Film colorization
Encyclopedia
Film colorization is any process that adds color to black-and-white
, sepia or monochrome moving-picture images. It may be done as a special effect, or to modernize black-and-white films, or to restore color films. Examples date from the early 20th century, but colorization has become common with the advent of digital image processing.
cut from a second print of the film. As late as the 1920s, hand coloring processes were used for individual shots in Greed
(1924) and The Phantom of the Opera
(1925) (both utilizing the Handschiegl color process
); and rarely, an entire feature-length movie such as The Last Days of Pompeii (1926) and Cyrano de Bergerac (1925).
During the late 1960s and the early 1970s, black-and-white Betty Boop
and Looney Tunes
cartoons were redistributed in color—the colorization process was done by tracing the original black-and-white frames onto new animation cels, and then adding color to the new cels. With computer technology, studios were able to add color to black-and-white films by digitally tinting single objects in each frame of the film until it was fully colorized (the first authorized computer-colorizations of B&W cartoons were commissioned by Warner Bros.
in 1990). The initial process was invented by Canadians Wilson Markle
and Christian Portilla and was first used in 1970 to add color to monochrome footage of the moon from the Apollo program missions.
Digital colourization typically begins with a monochrome
film print from which a high-quality digital video file is made. Technicians, working by computer, identify the grey level of every object in every shot and note any movement of objects within shots. Likewise, any variance of light levels frame to frame are corrected, if the budget permits. A computer adds colour to each detail of a depicted object, while keeping grey levels the same as in the monochrome original. This technique was patented in 1991.
A major difficulty with this process is its labor-intensity. For example, in order to colourize a still image an artist typically begins by dividing the image into regions, and then assigning a colour to each region. This approach, also known as the segmentation
method, is time consuming, as the process of dividing the picture into correct segments is painstaking. This problem occurs mainly because there have been no fully automatic algorithms to identify fuzzy or complex region boundaries, such as between a subject’s hair and face. Colourization of moving images also requires tracking regions as movement occurs from one frame to the next (motion compensation
). There are several companies which claim to have produced automatic region-tracking algorithms.
Legend Films describes their core technology as pattern recognition and background compositing which moves and morphs foreground and background masks from frame to frame. In the process, backgrounds are colourized separately in a single composite frame which functions as a visual database of a cut, and includes all offset data on each camera movement. Once the foregrounds are colourized the background masks are applied frame to frame in a utility process.
Timebrush describes a process based on neural net
technology which produces saturated and crisp colours with clear lines and no apparent spill-over. It is claimed that the process is cost effective and equally suitable for low-budget colourization, as well as for prime time broadcast-quality or theatrical projection.
A team at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
's Benin School of Computer Science and Engineering describe their method as an interactive process which does not require precise, manual, region detection, nor accurate tracking and is based on the simple premise that nearby pixels in space and time that have similar grey levels should also have similar colours. At the University of Minnesota
, a colour propagation method was developed that uses geodesic distance.
dyes onto the emulsion.
Around 1905, Pathé
introduced Pathéchrome, a stencil process that involved cutting glass stencils for each frame with a pantograph
.
In 1916, the Handschiegl Color Process
was invented for Cecil B. DeMille
's film Joan the Woman
(1917). Another early example of the Handschiegl process can be found in Phantom of the Opera
(1925), in which Lon Chaney
's character can be seen wearing a bright-red cape while the rest of the scene remained monochrome. The scene was toned sepia, and then the cape was painted red, either by stencil or by matrix. Then, a sulfur solution was applied to everything but the dyed parts, turning the sepia into blue tone. The process was named after its inventor, Max Handschiegl. This effect, as well as a missing color sequence, were recreated in 1996 for a Photoplay Productions restoration by computer colorization (see below).
