How to Make “When I Was Your Age” Footage

on Mar 15th 2013 with 15 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Requirements: After Effects
  • Difficulty: Beginner
  • Run Time: 9:16 min
Download Source Files

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

My dad used to always say, “When I was your age, we didn’t have children.” Well with people like that you might have to convert your footage into something a little more familiar. There are lots of tutorials on creating that “old film” look, but I felt like Brock did a good job presenting a method that didn’t require any expensive plug-in presets and could be done quickly… Enjoy!

Republished Tutorial

Every few weeks, we revisit some of our reader's favorite posts from throughout the history of the site. This tutorial was first published in January 2010.

Tutorial

Download Tutorial .flv

File size 37MB

 
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By

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Brock (Brawk on MoGraph and among other places) is a freelancer currently working out of Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. When he's not doing motion graphics, he is usually involved in video and photography.  

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  • greg

    I think they didn’t have rolling shutter distortion back then…

  • MINIMUS

    intereseting technic… sound would add a little bit flavor..

  • Nick

    Laconic, useful, nice. Just the way tutorial should be, good job mate, thanks.

  • Shifter

    Nice man, ^^ Did a get job there

  • SPCproductions

    what about adding a strobe lighting effect…a bit of a flicker?

    • http://www.type-4.com Brock

      I would recommend adding a brightness effect and use a wiggle expression on the brightness level.

  • http://bit.ly/5RQv0e Dumm

    i like old stuff. definitely i will try this technique. thanke you very much.

  • http://www.adamfarnsworth.com Adam Farnsworth

    If you’d like the not hand animate the scratches line, but keep it randomly moving and jumping, create the solid, like the tutorial, but instead of keyframing the position: apply the “Separate XYZ Position” preset. Then Option/Alt click on the “X Position” stopwatch. Paste the following code in:

    holdTime = .5; // Time, in seconds, before the random seed chooses a new number

    seed = Math.floor(time/holdTime); // Doing the math to generate the hold time
    seedRandom(seed,true); // Generating, and holding, the random seed
    randNum=random(0,100); // Generating a random number

    wiggleRange = (thisComp.width/2)+50; // Setting the range of the wiggle to half the comp +50

    if(randNum>50) { // If/then statement that makes the solid jump if the random number goes above 50
    y=wiggle(.25,wiggleRange);
    } else {
    y=wiggle(.25,-wiggleRange);
    }

    It’s commented to tell you what it does.

  • http://www.mca-tv.com Ryan McAfee

    It’s amazing how many people ask for this effect. Good job! Quick and to the point.

  • frankyframe

    it would be nice to add some flicker light and more detail screatches and dots in the footage. but s oke

  • TonyDRKT

    I especially like how you say AE toots LOL

    I chuckled at that.

  • Klas

    Thanks for the tut!!

  • Graeme

    Short, sweet, to the point.

    I hate sitting through tutorials with a lot of rambling. This was right up my alley.

  • Loay Emad

    Thanks for the Tutorial

  • http://www.getreelstudio.com Austen

    I had to laugh at your decription, “When I was your age, we didn’t have children” So true! Anyway, I was dying to try and make my own effect like this, and then I found your tutorial. Awesome job man :D