Filming a Cinematic Video with A 20 Year Old Camcorder

[@MathieuStern]

If his video looks like a fever dream, it's maybe because I did the editing just after getting my booster shot of the vaccine and I actually have a very high fever...

[@sal4]

it feels very dreamy, but also brings a special vibe in this video. Thank you

[@derdurstbursch]

Prompt retablissement!

[@ookiemand]

I hope this time the vaccine will help. Maybe we all need a 4th one, like people in Israel?

[@IRudra]

@@ookiemand until they will release a one year lasting vaccine, we ll not get rid of Covid 19 because every 3-4 months ppl will be have a chance to get it…. Unless they respect all health measures

[@iangrant3615]

Wonderful idea and great video. I still have my Panasonic NV-GS400 MiniDV camcorder which at the time was a great model that was top of its range, but now even the most basic phone camera surpasses it in terms of clarity of picture. Nevertheless, those old MiniDV cameras were made with some great features and physical construction and also have a really unique quality to the video that brings a nostalgic feel, as demonstrated by your film here! Hope you feel better after the booster and best wishes for 2022!

[@SyntheticFuture]

It actually looks kinda cool in a weird nostalgic way 😂

[@ookiemand]

You have me thinking about why we may feel nostalgic seeing old tech. A new person would not feel the same way because they don't know of those older happier times.

[@SyntheticFuture]

@@ookiemand there's going to be so many people that are born after this era that just look at this footage and think: "well... that looks like pure shit" xD Funny how those things work right?

[@racecardriverrr4201]

I'm not so sure, I'm a young teen and I think this footage looks really cool as well 👍 Also, unlike the majority of cameras these days (smartphones) this lens has optical zoom

[@speed.olover8532]

I agree with @@racecardriverrr4201 . I'm 24 and a sucker for MiniDV eras. The skate scene still resolves heavily around the Sony VX1000.

[@AliceTyrell]

Man... I've been trying to get this old sony camcorder running for weeks for exactly this purpose. I never imagined anyone would beat me to the punch, largely because I figured everyone else would think this idea is too stupid to try, but you know what? It looks exactly as good as I hoped it would. Excellent work Mathieu, thank you for making this!

[@mutchlouis9707]

Nothing is stupid to try. You should put up a video too.

[@jamesonkillen8280]

Hopefully you were able to get your camcorder working to test this concept yourself!

[@onocoffee]

The way to make 2022 look vintage! Thanks for the video - and thanks for keeping under five minutes. It's the number one reason why I clicked on it. Too many creators stretch a five minute video into 18. Thanks for keeping it succinct!

[@Tricklarock]

Right?! I rarely can tolerate anything over10-12 minutes myself!

[@mberger1212]

This is why I love this channel, you do such cool things with cameras and lenses. Love the videos!!

[@MathieuStern]

Thanks a lot Max !

[@baloup571]

@@MathieuStern hey Mathieu beautiful video as always! Can you pls share here the link for the anamorphic adapter and the all handle gear you use in the video?

[@MathieuStern]

@@baloup571 there is no linj because it's all vintage, you can look for a kowa 16h adapter on ebay, but I don't have a specific link.

[@baloup571]

@@MathieuStern ohh i understand, and what model in specific u use of kowa 16h adapter? I’m totally new to these adapter

[@donaldharmonify]

Jesus when you said 20 year old camera released in 2004... It hit me how fast time flies. To me 20 years ago was the 90s

[@tombuck]

This is everything I wanted but didn’t know I needed.

[@EposVox]

I LOVE this so much!

[@MathieuStern]

I knew you would love this !

[@yorgle]

My DV camcorder (Canon Optura XI) and some others from the same era (around 2002ish) have a built in anamorphic scruncher. When I used to import the content into iMovie or Final Cut, it would automatically realize it's anamorphic, and show it as widescreen.

[@MrShanePhoto]

At first i asked myself why. But then i remembered that's why I subscribe to your awesome channel. Its a cool look. Started my video career on Mini DV SD. I do not miss it. But those tape deck motor noises sure gave me nostalgia.

[@MathieuStern]

yep, it looks horrible but thats also the kind of look we can't get anymore

[@MrShanePhoto]

@@MathieuStern it looks like a video camera in a movie. When you see something that's been recorded by a character in a film.