Partial colorization has also been utilized on footage shot in color to enhance commercials and broadcast television to further facilitate the director's artistic vision. As an example, Cerulean Fx provided partial colorization for Dave Matthews Band
's music video The Space Between
as well as Outkast
's music videos "Bombs Over Baghdad" and "Roses
."
television
shows which were made in color in the early 1970s were wiped
for economic reasons, but in some cases black-and-white telerecordings were made for export to countries that did not yet have color television
. A notable example is the BBC
's 5-part Doctor Who
story The Dæmons
. Only one episode survived in color; the rest existed only as black-and-white film recordings. The only known color recording was a poor-quality off-air recording of an abridged American broadcast. In the 1990s the BBC colorized the black-and-white copies by adding the color signal from the off-air recordings. The result was judged a success by both technicians and fans. In March 2008, it was announced that new technology, which involves detecting color artifacts ("dot crawl
") in high-resolution scans of black-and-white films, will be used to restore other Who episodes as well as shows like Steptoe and Son
where some episodes only exist in black-and-white. However, there are no plans to use colorization on BBC programmes originally made in black-and-white, such as the 1960s Who episodes since they have no color information contained and so cannot be recovered using the method of other Who stories which have been colorized.
in color movies. For instance, the film Thirteen Days
uses colorized news footage from the time of the Cuban missile crisis
of 1962.
The full-color feature film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
(2004), which already made heavy use of digitally generated sets and objects, integrated black-and-white 1940s footage of Sir Laurence Olivier
into scenes by colorizing him.
In his feature film, The Aviator (2005), Martin Scorsese seamlessly blended colorized stock footage of the Hell's Angels
movie premiere with footage of the premiere's re-enactment. The colorization by Legend Films was designed to look like normal three-strip film but was then color corrected to match the two-strip look of the premiere's re-enactment. Also in The Aviator, Scorsese used colorized footage of Jane Russell
from the original black-and-white film, The Outlaw
and dog fight scenes from Hell's Angels
.
and then Way Out West
became the first black-and-white films to be redistributed in color using the colorization process. Defenders of the process noted that it would allow black-and-white films to have new audiences of people who were not used to the format. Detractors complained (among other reasons) that the process was crude and claimed that even if it were refined, it would not take into account lighting
compositions chosen for black-and-white photography
which would not necessarily be as effective in color. Figures opposed to the process included Roger Ebert
, James Stewart
, John Huston
, George Lucas
and Woody Allen
.
Cary Grant
was reportedly "very gung-ho with the outcome" of the colorization of Topper. Director Frank Capra
met with Wilson Markle about colorizing the perennial holiday classic It's a Wonderful Life
, Meet John Doe
and Lady for a Day
based on Grant's enthusiasm. Colorization, Inc.'s art director Brian Holmes screened ten minutes of colorized footage from It's a Wonderful Life to Capra, which led Capra to sign a contract with Colorization, Inc. However, the film was believed to be in the public domain
at the time, and as a result Markle and Holmes responded by returning Capra's initial investment, eliminating his financial participation, and refusing outright to allow the director to exercise artistic control over the colorization of his films, leading Capra to join in the campaign against the process.
In 1986, Film critics Gene Siskel
and Roger Ebert
did a special episode of Siskel & Ebert addressing colorization as "Hollywood's New Vandalism." "It's about money" Siskel explained how networks were unable to show classic black-and-white films in prime-time unless they offer it in color. "They arrest people who spray subway cars, they lock up people who attack paintings and sculptures in museums, and adding color to black and white films, even if its only to the tape shown on TV or shown in stores, is vandalism nonetheless." Roger Ebert added, "What was so wrong about black and white movies in the first place? By filming in black and white, movies can sometimes be more dreamlike and elegant and stylized and mysterious. They can add a whole additional dimension to reality, while color sometimes just supplies additional unnecessary information."
Media mogul Ted Turner
was once an aggressive proponent of this process, by employing the San Diego firm American Film Technologies. When he told members of the press that he was considering colorizing Citizen Kane
, his comments led to an immediate public outcry. Orson Welles had retained control over the film in his original contract, which would prevent any editing or other tampering with this film, without the express permission of Welles or his estate. About two weeks before he died in 1985, Welles asked filmmaker Henry Jaglom
, "Don't let Ted Turner deface my movie with his crayons." Turner Pictures had never actually announced that this was an upcoming planned project. Turner later stated that this was a joke designed to needle colorization critics, and that he never had any intention of colorizing the film.
