As I sit here watching the VMAs live on MTV, I have to wonder why does it look different than other shows? It looks almost like film instead of your typical live broadcast, but since its live I don’t see that as being the case… Are they just using a lower frame rate? Just wondering…
I remember it being like this last year. Didn’t know what was different then either. Sorry I couldn’t help but I figured I would add that.
The director probably wanted a “film” look, so he told someone to press the “film effect” button on a video processor. It’s really that simple - inside the processor, a number of settings such as black level, contrast, sharpness, gamma, etc. are tweaked to make that “film” look.
Some dramas that are shot and edited on tape (or even on computer) get the film-look rinse cycle before broadcast as well.
It was likely acquired in high definition video, which has the characteristics gotpasswords mentioned. HD has more of this ‘film look’ than standard definition video.
This also has the advantage that if (when) MTV launches an HD channel, they have some content ready to re-run hundreds of times.
I actually found a link: Breakthrough performance (from last year, but same subject)