[@Ben-rz9cf]

when i was in art school they had us working on these ancient mini DV systems. mind you this was during the 5D DSLR filmmaking revolution so every other student owned a personal 5D mark ii except me xD but the school was especially cheaped out for having us work on such ancient relics

[@EpicLightMedia]

Saw the thumbnail and immediately clicked

[@MathieuStern]

I see we have some royalties visiting our humble channel !

[@US4Sam]

Mathieu, you brought back some memories! In 2008 when I was in high school, we went on a school trip to Paris to some of the exact places you showed in these clips. And seeing those places in the same low fidelity video that I recorded back then brought back all sorts of memories. 😊

[@keeper__88_]

I got one of these old camcorders, mine is fully digital, it records on it's own hard drive. And I love it just for that nostalgic vibe.

[@Biovirulent]

I love the vibes this camcorder gives!

[@patrickmalec8419]

It’s pretty surreal to see camcorder footage in true anamorphic, not just black bars cut from the top and bottom. Pretty sick aesthetic honestly.

[@agenericaccount3935]

Tickles my brain because the content is current but the medium is two decades old. Love it.

[@mark_fox_music]

That's a really ingenious rig! Lovely shots too!

[@colinire15]

What was the anamorphic lens used?

[@SweetLouPhotography]

Glad you found a cool DV camera! Nice results man, I love the lens you used there, you got some really interesting bokeh. I loooove filming on my Hi8. Cheers, happy new year man

[@MathieuStern]

You are the real inspiration here !

[@triggerfingerstudios]

You're right, you can't beat the real thing! Mathieu is the real thing!

[@aalvarez10]

If you would like to clean up your footage with a solid deinterlace, i recommend using Hybrid and using the vapor synth QTGMC filter. You’ll get great results and it’ll give you proper 60p/50p.

[@debranchelowtone]

Finaly someone in the comments who noticed about the deinterlacing !

[@aalvarez10]

@@debranchelowtone haha thanks! I’ve got some solid deinterlace upres on my channel if you want to check them out!

[@debranchelowtone]

@@aalvarez10 I will ;)

[@fourth1000]

The biggest thing we lost in this camera day and age is the incorporation of CCD sensors which had a more tangible look to the image

[@weeliano]

This was state of the art technology back in the day. I had a similar panasonic camcorder which I brought for my US trip. Great experiment and wonderful results! Its got a very old video vintage look!

[@KemmetMedia]

I would swear this was shot in the 80's. good job

[@wuddlebum]

Wow this camera makes everything look like it is the 1990's Pretty cool video

[@RealDreadfulDiaries]

The tiny Canon Legria FS 406 camcorder (I think all the Canon Legria FS line) records in standard definition but in 16:9 aspect ratio. So you get exactly this retro vibes you get in this video straight from the camcorder. I love standard definition vibes!! Awesome video! Congrats!

[@TheWeirdBrothers]

I love this format ✨ it gives the images a warm family vibe :) thanks for this video, now I want to try it.

[@Emilmarch]

The resolution may not satisfy the current consumer but the quality is still there and with the anamorphic lens and spending time with the editing, it may compete many recent devices. Love the video btw ❤️ thank you 🙏.

[@chunminglu]

With the BGM, new video gets 80's and early 90's feeling ( so is it's resolution)

[@eladbari]

In 2019 I was in Paris, shooting film. We talked about maybe doing an episode on film. It didn't happen in the end but I was happy to see how with time you came closer to the analog way, man. And always in a refreshing approach and exploration. Genial! 😊

[@jw-pp3dm]

That Camcorder reminds me of Christmas when I was a child happy memories.

[@tientienyao]

It’s amazing the battery still works.

[@hfdudsfsa]

Were there any issues with focusing? I'm assuming you had auto-focus turned on?

[@EmanueleOlivetti]

Very nice idea and a good display of what old tech and new creativity can do together. Please have another video in future in which you add stabilization: I expect the result to be even more striking, especially if you reveal your setup only at the end 😄

[@osci08]

I really like the affect this combination gives you Mathieu, It looks similar look to early to mid 1970's films.

[@ChapitZulkefli]

Having the device always be the best rather than apps. Kudos ❤️

[@asdasdasd]

2:33 When filming the footage, it appears that there is a lens visible outside of the frame. Did you zoom in to avoid showing the lens angle, or did you edit it in post-production?

[@nikolozchogovadze]

Wow. This is so beautiful. Changed the look of the whole world. Amazing. Takes me back in time.

[@XRaym]

This was my first camera. I made my first movies with it. It has a very distrinctive video look. Thete is a clear lack of details with anamorphic though ^^ My following camera was HD and 16/9 ratio but still on tape.