John Huston's opposition to the colorization of his work led to a landmark 3-year French legal case after his death, sparked by a colorized version of The Asphalt Jungle
. His daughter Anjelica Huston
successfully used French copyright law
to set a binding precedent in 1991 that prevents the distribution or broadcasting in France of any colorized version of a film against the wishes of the original creator or their heirs.
Because of the high cost of the process, Turner Entertainment stopped colorizing titles. With the coming of DVD
technology, the notion of colorization was once again gaining press. Because the DVD format was more versatile, studios could offer viewers the option to choose between both versions without switching discs, and thus, the release of colorized titles once again seemed profitable. Some companies re-released the older colorized versions from the 1980s—an example of this is the Laurel and Hardy
box set being released in the UK
.
Other studios, such as Sony Entertainment
, commissioned West Wing Studios to colorize several Three Stooges
films for DVD release. The studio was given access to the original Columbia Studios props and sets to lend authenticity to the colorized versions.
Both film and television restoration and colorization is produced by the company Legend Films
. Their patented automated process was used to colorize around 100 films between 2003 and 2009. Shirley Temple
, Jane Russell
, Terry Moore
and Ray Harryhausen
have worked with the company to colorize either their own films or their personal favorites. Two movies that Legend Films are noted for is the colorization of the exploitation film
Reefer Madness
, for which certain color schemes were used to create a psychedelic effect in its viewers, and Plan 9 from Outer Space
. Recently (2007), Legend Films colorized It's a Wonderful Life for Paramount Pictures
(whose subsidiary, Republic Pictures
, had regained control of the copyright in the 1990s) and Holiday Inn
in 2008 for Universal Pictures
.
In 2004, a classic Indian film, Mughal-e-Azam, was colorized for theatrical release all over the world by a company called Indian Academy of Arts and Animation (IAAA) in association with Sankranti Creations. Founder of IAAA and Owner of [Sankranti creations], Rajeev Dwivedi used this technology for the first time in India.
In 2005, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
released the first season of Bewitched
on DVD. Because the first season was produced in black-and-white, Sony released two versions of the set: one with the episodes as originally broadcast and a second with the episodes colorized. A year later, the second season of Bewitched and the first season of I Dream of Jeannie
, another show owned by Sony, were released the same way. These releases were colorized by Dynacs Digital, which was bought over by Florida based, West Wing Studios, Inc. in 2003. Their production facility is located in Goa, India.
programmes. The Beatles Anthology
TV show colorizes some footage of the band, most notably the performance of "All You Need Is Love
" from the TV special Our World (1967). In the documentary this scene begins in its original black-and-white before dissolving
into seemingly realistic, psychedelic color. The color design was based on color photographs taken at the same time as the special was shot.
The documentary series World War I in Color (2003) was broadcast on television and released on DVD in 2005. There had previously been full-color documentaries about World War II
using genuine color footage, but since true color film was not practical for moving pictures at the time of World War I
, the series consists of colorized contemporary footage (and photographs). Several documentaries on the Military Channel
feature colorized war footage from the Second World War and the Korean War.
The 1960 Masters Tournament, originally broadcast in black-and-white and recorded on kinescope
, was colorized by Legend Films for the documentary Jim Nantz Remembers. This was the first time a major sports event had been re-broadcast using colorization.
The Greatest Game Ever Played
, the 1958 NFL Championship between the Baltimore Colts
and the New York Giants
was colorized by Legend Films for ESPN
for a sports broadcast special in December 2008.
Black-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...
, sepia or monochrome moving-picture images. It may be done as a special effect, or to modernize black-and-white films, or to restore color films. Examples date from the early 20th century, but colorization has become common with the advent of digital image processing.
Hand colorization
The first film colorization methods were employed before effective color film processes were developed: each projected copy was individually colorized. The process was done by hand, sometimes using a stencilStencil
A stencil is a thin sheet of material, such as paper, plastic, or metal, with letters or a design cut from it, used to produce the letters or design on an underlying surface by applying pigment through the cut-out holes in the material. The key advantage of a stencil is that it can be reused to...
cut from a second print of the film. As late as the 1920s, hand coloring processes were used for individual shots in Greed
Greed (film)
Greed is a 1924 American dramatic silent film. It was directed by Erich von Stroheim and starring Gibson Gowland, Zasu Pitts, Jean Hersholt, Dale Fuller, Tempe Pigott, Sylvia Ashton, Chester Conklin, Joan Standing and Jack Curtis....
