Applied Nostalgia: That 1970s Look

During a discussion about the Scarfolk posters, top course tutor Josh Taylor persuaded me to investigate the ways of getting a period feel with minimal effort, using things like lighting or colour.

One pertinent example from recent weeks which generated a lot of buzz was Kevin Eldon's Amish Sex Pistols sketch, which recreated the infamous Bill Grundy interview of 1976 with unerring accuracy.

Click here;to see the It's Kevin clip;
You can also see a side-by-side comparison with the original here.

Of course, this isn't the first time that anybody has done this kind of thing.  But it serves as a good example to start the ball rolling.

Let's examine a shot from the TV series Look Around You, which spoofed 1970s education TV shows like Tomorrow's World and BBC Schools and Colleges.

Click here to see an example clip from the show.

Here's another example.  This music video was shot on a Liverpool council estate in 2007 but has been made to look as though it was made in the mid 1970s.

Sonny J's Can't Stop Moving video

Analysis

Let's analyse some of the semiotics being used here.  According to UCLan contextual studies lecturer James Battersby there are three main types of sign:

• ICON -- resembles its referent. (e.g. wheelchair image for disabled parking spot)
• SYMBOL -- related to its referent by convention.  (e.g. fast forward button on a DVD player)
• INDEX -- associated with its referent.  (e.g. flat line on heart monitor = death)

In these examples, the time period is predominantly communicated by index.  This is important, because it means that the viewer has to be familiar with the association, otherwise the sign is meaningless.

Signifier:	Faded colour
Why?	1950s to 1980s period.  (Colour photos/film were rare before 1950, and older images fade more, especially vibrant reds & blues.)

The following photo illustrates this well.  At first glance it's an old photo but it was actually taken by photographer Jon Nicholson in 2012 as part of a series of images for his book Seaside Polaroids.

Nicholson's images use traditional chemical methods, but they are intended to contrast with the famous Instagram "1977 Filter" which achieves similar effects by adjusting the image digitally through a series of stages:

• Adjust curves to "pull up the shadows", i.e. make blacks and dark greys lighter, reducing contrast.
• Overlay a mild pale green tint, affecting the darker colours more.
• Overlay a subtle "slightly scratched" texture, and slight blurring if wanted.

Signifier:	Brown & beige, and a bit of orange too
Why?	Fashion in the 1970s was unremittingly brown.  This re-occurred in the early 2000s but focuses on darker browns and creams.

There are exceptions to this, of course.  (For some unknown reason Star Trek: the Next Generation (1987) used tons of beige.)

Signifier:	Sunshine & lens flares
Why?	The summer of '76 is famous for being one of Britain's worst droughts, but for many youngsters the long summer school holidays and heatwave created a strong association with sunshine and the 1970s.

This also accounts for the washed-out shadows mentioned earlier.

Signifier:	Patterned wallpaper
Why?	Patterned wallpaper was nothing new, and had been a mainstay of Victorian fashions.  However, the 1970s saw an explosion of oranges, brown & white patterns adorning walls.

So, these are just a few ways to get that 1970s look!  I'll be examining other ways as I think of them, and looking at other periods in later posts.