[@JohnDoe-fu4qd]

amazing how much video quality has grown.

[@bluecinnamon15]

I NEED THIS! YES! I started using MiniDV and Hi8 video cameras and I NEED THIS SO BADLY! THANK YOU!

[@AlexScene]

That footage actually looks pretty good!

[@BradyBessette]

This was so entertaining

[@SaugotChowdhury]

You are a magician sir, so many tricks in your sleeves. The footage and music is appealing

[@MathieuStern]

So nice of you

[@PsychoGemini]

I just happened to have an old mini DV JVC camcorder I bought back in 2003 when I was in college. Shot a lot of great stuff on it and after seeing this I kind of wish I still had the camcorder. That anamorphic lens really gave the footage a great look. There's just something about the old sensors that gave footage a harder look compared to today's cameras.

[@thefreefilmschool7709]

The best old school video or camera in modern day video; I have seen. I have 2 Mini DV camcorders. A 3 chip Panasonic I purchased back in the day; and a new old consumer One I purchased for $29. Your video shows you could still make a short film or KZbin video on one. You’ve inspired me to make a project.

[@Waadee101]

Can we transfer footage shot on a camcorder to 35 mm film. How did Abbas Kiarostami and Lars Von Trier did it in their films?

[@gotthiis]

Kinda want to cry, its brining back memories lost to adult hood.

[@jpokeefe]

Thanks for sharing. The video of the violinist is the best example of chromatic aberration I have seen. :-)

[@marcelsorariba]

Watching this makes me feel like I've travelled back in time! 👍

[@towsifbillah834]

Gave me Goosebumps

[@mikemcglasson1286]

This is so cool! I know it doesn't look "good" but it's neat! I have an Iscorama anamorphic projector lens and an old camera not dissimilar to that one. I might try this!

[@ESLTeacherTom]

Very nice! Thank you!

[@00_rei90]

0:48 HD is in 1280*720, whilst 1920*1080 is considered as Full HD/FHD

[@nubscrub]

Music gave it a late 80s early 90s home video vibe

[@breth8159]

I enjoyed this very much ! building a rig now but with a much newer DSLR based camera body and a giant long throw lens from a obsolete video projector

[@Phynix72]

Even though video isn't so crisp, it gives you feel. That's what a camera should be about.

[@debranchelowtone]

crispier if fields not blended.

[@gesalix7172]

Love it! I found one in my house like a month ago and started using it to film tuner cars

[@australianboy]

It was like a short journey down memory lane

[@BobMaulucci]

As soon as it went to the other ratio, it immediately was ten times cooler. Thanks for another thought provoking video Mathieu.

[@zilog1]

Thats actually not bad for how old it is and on tape too. nice.

[@SherardYu]

Started shooting and editing videos with a Panasonic Mini DV camera back in high school. ❤️

[@JP-nx5sc]

Mini dv is still a great format. Also old cameras like this are still used to film skate videos. Old mini dv cameras also make exceptional webcams.

[@INSTAFLIXMEDIA]

Brought back lots of memories. Thanks! I love the camcorder look.

[@ApproachMedium]

Ah man, my first video camera. Good to see it again!

[@MicaelWidell]

Reminds me of the plastic bag scene in American Beauty

[@gabrielesala6336]

exceptional video as always, keep it up Mathieu

[@e.l.gstudios31]

I Feel like a feature film using this technique camera style, and It will be amazing, I know it, for everyone who grew up from the 80's-2000's, would you watch it?

[@dexterity_studios]

Throwback vibes!!! Love it

[@simonemastroianni1985]

Fantastic video! Just a couple of tips, from my experience dealing with MiniDV and DV Video in general: There aren't a lot of programs that could easily grab the dv footage straight out of the camcorder. But i found one i really like tho: dvgrab, but it's a command line only program (which is for kind of advanced users) and it works on linux (idk about Windows). Anyways the GUI counterpart is Kino which is ok at what it can do. With dvgrab you can get a raw file straight out the MiniDV tape (of course it needs to be done with firewire, and for tower PCs there are a quite inexpensive PCIe adapters that can do the job. For laptops which don't have thunderbolt i don't think there's a solution if not getting an old laptop which has a firewire port included or even one with a PCMCIA port and buying a PCMCIA card to get firewire). Anyways the result is amazing, 13.5ish GB of raw video (in 1hour tape, could be more if EP is used). From that video you need to deinterlace it correctly to get the double framerate (sadly from this video i didn't see the frame doubling, but just discarded one field completely, which just reduced to half the resolution). Consider this: if you do deinterlacing with double framerate you can get from 25fps to 50 or from 23.97 to almost 60fps AND keeping the resolution intact. I've done this for many MiniDV tapes and the result is really nice. Apart from this little tip, this is a fantastic video.