(1924) and The Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera (1925 film)
The Phantom of the Opera is a 1925 American silent horror film adaptation of the Gaston Leroux novel of the same title directed by Rupert Julian. The film featured Lon Chaney in the title role as the deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House, causing murder and mayhem in an attempt to force...
(1925) (both utilizing the Handschiegl color process
Handschiegl Color Process
The Handschiegl color process produced motion picture film prints with color artificially added to selected areas of the image. Aniline dyes were applied to a black-and-white print using gelatin imbibition matrices.-History of the process:...
); and rarely, an entire feature-length movie such as The Last Days of Pompeii (1926) and Cyrano de Bergerac (1925).
During the late 1960s and the early 1970s, black-and-white Betty Boop
Betty Boop
Betty Boop is an animated cartoon character created by Max Fleischer, with help from animators including Grim Natwick. She originally appeared in the Talkartoon and Betty Boop film series, which were produced by Fleischer Studios and released by Paramount Pictures. She has also been featured in...
and Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...
cartoons were redistributed in color—the colorization process was done by tracing the original black-and-white frames onto new animation cels, and then adding color to the new cels. With computer technology, studios were able to add color to black-and-white films by digitally tinting single objects in each frame of the film until it was fully colorized (the first authorized computer-colorizations of B&W cartoons were commissioned by Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
in 1990). The initial process was invented by Canadians Wilson Markle
Wilson Markle
Wilson Markle is a Canadian engineer who invented the film colorization process in 1970. His first company, Image Transform, colored pictures from the Apollo space program to make a full-color television presentation for NASA....
and Christian Portilla and was first used in 1970 to add color to monochrome footage of the moon from the Apollo program missions.
Digital colourization
Computerized colourization began in the 1970s with a process developed by Wilson Markle. Movies colourized using early techniques have soft contrast and fairly pale, flat, washed out colour; however, the technology has improved since the 1980s.Digital colourization typically begins with a monochrome
Monochrome
Monochrome describes paintings, drawings, design, or photographs in one color or shades of one color. A monochromatic object or image has colors in shades of limited colors or hues. Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale or black-and-white...
film print from which a high-quality digital video file is made. Technicians, working by computer, identify the grey level of every object in every shot and note any movement of objects within shots. Likewise, any variance of light levels frame to frame are corrected, if the budget permits. A computer adds colour to each detail of a depicted object, while keeping grey levels the same as in the monochrome original. This technique was patented in 1991.
A major difficulty with this process is its labor-intensity. For example, in order to colourize a still image an artist typically begins by dividing the image into regions, and then assigning a colour to each region. This approach, also known as the segmentation
Segmentation (image processing)
In computer vision, segmentation refers to the process of partitioning a digital image into multiple segments . The goal of segmentation is to simplify and/or change the representation of an image into something that is more meaningful and easier to analyze...
method, is time consuming, as the process of dividing the picture into correct segments is painstaking. This problem occurs mainly because there have been no fully automatic algorithms to identify fuzzy or complex region boundaries, such as between a subject’s hair and face. Colourization of moving images also requires tracking regions as movement occurs from one frame to the next (motion compensation
Motion compensation
Motion compensation is an algorithmic technique employed in the encoding of video data for video compression, for example in the generation of MPEG-2 files. Motion compensation describes a picture in terms of the transformation of a reference picture to the current picture. The reference picture...
). There are several companies which claim to have produced automatic region-tracking algorithms.
Legend Films describes their core technology as pattern recognition and background compositing which moves and morphs foreground and background masks from frame to frame. In the process, backgrounds are colourized separately in a single composite frame which functions as a visual database of a cut, and includes all offset data on each camera movement. Once the foregrounds are colourized the background masks are applied frame to frame in a utility process.
