “Play” text that goes on
the top of the video, and then created a timestamp. Be creative: the timestamp can be your birthday, the same day when you are editing the video but 20 years ago, pretty much
anything. Have you ever heard about “easter eggs” that directors put inside many Hollywood films? That’s it: those texts you’re creating are a great opportunity to add your own easter
egg. Also, don’t forget to use a pixelated 8-bit styled font, and add some shadow to it.
Add the VEGAS Unsharp Mask to the original event to create that “over-sharpen” look. Amount on 0,500 and Radius on 0,020 is great.
Now we’ll add some effects to our full project. Add a VEGAS TV Simulator to your Video Output FX (directly on the Video Preview). Tweak the settings pretty much as you wish, but
remember the goal is to create a realistic VHS/TV look, so don’t overuse it. Remove a bit of the Line Sync, add some Aperture Grill and Static, and also some Interlacing. Of course, the
values I’ve used on my composition are on the screenshot below.
We have to add some noise to our video. Don’t forget that noise and grain are the main features of the VHS look. Add the Add Noise plugin to your Video Output FX and change the
Amount value to 0,050. Let’s make it subtle.
To create a cool vignette, we will add a VEGAS Light Rays plugin to the Video Output FX. Just activate the Bound Radius feature and put every value there on maximum to create the
look. Then, change the Blend parameter to match what you are looking for on your composition.
The next step is to add some interference to our video. You might search for “VHS Glitch”, “VHS Interference” or “VHS Overlay” on YouTube (or other stock footage website) to
download some free stock footage (yes, you may find many of them on YouTube for public use. Just be sure to look at the description of the video you want to download, we don’t want
anybody to have a lawyer knocking on their door because of a simple download). Add it to a new track on the top of the timeline and change its compositing mode to screen to remove
the black background.
Now, let’s add our pillarbox. Get some .PNG 4:3 aspect pillarbox to add on your project and place it on a new track on the top of the timeline, above everything. We’d rather add the fake
pillarbox than creating a 4:3 aspect project because with a fake one we’ll be free to reposition our videos (with Pan/Crop and Track Motion) without losing any information on our
proportion. If we create a full 4:3 project, all the information that goes off the proportion might be lost.
The last step for our VHS look is to add that red-ish colour to our video. Add a Color Curves to your Video Output FX and use the curves to remove the green and blue, and create a
small curve on the red to make it stronger.
Your final result should be looking like this:
BONUS: you might add some cool FX to your audio, too! It will help to sell you effect even more. Use the Track EQ to remove the bass and treble, and rise the power on the
mid-frequencies (between 600Hz to 1.2kHz).
About Mateus Ferreira: Mateus Ferreira is a video editor from Brazil, and has been editing videos with VEGAS Pro since its version number 9 (2009). Also, he has been sharing his video editing techniques in his portuguese-spoken YouTube channel Brainstorm Tutoriais, which has more than 330K followers and over 18 million video views.
Follow Mateus
YouTube Channel: http://youtube.com/brainstormtutoriais
Facebook: http://facebook.com/brainstormtutoriais
Twitter: http://twitter.com/brainstormt
Instagram: http://instagram.com/mateus.wmv
STYLIZE YOUR FOOTAGE
Give your footage authentic retro and modern day looks using tools like VHS, Retrograde Carousel, Glitch, Holomatrix II, and more.
Red Giant Universe – Stylize
PROJECT: KUNG FURY | LASER UNICORNS | LASERUNICORNS.COM
MOTION GRAPHICS
Create beautiful looping backgrounds and motion graphics elements with tools like HUD components, Line, Knoll Light Factory EZ, Fractal Background, and more.
Red Giant Universe – Motion Graphics
TRANSITIONS & EFFECTS
Build fast, unique transitions with little or no work. Add glows and other effects that give you better results and more shortcuts, options and control than anything in your host app.
Red Giant Universe – Effects
PROJECT: PORTLANDIA | BROADWAY VIDEO | BROADWAYVIDEO.COM
TEXT GENERATORS
Quickly generate animations that bring your text to life, or fill your screen with dynamic data for user interfaces. Go retro with old school computer type on effects, or easily create hacker style reveals for modern titles.
Download Dragon Ball Super: Broly (2018) 1080p english subtitle, in MKV. 1 link from MEGA, MediaFire, and 1fichier without torrent. Full movie dragon ball super broly 2018. Earth is peaceful following the Tournament of Power. Realizing that the universes still hold many more strong people yet to see, Goku spends all his days training to reach even greater heights. Then one day, Goku and Vegeta are faced by a Saiyan called 'Broly' who they've never seen before.
