---
title: "How to add a 1950s color film look with Claude (tested prompt and ffmpeg command)"
description: "The pale silver backdrop turns a soft cyan with its rainbow streaks glowing coral-red, the white label goes peachy cream and the purple bottle deepens to violet, like an early Technicolor feature. Install one skill and ask Claude Code, or run the ffmpeg command we tested yourself."
url: https://www.recharm.com/effects/1950s-color-film-look
---

# How to add a 1950s color film look with Claude

The pale silver backdrop turns a soft cyan with its rainbow streaks glowing coral-red, the white label goes peachy cream and the purple bottle deepens to violet, like an early Technicolor feature.

Made by the command on this page, from our own test clip.

## Get this effect

1. ### Switch to Code in your [Claude Desktop App](https://claude.com/download)

2. ### Install the skill (once)

   ```
   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/skills
   ```

3. ### Ask 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.

```
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.mp4
```

```
#!/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"
```

## More retro and film

- [35mm film look **35mm film look**](https://www.recharm.com/effects/35mm-film-look)
- [70s film look **70s film look**](https://www.recharm.com/effects/70s-film-look)
- [Camcorder date stamp **Camcorder date stamp**](https://www.recharm.com/effects/camcorder-date-stamp)
- [Camcorder viewfinder **Camcorder viewfinder**](https://www.recharm.com/effects/camcorder-viewfinder)
- [Color bars test pattern **Color bars test pattern**](https://www.recharm.com/effects/color-bars-test-pattern)

## Find 3x _winning ads_

Recharm cuts your ad footage into tagged, searchable clips: hooks, testimonials, product shots. Find the shots that win, add the effect with Claude, and ship 3x more ad edits.

[Start 14-day free trial](https://www.recharm.com/get-started)