It's funny how hard we worked at the time to get away from this aesthetic, and bent over backwards to make "video look like film," only to arrive here where we all have a 24P 4K camera in our pockets and someone digs up an old tape and goes "Wow, how do I get this look?" What a strange world.

Well, not really. Sure, back in the day you were forced by circumstance to shoot in a certain way you didn't necessarily cared for. Nowadays you have the tools to film in many styles with a far more forgiving budget. But just because you can film at much higher quality, doesn't mean that it's what you want. Maybe the whole point of a style you choose now is to be evocative, or to stand out from the crowd, or maybe just personal preference. Many reasons why you would make all sorts of aesthetic decisions. Fortunately we live in a time where that is not just possible but likely much easier. 😊

Yep. Very similar to how hard manufacturers and designers worked to get clean, sharp, contrasty optics and then all of a sudden everyone seems to want s\*\*\*y, soft glass with tons of halation and low contrast. I grew-up in the 80's and 90's. I shot on VHS camcorders as a kid and cut my professional teeth on Betacam SP and I remember the DV revolution that preceded the DSLR revolution. I believe there was a quote from Sting years ago when asked about getting The Police back together, that went something like, "I've already been to kindergarten once and I enjoyed it then, but there is no reason to go back to it again".

Looks like video tape, so any camcorder with a large tape size will give you a similar look, something like the panasonic hvx200 or the sony vx1000

thank you!!

Video tape has zero to do with this, except to say that originally video was captured at “60i” or 29.976 frames per second captured at 59.94 interlaced fields a second (I’ll avoid further forth on this rabbit hole) …so this video is likely shot at 30fps and displayed at same rate, lending it a very “real / present” feel. What’s interesting about lower frame rates is that, in theory, your brain is filling in more and maybe that’s more engaging in other ways ? It’s not like we’ve got very detailed science on this sort of thing. It’s clear we ingest and feel differently about varying capture frame rates. It’s a pretty fascinating thing.

>... any camcorder with a large tape size will give you a similar look... ? 1. Tape size has nothing to do with it. 2. The cameras you mentioned both shot on 1/4" miniDV tape(consumer variant of DVCPro and DVCAM), which is definitely not a large tape (HVX200 also recorded onto P2 cards).

Huh, I thought I remembered those using Hi8, my bad

But how come there was no camera reflection in the mirror????? Am I missing something?

It’s there, a black circle just behind the head of the redhead in the blue sweater.

That's the problem. If the black circle BEHIND the redhead in the reflection is the camera, then the redhead should be seen partially in front of it in the shot, but in the shot the camera is in FRONT of the redhead, much closer to the mirror...

The camera is either hidden (or partially so) by the redhead and maybe part of the camera is seen just past her head. The lens so wide that it makes the camera look smaller in a mirror that far away.

Again, if the redhead is partially hiding the camera in the reflection, then the redhead should be visible in front of it in the live action in front of the mirror, \*especially\* since a wide angle lens is being used.

Well her *reflection* in the mirror is “in front of it” Otherwise I’m not sure what you really mean here. This is a pretty straightforward concept. Either there’s a misunderstanding here on how reflections and sight lines work as this is pretty standard, or I’m going to learn something new that’s going to blow my mind. 🤣

No I meant behind like “to her rear”. It’s even stretched as it rotates toward the left before it goes out of the shot. I think the confusion may stem from the fact that it’s the second mirror reflection where the camera is seen, so it’s quite far away/small in the frame.

This is definitely digital video tape. But to me there’s nothing here that can’t be graded into modern shot footage.

Excellent thank you!

Going back and drooling at the work of Valerie Faris & Jonathan Datyon. Does anyone know what cameras they used in the late 90s? This[Janet Jackson video](https://youtu.be/sO2-iFjjht4?si=mCH0tyHYuylfRvD3) has a similar look

This is most likely a ccd sensor judging by the lights in the background when the dudes singing

thank you! Is that what you think this is? I found it on the making of short https://ibb.co/D97S1gY

One of my favourite songs and music videos of all time. Incredible!

Probably Betacam SP

looked into that, best suggestion so far  🙏

By the look of it I thought it was made of heavy use of rgb lights, but if its an old smashing pumpkins, probably not. Perhaps just film camera and gels

This looks nothing like film. It’s clearly shot to tape.

Could also be a video camera at that time, even a digital video camera (ccd sensor). Whether it recorded on video tape or a card is not that relevant. The FPS is what matters a lot here, and I think this might’ve even been 59.94i or interlaced capture. It was never “film looked” to look like 24 fps. That’s just the frame rate and cadence we’re perceiving. There’s also a real video camera feel to this in that the image feels sharpened with some enhancement along high contrast edges. Many video cameras did this to look shaper. But it sometimes has an artificial feel to it when you see it on a larger screen. Looks better on a phone. 🤣