Red Giant Universe 3 – Hacker Text
PRESETS
Every tool in Universe includes presets to help get you started and give instant professional results.
Red Giant Universe 3 – Presets
WHAT’S NEW
The Universe 3.0 release introduces our new Universe Dashboard for browsing and applying effects and presets, 5 brand-new text generation tools, and presets for every plug-in, to help get you started.
DASHBOARD
Working with Universe in Premiere Pro and After Effects has never been easier. The new dockable Universe Dashboard brings all of the Universe tools into one place, making it simple to explore and apply the entire library of effects and presets.
TOOLS
Universe is a collection of 79 GPU-accelerated plugins for editors and motion graphics artists.
ALL
WHAT’S NEW
BLUR
DISTORT
GENERATORS
GLOW
MOTION GRAPHICS
STYLIZE
TEXT
TRANSITIONS
UTILITIES
VHS
VHS gives your modern footage the classic look, color and distortion of old video tape.
Watch Tutorial | Learn More
GLITCH
Get the look of compressed, glitched video.
Watch Tutorial | Learn More
HOLOMATRIX II
Give your footage the look and distortion of a sci-fi hologram, digital display, and more.
Watch Tutorial | Learn More
RETROGRADE
Retrograde gives your footage the authentic look and damage of old 16MM and 8MM film.
Watch Tutorial | Learn More
HACKER TEXT
Easily create computer hacker-style scrambled text animations.
Watch Tutorial | Learn More
SCREEN TEXT
Fill your screen with scrolling code to create the look of an old-school or modern computer terminal.
Watch Tutorial | Learn More
TEXT TILE
Generate multiple columns full of random data for use in motion graphics and computer terminal effects.
Watch Tutorial | Learn More
TYPE CAST
Easily animate text properties like color, opacity, size, position and rotation – by the line, word or character.
Watch Tutorial | Learn More
TYPE ON
Quickly create computer terminal-style type reveals. Includes tons of options for customization and randomization.
Watch Tutorial | Learn More
Universe Stylize Vhs Image
CHROMATIC ABERRATION
Realistic lens distortion effect with chromatic separation, blur, texture and more.
Watch Tutorial
CAMERA SHAKE
Add simulated handheld camera motion to your footage.
LOGO MOTION
Instantly add dynamic animations that bring your text and logos on and off screen.
Watch Tutorial | Learn More
FINISHER
Finisher makes it easy to dramatically improve the image quality of your DSLR footage.
Watch Tutorial | Learn More
GLITCH TRANSITION
Transition between footage or text with the look of compression glitches and compressed data.
Watch Tutorial
GRAIN16
Real 16MM film grain to add to your footage.
Watch Tutorial | Learn More
RETROGRADE TRANSITION
A transition that uses real scans of 16mm and 8mm film to create an authentic film strip transition.
Watch Tutorial
VHS TRANSITION
A transition that mimics the effect that occurs when a VCR has been used to record over pre-existing footage.
Watch Tutorial
CAROUSEL TRANSITION
A transition that mimics advancing to the next slide in an old slide projector.
Watch Tutorial
CHANNEL SURF
A transition that mimics the distortion you’d get by changing the channel on a cathode ray tube TV.
Watch Tutorial
FLICKER CUT
A transition that rapidly cuts between two clips or a solid color, and which can invert the clips or add fades.
Watch Tutorial
Universe Stylize Vhs App
COLOR MOSAIC
A Transition that overlays a variety of colors in a mosaic pattern as it transitions between 2 clips.
Watch Tutorial
SHAPE WIPE
A transition that uses an ellipse, rectangle or star shape to move between 2 pieces of footage. Includes control over points, size, stroke and fill.
Watch Tutorial
LINEAR WIPE
A classic linear wipe with the addition of wipe mirroring, as well as an inner/outer stroke with glow on the wipe border.
Watch Tutorial
CLOCK WIPE
A classic radial wipe transition with feathering and the option for a dual clock wipe.
1 2 3 4Next
COMPATIBILITY
HOST APPLICATIONS
Adobe After Effects CC 2017 or later
Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2017 or later
Apple Final Cut Pro X 10.2.3 or later
Apple Motion 5.3.2 or later
Avid Media Composer 8.2 or later*
Magix VEGAS Pro 14 or later
Davinci Resolve 14 or later
HitFilm Pro 6.0 and later
Comments are closed.