• Wondering which camera, gear, computer, or software to buy? Ask in our Gear Guide.

AE Tut: Creating an "Authentic" CRT TV Effect

For too long I have seen the Internet filled with the classic answer of throwing on Venetian blinds, adding some chromatic aberration and colored noise, and calling that a "vintage tv look."

dzE5i.png


And while in some ways it does emulate an element of old televisions, particularly tracking issues, it far more resembled old computer monitors and how old VGA colored displays functioned.

CRT televisions, on the other hand, emit colors of red, blue, and green through tiny diodes grouped up in threes, and staggered horizontally while they are lined up vertically. So horizontal lines theoretically should not exist on one, unless a tape is having tracking distortion.

So after mulling it over for a while, I finally figured out how to recreate how an actual CRT television (the way I remember them) looks and functions, and will be utilizing this effect very soon in my latest film project.

Below I'd like to present my tutorial for how to achieve this effect. Thankfully, however, I've stumbled across another similar tutorial from 2009 that was posted on TUTs+. So I'm glad I'm not the only person who has tried to teach this effect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxsMrcwaGZs

My tutorial does go into length about certain concepts that some of you might know already. But for those who are still learning all the ins and outs of After Effects, I hope my side-explanations help to disambiguate certain concepts about how some of these effects function.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxsMrcwaGZs
 
Last edited:
Back
Top