Modern Editing Techniques Transform Footage From The 1900s Into Haunting Vision

Film recording was still in its infancy 100 years ago, so the quality, obviously, wasn’t up to scratch with even today’s cheapest digital camcorder. But what if you took footage captured from a century ago and tweaked it to be more… modern — a faster frame rate, upscaled resolution, interpolation. What would it look like?

A YouTube user by the name of “Rick88888888” decided to revamp recordings taken from what appears to be the Mitchell and Kenyon collection. Specifically, the frame rate was altered from 18pfs to 24fps, the images upscaled and motion stabilisation applied. Missing frames were regenerated using “special … interpolation software”.

The result is… curiously mesmerising. It has a somewhat artificial feel to it, but is not as… distant… as old recordings tend to be. If you want another example, Rick88888888 applied the same techniques to another clip, which you can view below:

[YouTube, via Imaging Resource]