Timebrush describes a process based on neural net
Artificial neural network
An artificial neural network , usually called neural network , is a mathematical model or computational model that is inspired by the structure and/or functional aspects of biological neural networks. A neural network consists of an interconnected group of artificial neurons, and it processes...
technology which produces saturated and crisp colours with clear lines and no apparent spill-over. It is claimed that the process is cost effective and equally suitable for low-budget colourization, as well as for prime time broadcast-quality or theatrical projection.
A team at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...
's Benin School of Computer Science and Engineering describe their method as an interactive process which does not require precise, manual, region detection, nor accurate tracking and is based on the simple premise that nearby pixels in space and time that have similar grey levels should also have similar colours. At the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
, a colour propagation method was developed that uses geodesic distance.
Partial colorization
The earliest form of colorization introduced limited color into a black-and-white film using dyes, as a visual effect. The earliest Edison films, most notably the Anabelle Butterfly Dance series were also the earliest examples of colorization, done by painting anilineAniline
Aniline, phenylamine or aminobenzene is an organic compound with the formula C6H5NH2. Consisting of a phenyl group attached to an amino group, aniline is the prototypical aromatic amine. Being a precursor to many industrial chemicals, its main use is in the manufacture of precursors to polyurethane...
dyes onto the emulsion.
Around 1905, Pathé
Pathé
Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various French businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France.-History:...
introduced Pathéchrome, a stencil process that involved cutting glass stencils for each frame with a pantograph
Pantograph
A pantograph is a mechanical linkage connected in a special manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen...
.
In 1916, the Handschiegl Color Process
Handschiegl Color Process
The Handschiegl color process produced motion picture film prints with color artificially added to selected areas of the image. Aniline dyes were applied to a black-and-white print using gelatin imbibition matrices.-History of the process:...
was invented for Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil Blount DeMille was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies...
's film Joan the Woman
Joan the Woman
Joan the Woman is a 1916 silent drama film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Geraldine Farrar as Joan of Arc.It was the first film to use the Handschiegl Color Process for certain scenes...
(1917). Another early example of the Handschiegl process can be found in Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera (1925 film)
The Phantom of the Opera is a 1925 American silent horror film adaptation of the Gaston Leroux novel of the same title directed by Rupert Julian. The film featured Lon Chaney in the title role as the deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House, causing murder and mayhem in an attempt to force...
(1925), in which Lon Chaney
Lon Chaney, Sr.
Lon Chaney , nicknamed "The Man of a Thousand Faces," was an American actor during the age of silent films. He was one of the most versatile and powerful actors of early cinema...
's character can be seen wearing a bright-red cape while the rest of the scene remained monochrome. The scene was toned sepia, and then the cape was painted red, either by stencil or by matrix. Then, a sulfur solution was applied to everything but the dyed parts, turning the sepia into blue tone. The process was named after its inventor, Max Handschiegl. This effect, as well as a missing color sequence, were recreated in 1996 for a Photoplay Productions restoration by computer colorization (see below).
Partial colorization has also been utilized on footage shot in color to enhance commercials and broadcast television to further facilitate the director's artistic vision. As an example, Cerulean Fx provided partial colorization for Dave Matthews Band
Dave Matthews Band
Dave Matthews Band, sometimes shortened to DMB, is a U.S. rock band formed in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1991. The founding members were singer-songwriter and guitarist Dave Matthews, bassist Stefan Lessard, drummer/backing vocalist Carter Beauford and saxophonist LeRoi Moore. Boyd Tinsley was...
's music video The Space Between
The Space Between
"The Space Between" is a song written by the Dave Matthews Band. It was released on their 2001 album, Everyday. It was the album's first hit single and the band's first top 40 hit, with its peak at #22 in the United States - several of their previous singles had been ineligible to chart on the...
as well as Outkast
OutKast
Outkast is an American hip hop duo based in East Point, Georgia, consisting of Atlanta native André "André 3000" Benjamin and Savannah, Georgia-born Antwan "Big Boi" Patton. They were originally known as Two Shades Deep but later changed the group's name to OutKast...
