How to Create the Film Look of 80s-90s Anime

Hello everyone!

Today, I'd like to talk about how to recreate the distinctive look of 80s and 90s anime. Don't you just love that cel animation feel?

While there's a lot we could discuss about the artwork itself, I want to focus specifically on the cinematography aspects today.

To recreate the atmosphere of that era, we first need to understand the analog animation production process.

Understanding the Analog Animation Process

Let's quickly review the production workflow from that time. The basic steps were:

1. Drawing line art on paper

2. Transferring the lines to cels using a trace machine

3. Painting the cels

4. Filming

5. Film development

6. Editing, voice recording, and audio mixing

I'd like to focus on the filming stage today.

The biggest difference between digital and analog methods is the actual use of a camera for filming. When using film, the image passes through a physical medium (the film itself) before becoming the final footage.

Understanding Film Characteristics

In Japanese anime production of that era, they primarily used either Kodak or Fujifilm.

Each had its distinctive color characteristics:

• Kodak: Warm color tones with a slightly reddish impression

• Fujifilm: Cool color tones with a slightly bluish impression

Productions would choose between them based on the desired mood of the work and creative preferences. We can recreate these characteristics digitally to capture that film-like atmosphere.

Recreating the Film Look

Let's try to recreate the Kodak film look. The key points are:

• Slightly reduce highlights and lift shadows

• Add an overall reddish tint

• Subtly increase contrast

  

With these adjustments, we get a reddish tint while softening the contrast, creating an overall gentler impression. We can then add film-specific characteristics like grain and color bleeding.

Comparing before and after, you can see how the image transforms from a crisp digital look to a softer, more film-like quality.

In actual filming situations, many other factors contributed to the final look, including lighting, shooting conditions, and cel sheet characteristics. Adding these elements will bring us even closer to that authentic feel.

Final Notes

We're planning to add these film-like anime effects in the next Shoost update. Development is progressing well, and the results are looking really promising. See you in the next update!