--- title: "How to add a 35mm film look with Claude (tested prompt and ffmpeg command)" description: "The cool blue-white holographic backdrop settles into a soft warm cream-gray, the brightest highlights ease down with a faint red-orange glow, the purple serum mutes a little and a fine grain shimmers over the orbit, like a 35mm print. Install one skill and ask Claude Code, or run the ffmpeg command we tested yourself." url: https://www.recharm.com/effects/35mm-film-look --- # How to add a 35mm film look with Claude The cool blue-white holographic backdrop settles into a soft warm cream-gray, the brightest highlights ease down with a faint red-orange glow, the purple serum mutes a little and a fine grain shimmers over the orbit, like a 35mm print. 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 35mm film look to input.mp4 Where black lands (0-1): 0.05 Where white lands in the red channel (0-1); green and blue land a little lower, so highlights roll off warm instead of clipping: 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 35mm 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 | | ------------- | ------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | `BLACK` | `0.05` | Where black lands (0-1). A little lift reads as a print; much higher looks faded. | | `WHITE` | `0.88` | Where white lands in the red channel (0-1); green and blue land a little lower, so highlights roll off warm instead of clipping. | | `SATURATION` | `0.8` | Color left after the grade. 1 keeps it all. | | `GLOW_FROM` | `0.80` | Brightness (0-1) where the red-orange highlight glow starts. | | `GLOW_FULL` | `0.92` | Brightness (0-1) where the glow reaches full strength. | | `GLOW_RADIUS` | `14` | Blur sigma in pixels: how far the glow spreads around highlights. | | `GLOW` | `0.5` | How strongly the glow is screened over the picture (0-1). | | `GRAIN` | `7` | Grain strength. 4 is barely there; 20 looks like fast film. | | `CLUMP` | `2` | Grain size in pixels. | ## 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 35mm film look from the first frame to the last: lifted blacks, rolled-off warm highlights, slightly muted color, a soft red-orange glow around the brightest areas and fine moving grain. Use ffmpeg. 1) Grade with per-channel tone curves (input/output points, 0-1): red 0/0.05 0.25/0.22 0.5/0.50 0.75/0.76 1/0.88, green 0/0.05 0.25/0.21 0.5/0.48 0.75/0.73 1/0.85, blue 0/0.07 0.25/0.22 0.5/0.47 0.75/0.70 1/0.80, then eq=saturation=0.8. 2) Halation: from that graded picture (in gbrp), take a copy, keep only brightness 0.80-0.92 with colorlevels (rimin/gimin/bimin=0.80, rimax/gimax/bimax=0.92), blur it with gblur=sigma=14, tint it red-orange with colorchannelmixer (each output channel the average of R, G and B times 1.0 for red, 0.3 for green, 0.09 for blue), and screen it back over the graded picture at 0.5 opacity. 3) Grain: make a mid-gray (0x808080) layer at half the video's size (270x480) at 30fps, add fresh brightness noise every frame (noise=c0s=7:c0f=t after format=yuv420p), scale it back up with bicubic scaling and merge it with blend=all_mode=grainmerge:shortest=1 so the grain doesn't shift the colors. The cool blue-white backdrop (around RGB 188, 194, 206) should come out a warm cream-gray (around RGB 184, 182, 177), nothing should be brighter than about RGB 210, 210, 210 and the overall brightness should drop to about 94% 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 `35mm-film-look.sh` and run: ``` sh 35mm-film-look.sh input.mp4 output.mp4 ``` ``` #!/bin/sh # 35mm film look: gentle moving grain, a soft red-orange glow around highlights and muted, rolled-off color, like a 35mm print. # Usage: sh 35mm-film-look.sh input.mp4 output.mp4 # Needs ffmpeg. set -e IN="$1"; OUT="$2" BLACK=0.05 # where black lands (0-1); a little lift, as on a print WHITE=0.88 # where white lands (0-1); highlights roll off instead of clipping SATURATION=0.8 # color left after the grade (1 keeps it all) GLOW_FROM=0.80 # brightness (0-1) where the highlight glow starts... GLOW_FULL=0.92 # ...and where it reaches full strength GLOW_RADIUS=14 # blur sigma in pixels: how far the glow spreads GLOW=0.5 # how strongly the red-orange glow is screened over the picture (0-1) GRAIN=7 # grain strength; 4 is barely there, 20 looks like fast film CLUMP=2 # grain size in pixels SIZE=$(ffprobe -v error -select_streams v:0 -show_entries stream=width,height -of csv=s=x:p=0 "$IN") W=${SIZE%x*}; H=${SIZE#*x} # 1. Grade: a soft S-curve with lifted blacks and rolled-off whites; blue ends a little lower than red so # whites print warm, then the color is muted. # 2. Halation: the brightest areas are isolated, blurred and tinted red-orange, then screened back on. # 3. Grain: a mid-gray layer at 1/CLUMP size gets fresh brightness noise every frame and is merged in, # so it adds texture without shifting the colors. ffmpeg -y -v error -i "$IN" -f lavfi -i "color=c=0x808080:s=$((W / CLUMP))x$((H / CLUMP)):r=30" -filter_complex " [0:v]fps=30,curves=r='0/$BLACK 0.25/0.22 0.5/0.50 0.75/0.76 1/$WHITE':g='0/$BLACK 0.25/0.21 0.5/0.48 0.75/0.73 1/0.85':\ b='0/0.07 0.25/0.22 0.5/0.47 0.75/0.70 1/0.80',eq=saturation=$SATURATION,format=gbrp,split[base][hi]; [hi]colorlevels=rimin=$GLOW_FROM:gimin=$GLOW_FROM:bimin=$GLOW_FROM:rimax=$GLOW_FULL:gimax=$GLOW_FULL:bimax=$GLOW_FULL, gblur=sigma=$GLOW_RADIUS,colorchannelmixer=rr=0.33:rg=0.33:rb=0.33:gr=0.1:gg=0.1:gb=0.1:br=0.03:bg=0.03:bb=0.03[glow]; [base][glow]blend=all_mode=screen:all_opacity=$GLOW,format=yuv420p[graded]; [1:v]format=yuv420p,noise=c0s=$GRAIN:c0f=t,scale=$W:$H:flags=bicubic[grain]; [graded][grain]blend=all_mode=grainmerge:shortest=1,format=yuv420p[v]" \ -map "[v]" -map 0:a? -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -c:a copy "$OUT" ``` ## More retro and film - [1950s color film look **1950s color film look**](https://www.recharm.com/effects/1950s-color-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)