's music videos "Bombs Over Baghdad" and "Roses
Roses (Outkast song)
"Roses" is a track by OutKast from their 2003 double album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. It appears on André 3000's The Love Below disc, and is the only track on his disc to feature Big Boi. The track was largely popular in the United Kingdom and United States where it peaked at #4 on the UK Singles...
."
Restoration
A number of BritishUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
shows which were made in color in the early 1970s were wiped
Wiping
Wiping or junking is a colloquial term for action taken by radio and television production and broadcasting companies, in which old audiotapes, videotapes, and telerecordings , are erased, reused, or destroyed after several uses...
for economic reasons, but in some cases black-and-white telerecordings were made for export to countries that did not yet have color television
Color television
Color television is part of the history of television, the technology of television and practices associated with television's transmission of moving images in color video....
. A notable example is the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's 5-part Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
story The Dæmons
The Dæmons
The Dæmons is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in five weekly parts from May 22 to June 19, 1971.-Plot:...
. Only one episode survived in color; the rest existed only as black-and-white film recordings. The only known color recording was a poor-quality off-air recording of an abridged American broadcast. In the 1990s the BBC colorized the black-and-white copies by adding the color signal from the off-air recordings. The result was judged a success by both technicians and fans. In March 2008, it was announced that new technology, which involves detecting color artifacts ("dot crawl
Dot crawl
Dot crawl is the popular name for a visual defect of color analog video standards when signals are transmitted as composite video, as in terrestrial broadcast television. It consists of animated checkerboard patterns which appear along vertical color transitions...
") in high-resolution scans of black-and-white films, will be used to restore other Who episodes as well as shows like Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about two rag and bone men living in Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were broadcast by the BBC from 1962 to 1965, followed by a second run from 1970 to 1974. Its theme tune, "Old...
where some episodes only exist in black-and-white. However, there are no plans to use colorization on BBC programmes originally made in black-and-white, such as the 1960s Who episodes since they have no color information contained and so cannot be recovered using the method of other Who stories which have been colorized.
Integration
Colorization is also sometimes used on historical stock footageStock footage
Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures and file footage are film or video footage that may or may not be custom shot for use in a specific film or television program. Stock footage is of beneficial use to filmmakers as it is sometimes less expensive than shooting new...
in color movies. For instance, the film Thirteen Days
Thirteen Days (film)
Thirteen Days is a 2000 docudrama directed by Roger Donaldson about the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, seen from the perspective of the US political leadership. Kevin Costner stars, with Bruce Greenwood featured as John F. Kennedy....
uses colorized news footage from the time of the Cuban missile crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
of 1962.
The full-color feature film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a 2004 American pulp adventure science-fiction film written and directed by Kerry Conran in his directorial debut. The film is set in an alternative 1939 and follows the adventures of Polly Perkins , a newspaper reporter, and Harry Joseph "Joe" Sullivan ,...
(2004), which already made heavy use of digitally generated sets and objects, integrated black-and-white 1940s footage of Sir Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
into scenes by colorizing him.
In his feature film, The Aviator (2005), Martin Scorsese seamlessly blended colorized stock footage of the Hell's Angels
Hell's Angels (film)
Hell's Angels is a 1930 American war film, directed by Howard Hughes and starring Jean Harlow, Ben Lyon, and James Hall. The film, which was produced by Hughes and written by Harry Behn and Howard Estabrook, centers on the combat pilots of World War I...
movie premiere with footage of the premiere's re-enactment. The colorization by Legend Films was designed to look like normal three-strip film but was then color corrected to match the two-strip look of the premiere's re-enactment. Also in The Aviator, Scorsese used colorized footage of Jane Russell
Jane Russell
Jane Russell was an American film actress and was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s....
from the original black-and-white film, The Outlaw
The Outlaw
The Outlaw is a 1943 American Western film, directed by Howard Hughes and starring Jane Russell. The supporting cast includes Jack Buetel, Thomas Mitchell, and Walter Huston. Hughes also produced the film, while Howard Hawks served as an uncredited co-director...
and dog fight scenes from Hell's Angels
Hell's Angels (film)
Hell's Angels is a 1930 American war film, directed by Howard Hughes and starring Jean Harlow, Ben Lyon, and James Hall. The film, which was produced by Hughes and written by Harry Behn and Howard Estabrook, centers on the combat pilots of World War I...
