80s/90s special video effects?
 

Hello,

So I have been trying to look for a specific special effect that was used in a lot of bumpers, intros, or idents from News, channels, etc. It is essentially a shine effect on the outline of a text that has points of bright dots move around the outline of said text to which they may gather into one area of the entire text and shine large portions of the text, only to return to dots. It is very hard to explain it in words so I will be leaving videos and images of what I am talking about. It seems to be a source of light going in different directions as well like in one of the images it goes from the top to bottom of the "E" and in the other still it shines across the whole text. (Images are TextShine_1/2/3) I will also include a video version in this thread. (Video: TextOutlineShine) My main goal in writing this threat is to see if anyone has any idea what this effect might be and how it was achieved back in the day. I feel that it is better to ask how it was done back in the day rather than asking how might it be done today. My line of thinking is that it would make it easier to just replicate in a digital manner if they did do it using physical methods. If that is not possible, maybe get redirected to someone or other forum that may have an idea. I have a feeling that it is done using sheets of plastic masks or something similar when I watched this clip of how they made the, "HBO feature presentation" video. (Video: HBOAnimation) I could be totally wrong and it can be another method so I hope I may get an answer here or get redirected to someone who knows more about 80s/90s special video effects.

It’s better to mimic that in the digital realm with software than do it in analog them digitize it. I would say that is an Adobe question. Maybe try after effects.

Yes, and I have tried using After Effects, but it never looks like the original. That's why I am asking if anyone knows or knows someone who has done 80s/90s special video effects. There is no "tutorial" on YouTube and no information about it either. That is why I am adamant in trying to see how it was done in the analog sense if it was done like that. If I knew how they made it back then, it would be easier to replicate it in After Effects.

Check out the Making of Tron documentary - can be found on many of the available copies of the movie and also seems to be posted on YouTube. Has a ton of information and demonstrations of traditional animated backlit effects. By the director's own description Tron started life as an extension and exploration of the methods you are referring to. All of them were common, particularly in ads, back in the day. The HBO doc you posted shows a great variation of the effect.

As pointed out, probably easier to do in the workstation these days. The old way will probably find you searching for an animation stand that you can backlight. Not sure how common that is, I was never an animator, but sounds tricky.

Edited to add: Also look up the Video Toaster, some of what you are referring to may have come from that system, depending on the age of the clip.

Also adding, I was struggling to remember the name: check out the documentaries on the Scanimate system.