Creating the Old Movie look with Combustion

First, we will observe some components which consist in the old movie look. Some of the main components are:

1. flashy image; old movies often have random brightness value, resulting in a flashing image when being played.
   
2. blur and noisy image; old movies tend to have noise on the screen which reduces the image quality and results in a blurry image.
   
3. sepia color or reduced saturation; most old movies were filmed in black and white and some have sepia tone. Some of them were already processed in color, but have lost their color saturation as they have aged.
   
4. sprocket wear; this happens with old equipment which leads to shaky playback.
   
5. dirt and scratches; I guess most of us are aware of these ones. :-)

Getting Started

In this tutorial, I'm using a common image, supplied from 3ds max material map: hongkong.jpg

Create a New Workspace
File>New (match the settings below, or create your own

Importing Footage
In my composition, I will use the HONGKONG.JPG (640x480). In order to use it inside PAL D1 resolution, I have to make minor changes in its scale.

Flashy Image
In order to have flashy image, we're going to use the Brightness Contrast operator. Notice the Brightness control key under the Timeline. We're going to have the Expression applied to this key, in order to get the flashy effect.

We're going to use the random option (yellow marked), in order to get random value for the brightness key. Try experimenting the red marked components with different values. If you're lazy enough, simply match them. :-)

Try to playback the composition in order to have “Yeah!!! It's working!!” feeling. :-)


Blur and Noise

Blur. Hmmmm ….. the easiest way is to add any Blur operator. I'm going use the Box Blur (value : 1.10) as it won't take long to do it. Next, I add a Noise operator to give noises (what else? He-heh) to the layer. The amount of 10% should be enough. Some other Noise parameter adjustments would make it better. See picture to have clearer description.

Sepia Tone
Using the Discreet Color Corrector operator, we can have sepia color applied to our footage. In this case, I'm going to change the values:
Saturate : 0
Hue Tint : 35
Strength : 35

Simulating Sprocket Wear
In simulating sprocket wear, we're going to use another expression applied either to Y position, and X Position (if needed) of the layer we're working on. Let's start with the Y position first.

In the expression browser, some small changes have to be done. Experiment with the values (marked), or, again, match the values.

Should you feel in a need to have shaky X position, try to apply the same method as the Y position.

Finishing Touch

Now, you've almost completed the old movie look creation. Try to adjust the layer size to fit the screen size, if you're experiencing problem with the size when the footage is playing.

Then, in order to create the dirt and scratches, you could simply create a paint layer, and create some dirt and scratches, and animate them using the expression.

At the time I write this tutorial, I'm still experimenting to find the easiest way to create dirt and scratches.

I hope this tutorial is useful.

Enjoy!!!