.
Entertainment make-overs
In the mid-1980s, the process drew controversy after TopperTopper (film)
Topper is a 1937 American comedy film which tells the story of a stuffy, stuck-in-his-ways man who is haunted by the ghosts of a fun-loving married couple. It was adapted by Eric Hatch, Jack Jevne and Eddie Moran from the novel by Thorne Smith. The film was directed by Norman Z. McLeod, produced by...
and then Way Out West
Way Out West (1937 film)
Way Out West is a Laurel and Hardy comedy film released in 1937. It was directed by James W. Horne, produced by Stan Laurel and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.-Plot:...
became the first black-and-white films to be redistributed in color using the colorization process. Defenders of the process noted that it would allow black-and-white films to have new audiences of people who were not used to the format. Detractors complained (among other reasons) that the process was crude and claimed that even if it were refined, it would not take into account lighting
Lighting
Lighting or illumination is the deliberate application of light to achieve some practical or aesthetic effect. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources such as lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing daylight...
compositions chosen for black-and-white photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
which would not necessarily be as effective in color. Figures opposed to the process included Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
, James Stewart
James Stewart (actor)
James Maitland Stewart was an American film and stage actor, known for his distinctive voice and his everyman persona. Over the course of his career, he starred in many films widely considered classics and was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition and receiving one Lifetime...
, John Huston
John Huston
John Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...
, George Lucas
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...
and Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
.
Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
was reportedly "very gung-ho with the outcome" of the colorization of Topper. Director Frank Capra
Frank Capra
Frank Russell Capra was a Sicilian-born American film director. He emigrated to the U.S. when he was six, and eventually became a creative force behind major award-winning films during the 1930s and 1940s...
met with Wilson Markle about colorizing the perennial holiday classic It's a Wonderful Life
It's a Wonderful Life
It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra and based on the short story "The Greatest Gift" written by Philip Van Doren Stern....
, Meet John Doe
Meet John Doe
Meet John Doe is a 1941 American comedy drama film directed and produced by Frank Capra, and starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. The film is about a "grassroots" political campaign created unwittingly by a newspaper columnist and pursued by a wealthy businessman. It became a box office hit...
and Lady for a Day
Lady for a Day
Lady for a Day is a 1933 American comedy-drama film directed by Frank Capra. The screenplay by Robert Riskin is based on the short story Madame La Gimp by Damon Runyon...
based on Grant's enthusiasm. Colorization, Inc.'s art director Brian Holmes screened ten minutes of colorized footage from It's a Wonderful Life to Capra, which led Capra to sign a contract with Colorization, Inc. However, the film was believed to be in the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
at the time, and as a result Markle and Holmes responded by returning Capra's initial investment, eliminating his financial participation, and refusing outright to allow the director to exercise artistic control over the colorization of his films, leading Capra to join in the campaign against the process.
In 1986, Film critics Gene Siskel
Gene Siskel
Eugene Kal "Gene" Siskel was an American film critic and journalist for the Chicago Tribune. Along with colleague Roger Ebert, he hosted the popular review show Siskel & Ebert At the Movies from 1975 until his death....
and Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
did a special episode of Siskel & Ebert addressing colorization as "Hollywood's New Vandalism." "It's about money" Siskel explained how networks were unable to show classic black-and-white films in prime-time unless they offer it in color. "They arrest people who spray subway cars, they lock up people who attack paintings and sculptures in museums, and adding color to black and white films, even if its only to the tape shown on TV or shown in stores, is vandalism nonetheless." Roger Ebert added, "What was so wrong about black and white movies in the first place? By filming in black and white, movies can sometimes be more dreamlike and elegant and stylized and mysterious. They can add a whole additional dimension to reality, while color sometimes just supplies additional unnecessary information."
