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camcorder special effect

hey guys im wondering how they do those effects were they add things to make a shot look like documentary style.
usually theres the words REC or a timer running like in cloverfield. How can i do that?
 
hey guys im wondering how they do those effects were they add things to make a shot look like documentary style.
usually theres the words REC or a timer running like in cloverfield. How can i do that?

If they're not interacting with anything on screen, just stick a text/timecode effect over the other video tracks in your editing software.
 
Or you can use another camera to film the LCD of the first camera.



Sorry for the bad joke.

Actually, I got a giggle out of that.

tito, what chilipie said. It's a pretty simple thing to do in post (if you've got decent software).

The tricky part is the camera work. Practiced camera people move their cameras in a way that is so very different from what some schmuck with a camcorder would do. So I think it is difficult to fake being a schmuck, without looking like you're trying too hard.
 
It's a pretty simple thing to do in post (if you've got decent software).

Actually I think this effect is probably a pre-set on some pretty crappy software. Not advising you to cut your film using the aforementioned 'crappy software' but if you want an easy way of getting the effect you could always add it on that and then use the altered footage...
 
Actually I think this effect is probably a pre-set on some pretty crappy software. Not advising you to cut your film using the aforementioned 'crappy software' but if you want an easy way of getting the effect you could always add it on that and then use the altered footage...

The particulars will be different, depending on the software, but the entire procedure would take no more than a minute or two.

Plus, the problem with the "crappy software" is that you might be seriously downgrading the quality of your footage, with this extra step. Better to do it all in one. It's quite easy to slap a title over a timeline.
 
what cracks me up when I see footage like that is, I have no idea if there is ANY camera that RECORDS the RECORDING indicator.. cheap or otherwise.... i mean that would be a pretty big flaw in design... which sorta begs, whey do we accept this so readily ("we" being the collective?)
 
what cracks me up when I see footage like that is, I have no idea if there is ANY camera that RECORDS the RECORDING indicator.. cheap or otherwise.... i mean that would be a pretty big flaw in design... which sorta begs, whey do we accept this so readily ("we" being the collective?)

A question which has long burned a whole in my brain... Personally I like to grain up the footage, and wash out the color a little bit, maybe adding a time stamp, since that'd be the only thing that a camcorder will occasionally add in.
 
I'd never really thought about it like that Wheat, and it seems daft now I think about it...

...but the reason for it is quite simple. The filmmaker needs to have a way of telling the audience that this is found footage and not just him using a shitty camera. As John Netzlof says they'll usually be downgrading the footage a lot to deliberately make it mucky, so putting on these obvious stamps at least means that the audience can't avoid knowing that what they're seeing is supposed to look like it's shot on a cheapo camcorder.
 
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