[@fotofrangonz]

My analog SONY hi8 handicam from 1999 (CCD-TRV36E) has an option in the menu to film in anamorphic directly from the camera. It compresses the image horizontally.

[@dripps]

As soon as I saw the DV footage the nostalgia kicked in and it reminded me of all the videos I made with my friends as a kid. How much further could we enhance this footage? What if you put it through some modern AI 4k upscaling software like the one from Topaz Labs?

[@debranchelowtone]

needs proper deinterlace first.

[@zr_1234]

What is this software? I have footage like this too and a camera.

[@isaacdies]

I love how this looks

[@Tricklarock]

I love how everyone's saying 'vintage 2000s'. Makes me feel nice and old! It could pass as 80s VCR?

[@beneranaku]

Actually it's look very nostalgic in a good way

[@nicolasdoretti1078]

You’re a freakin genious mate...

[@siberiate]

Another really cool post -- didn't realize you had a Patreon until today. Happy to chip in! Keep making good stuff!!!

[@MathieuStern]

Thanks for your help Bryan ! Much appreciated!

[@zubair5396]

It brings to the cameraman and audience 20 years behind :')

[@blenderbachcgi]

Proof that even VHS Camcorders can actually be useful even today.

[@sciencetoday3629]

What was the name of that anamorphic lens

[@atebitnate]

Finally, Dogma 95 cinema, in widescreen.

[@EmreSan]

I think it's 720x576 (PAL), not 702.

[@androids2k]

I love this kind of aesthetic and actually use similar format when recording my videos for my channel! Awesome video! It inspires me to go out and record again. 💚 *Edit* What was that grip/mount used at 2:08?

[@rohanimations]

Uhhh this is the coolest thing ever

[@Steinthedude]

I actually used a sony camcorder for commercials as a B camera and shot 2 entire videoclips with it being the only camera used. Love the vibe of mini DV camera's! My camcorders flares are insane, especially with artificial lights it produces some very interesting artifacts

[@marcgiguere651]

what is the piece of kit that is suspending the lens in front of the camera called? i wanna try this with my old Nikon P7100

[@belajargeografisma]

Sir, what lense did you attach to the camcorder?

[@dragonfusilier9173]

It looks like an old documentary 💓

[@Veptis]

MiniDV is still relevant because FireWire gives you access to a digital signal that isn't horribly degraded and compressed. VHS and video8 don't really offer that. Which means there is a big difference when you look at prices today

[@RudiW1510]

Most video/photo KZbin channels: Let's attache a prehistoric lens to a cinema camera. Mathieu Stern: Let's attache a garbage eye sore camera to an anamorphic rig. (I know I'm harsh here. I do have some nostalgic attachment to that quality too. But my eyes hurt now.) Still, I like what you are doing here.

[@MathieuStern]

Actually I was the first one to attache a prehistoric lens on a cinema camera ... thats the actual title of one of my video.

[@RudiW1510]

@@MathieuStern was that the one with the Kodak lens on the Sony A7 in Vienna?

[@mhaustria]

Ha! I just converted all our old mini dv tapes to digital and sold a very similar camera afterwards. Good times! great video Mathieu!

[@mhaustria]

@@kostasb3570 mine was already starting to break and I sold it as broken parts. These are very finicky

[@Pasi123]

@@kostasb3570 Where I live MiniDV (and other tape based) camcorders have been expensive for years already

[@PulkitKamal]

Loved it so much dude, subbed in a sec

[@rofi3930]

Im not suprised if all the footage os frome early 2000, its feels very nostalgic

[@joshmetat]

awesome, I really liked the look of it. I'd prefer a 16:9 aspect ratio and the music worked really good with the footage.

[@deadpool6072]

I love these kinds of ideas!!!

[@someonequiet3365]

I love this! It looks like so much fun

[@simonbolzdotcom]

Amazing idea! Supercool.

[@MathieuStern]

Thank you! 😊

[@keeson9921]

THIS IS SUPER COOL, MIGHT TRY THIS AT HOME

[@Addadwiapr98]

Reminds me of every indie band music video 😂❤🔥🔥

[@AveryDelMiller]

What a neat idea!!