Timeless vintage video clips for your next project

Vintage videos reflect the styles and trends of past decades. They may be a throwback to the 80s, such as a retro animated clip in the synthwave style, or a black and white clip of people doing a dance that was all the rage back in the 20s. Vintage footage may have been filmed during the actual time period reflected in the video, such as a clip of Martin Luther King Jr. delivering a speech in the 60s or Marilyn Monroe stepping out onto a stage in the 50s. Alternatively, the footage may have been filmed in the present and edited in such a way that the clip has a vintage look. Vintage film overlays such as film grain or a scratched strip of film may be used to create such an effect.

Vintage stock footage refers to video clips that have been created without one specific video project in mind. Instead, the vintage footage is available for any number of users to incorporate into their personal projects. The clips range in length from several seconds to upwards of five minutes. Vintage stock footage may be archival clips, such as actual footage of historic moments. They may also be clips created more recently by professionals who have edited the videos in a vintage style. One such example would be a stack of vintage television sets that each have a green screen that users can replace with their own footage. Vintage stock clips can be shared on one’s social media or incorporated into websites and marketing materials. Adding vintage clips to an existing video project can help diversify the shots and increase the professional quality of the final film.

We at Shutterstock see thousands of monthly searches about vintage stock videos. The most popular vintage video clips include: Vintage TV: From vintage TV sets showing archival footage to old-school TV static, Shutterstock has a whole host of vintage TV clips for you to choose from. Vintage TV Green Screen: If you would like to add your own footage to a retro TV set, opt for a vintage TV green screen clip. The TV set will provide a classic frame for whatever clip you would like to add in. Vintage Radio: An audio cassette tape spinning in a player, an analog radio dial being tuned to a new station, and a vintage boombox with colorful neon overlay are just a few clips you can expect to see in our library. Vintage Backgrounds: Add a vintage background video to your website to create a nostalgic mood. A seamless loop of 2D neon lines streaming by that looks straight out of an 80s arcade, an Edison lamp glowing in an otherwise dark room, and other such clips can work well as backgrounds. Vintage Textures: Add film grain or the no signal color screen from a vintage TV to your next project to give it a vintage texture.

With Shutterstock’s high-powered search engine here to help, you can find high-quality vintage video clips in a jiffy. Click the “Footage” icon at the top of any Shutterstock web page. Go to the search bar, enter keywords such as “vintage film” or “vintage logo,” and then click the magnifying glass icon on the far right. Scroll to view your many results. If you would like to further specify the sorts of clips you would like to see, make use of any of the advanced filter options on the left side of the search page. You can easily select your preferred resolution, FPS (frames per second), video duration, and more. To alter how your results are sorted, select from such options as “Fresh content” or “Best match” under the “Sort by” heading. You can also opt to view clips with or without people by clicking your preferred style under the “People” heading.

Watching clips of days gone by can stir feelings of nostalgia in viewers, a gentle longing for simpler times. But because fashion trends tend to go in and out of style over the years, what was old can once again be new, making a vintage video simultaneously sentimental and relevant to modern times. Some video clips combine the two, such as a neon animated clip of a retro stereo. Similarly, you can create the nostalgic effect yourself by adding a vintage film border to your own modern footage. Because vintage footage is so easily viewed as timeless, you can use vintage clips to capture your audience’s attention. For example, an old-school monochrome countdown instantly increases the audience’s anticipation of whatever clip is about to follow.