[Eric Schuran]

For my first project I was thinking of making some videos of things happening very badly to people, but to the extreme. Then, I will cut together some America’s Funniest Videos footage so it will look as though some of those clips are on the show. Like, me getting hit by a car or something and the audience laughs. That’s why I want to sell that VHS tape look … that’s how most of them were done back then.

Another idea I had was a crappy low-budget horror movie, because those are my favourite. I can write the music for it as well, which would be fun to do.

As for the wiggle on the blur … I put a fast blur on mine, and then set it to horizontal, and then put a wiggle on that. So it kind of stuttered for a second.

The VHS lines can be done with Fractal Noise, which comes with AE. My problem is masking a part out and putting it in … not sure if I should cut everything BUT then part to have fractal noise, or the opposite. Seems confusing.

You’re lucky you have the ability to get VHS footage on your computer. I don’t have the graphics card that does that … although, why didn’t you just bounce it back and forth and back and forth until you had the right amount of degradation? That’s what I would have done if the option was there … unfortunately I have to do it all in post to make it convincing 🙁

-Eric

[Eric Schuran]

Did you put the wiggle on the blur only for horizontal? That’s what I did and it worked alright. My problem is getting the static noise going on at the bottom of most VHS tapes.

I really liked your idea of using Magic Bullet for the film grain. I find that the grain in AE alone isn’t really what I want … but this gave me some more inspiration for another project for the future 😉

Have you seen some of those Grindhouse fan trailers? Some of them are pretty interesting, and funny as well. They pulled off the 70’s look very well. When you mentioned the 70’s grain I immediately thought of Grindhouse.

I will try to think of more solutions while working on my own as well … I still can’t wrap my head around masking out one part to have Fractal Noise. 🙁

Be sure to post anything that’s finished as well, I would love to see your results. Can I ask what you are using this for? Is it a cheesy commercial, or horror movie or something? I’ve always loved VHS … I was an 80’s kid 😀

[Eric Schuran]

I agree, I just wanted to get a hold of him directly and ask a lot of questions. I’m having some trouble masking in After Effects. What I wanted to do was mask out the top with some fractal noise, to give it the scanline effect, but I’m not quite sure how to do it correctly. A guy on YouTube made a similar look, and he broke it down for me and posted it on the video as well, as to how he did it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB8whz9rRDw

I got up to the point of adding Fractal Noise to the mask … I can’t figure out how to do it. As for audio … at least music-wise, if you have a keyboard that allows midi, there is a really good plugin by AudioEase called, “Speakerphone.” A member on YouTube showed some examples of cheesy VHS sounding music with it, and it’s pretty convincing. I am lucky to have a midi keyboard, and will do this once I get the look right. Here is the link for that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0iMqdOqymA

Once again, it’s adding the Fractal Noise to a mask that confuses me. Then, he mentions animating that mask, which I am sure I can find in a tutorial, but all masking tutorials I have come across just show how a mask works … like getting rid of a person holding up a green screen, etc. and not how to just isolate the fractal noise to that one specific part of the comp.

As you can tell, I have done a lot of research on this, and this is just my one hang-up unfortunately. Any tips?

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[Eric Schuran]

William: I was wondering if you could get in touch with me regarding this effect. I have started a VHS of my own, and I am hoping we can perhaps share some tips on how to get closer to the beloved 80’s look.

Here’s my e-mail:

hobbestheprince(at)yahoo.com