anyone know to make damaged film?

I am looking for a specific effect. Not the generic dust and such I used on myl ast edit, but more so from weather damage.


I made a short film a few years back (quite a few years back). I need part of the film to have the look as if "super 8" projector film was left outside in the woods and eventually found (summer). I was figuring on perhaps saturating the colors more or making it a bit brighter to give the look of damage caused by heat (sun). Does anyone know of anything that may help me out with this?

The Magic Bullet plugin for about any major editing programs has some nice effects for this sort of thing. Poke around for it.

that costs money

adjust the gamma so everything is way brighter. that's one thing that will work. over-saturating it might be counterintuitive since the sun damage should be draining the colors, but if the source is digital or something, then boosting the colors might be a good idea to match it to super 8 projector film aesthetics. in either case a little anti-aliasing will also do a good deal of damage to the footage. If there's a soft edge effect available to you in some capacity to soften the edge of the frame, that could help as well.

or buy magic bullet i guess. i always heard a lot about it on film making forums, but no one ever actually bought it and got back to anyone about how it looked...

Thank you both for the info. Magic bullet does offer a trial version which I will test out as well as the regular methods mentioned here. Thanks again--

Are there any out there that simulate the effect of film that has melted spots? You know like when the projector jammed.

That would be a nice effect for damaged film.

I am sure it is out there, just a matter of finding the plugin or actual film effect name this would go under

ask aztek... i think he knows.... we had a conversation about that once and we found something that showed that (they actually used the same program and effect in grindhouse).... i don't remember the name of the program, but he probably would... though i havent' seen him around lately.

lewis886 said:

ask aztek...

Click to expand...

Ask and ye shall receive

There is a set out called "Artbeats Film Clutter" which contains various dust, scratch, and other effects. It's not free, but like many things that cost money, it can be found through...less than legal means. There's also a set called "Artbeats REEL Explosions" which is just that...film reels bursting into flames and burning up

In fact, the reel burn in Planet Terror was taken from one of the Artbeats sets, so it shouldn't be too difficult to simulate damaged film. However, I'm not sure whether the footage in either set is transparent or if you need to do any additional work.

EDIT: Also, try upping the contrast an insane amount, which sould do a decent job washing out the footage.