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Install the skill (once)
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Install the Recharm video effects skill: download https://recharm-growth-staging.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/website/downloads/recharm-video-effects.zip and unzip it into ~/.claude/skillsAsk for the effect
Add a 1950s color film look to input.mp4 Color boost after the dye separation: 1.4 Below 1 softens contrast, like the gentle shoulder of old color film stock: 0.88
Several videos, several effects, one ask
Put your clips in the folder, mention them with @, and ask for everything at once. Claude runs one tested script after another on each clip, then joins them.
Add a 1950s color film look to @clip1.mp4, put a sale badge on @clip2.mp4, give @clip3.mp4 a VHS look, then join all three with crossfades.
Settings you can change
Ask Claude to change any of these, or edit them at the top of the command.
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
SATURATION | 1.4 | Color boost after the dye separation. 1 keeps it as is; higher looks more like a saturated studio print. |
CONTRAST | 0.88 | Below 1 softens contrast, like the gentle shoulder of old color film stock. |
BLACK | 0.07 | Where black lands (0-1). Lifts shadows to a soft dark brown instead of pure black; 0 keeps deep blacks. |
Without the skill
Don’t want to install the skill? Paste this prompt into Claude Code and Claude writes the command itself.
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Give all of input.mp4 a 1950s color film look from the first frame to the last: rich reds and cyans, creamy highlights and soft contrast. Using ffmpeg, first separate the colors with a channel mixer (colorchannelmixer=rr=1.5:rg=-0.3:rb=-0.2:gr=-0.35:gg=1.2:gb=0.15:br=-0.3:bg=-0.1:bb=1.4), then raise the saturation to 1.4 and lower the contrast to 0.88 (eq=saturation=1.4:contrast=0.88), then apply per-channel tone curves (input/output points, 0-1): red 0/0.07 0.5/0.54 1/0.96, green 0/0.07 0.5/0.5 1/0.93, blue 0/0.07 0.5/0.47 1/0.88. The pale blue-white backdrop (around RGB 196, 202, 214) should come out a soft cyan (around RGB 167, 188, 189), the cream label (around RGB 202, 197, 188) a peachy cream (around RGB 198, 176, 150), the purple bottle a deeper violet (around RGB 156, 99, 178), the black dropper cap lifted to a soft dark brown, and the overall brightness about 92% of the original. Don't add any text (if you ever do, draw it with Pillow, not ffmpeg's drawtext). Keep the size (540x960), 30fps, the 6 second length and the audio. Encode H.264 yuv420p and save it as output.mp4.Run it without Claude
This is the exact command we tested. Save it as 1950s-color-film-look.sh and run:
sh 1950s-color-film-look.sh input.mp4 output.mp4Show the command
#!/bin/sh
# 1950s color film look: rich reds and cyans, creamy warm highlights and soft contrast, like an early color feature.
# Usage: sh 1950s-color-film-look.sh input.mp4 output.mp4
# Needs ffmpeg.
set -e
IN="$1"; OUT="$2"
SATURATION=1.4 # color boost after the dye separation below; 1 keeps it as is
CONTRAST=0.88 # below 1 softens contrast, like the gentle shoulder of old color stock
BLACK=0.07 # where black lands (0-1); lifts shadows to a soft dark brown instead of pure black
# Dye separation: the channel mixer pushes each pixel further from neutral, so warm areas go red-orange,
# cool areas go cyan (green borrows from blue) and violet goes deeper. The curves lift blacks to BLACK,
# warm the mids a touch and hold highlights below white, so whites read as cream rather than paper.
ffmpeg -y -v error -i "$IN" -vf "\
colorchannelmixer=rr=1.5:rg=-0.3:rb=-0.2:gr=-0.35:gg=1.2:gb=0.15:br=-0.3:bg=-0.1:bb=1.4,\
eq=saturation=$SATURATION:contrast=$CONTRAST,\
curves=r='0/$BLACK 0.5/0.54 1/0.96':g='0/$BLACK 0.5/0.5 1/0.93':b='0/$BLACK 0.5/0.47 1/0.88',\
fps=30,format=yuv420p" \
-c:v libx264 -crf 18 -c:a copy "$OUT"