Media mogul Ted Turner
Ted Turner
Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the cable news network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television...
was once an aggressive proponent of this process, by employing the San Diego firm American Film Technologies. When he told members of the press that he was considering colorizing Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
, his comments led to an immediate public outcry. Orson Welles had retained control over the film in his original contract, which would prevent any editing or other tampering with this film, without the express permission of Welles or his estate. About two weeks before he died in 1985, Welles asked filmmaker Henry Jaglom
Henry Jaglom
- Life and career :Born January 26, 1941 in London, England to Simon and Marie Jaglom, Henry Jaglom trained with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio in New York, where he acted, wrote and directed off-Broadway theater and cabaret before settling in Hollywood in the late 1960s...
, "Don't let Ted Turner deface my movie with his crayons." Turner Pictures had never actually announced that this was an upcoming planned project. Turner later stated that this was a joke designed to needle colorization critics, and that he never had any intention of colorizing the film.
John Huston's opposition to the colorization of his work led to a landmark 3-year French legal case after his death, sparked by a colorized version of The Asphalt Jungle
The Asphalt Jungle
The Asphalt Jungle is a 1950 film noir directed by John Huston. The caper film is based on the novel of the same name by W. R. Burnett and stars an ensemble cast including Sterling Hayden, Jean Hagen, Sam Jaffe, Louis Calhern, James Whitmore, and, in a minor but key role, Marilyn Monroe, an unknown...
. His daughter Anjelica Huston
Anjelica Huston
Anjelica Huston is an American actress. Huston became the third generation of her family to win an Academy Award, for her performance in 1985's Prizzi's Honor, joining her father, director John Huston, and grandfather, actor Walter Huston. She later was nominated in 1989 and 1990 for her acting in...
successfully used French copyright law
French copyright law
The droit d'auteur developed in the 18th century at the same time as copyright developed in the United Kingdom. Based on the "right of the author" instead of on "copyright", its philosophy and terminology are different from those used in copyright law in common law jurisdictions...
to set a binding precedent in 1991 that prevents the distribution or broadcasting in France of any colorized version of a film against the wishes of the original creator or their heirs.
Because of the high cost of the process, Turner Entertainment stopped colorizing titles. With the coming of DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
technology, the notion of colorization was once again gaining press. Because the DVD format was more versatile, studios could offer viewers the option to choose between both versions without switching discs, and thus, the release of colorized titles once again seemed profitable. Some companies re-released the older colorized versions from the 1980s—an example of this is the Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema...
box set being released in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
Other studios, such as Sony Entertainment
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
, commissioned West Wing Studios to colorize several Three Stooges
Three Stooges
The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy act of the early to mid–20th century best known for their numerous short subject films. Their hallmark was physical farce and extreme slapstick. In films, the Stooges were commonly known by their first names: "Moe, Larry, and Curly" and "Moe,...
films for DVD release. The studio was given access to the original Columbia Studios props and sets to lend authenticity to the colorized versions.
Both film and television restoration and colorization is produced by the company Legend Films
Legend Films
Legend Films, a San Diego-based company, was founded in August 2001. The company specializes in the conversion of feature films, both new release and catalog titles, and commercials from their native 2D format into 3-D film format utilizing proprietary technology and software...
. Their patented automated process was used to colorize around 100 films between 2003 and 2009. Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...
, Jane Russell
Jane Russell
Jane Russell was an American film actress and was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s....
, Terry Moore
Terry Moore (actress)
Helen Luella Koford , better known as Terry Moore, is an American actress. Terry Moore made her film debut at age 11 and grew up with all the icons of the Hollywood era that made Hollywood what it is today, also known as "The Golden Age of Hollywood". Moore is an Academy Award nominated actress...
and Ray Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen is an American film producer and special effects creator...
have worked with the company to colorize either their own films or their personal favorites. Two movies that Legend Films are noted for is the colorization of the exploitation film
Exploitation film
Exploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex,...
Reefer Madness
Reefer Madness
Reefer Madness is a well-known 1936 American propaganda exploitation film revolving around the melodramatic events that ensue when high school students are lured by pushers to try "marijuana" — from a hit and run accident, to manslaughter, suicide, attempted rape, and descent into madness...
, for which certain color schemes were used to create a psychedelic effect in its viewers, and Plan 9 from Outer Space
Plan 9 from Outer Space
Plan 9 from Outer Space is a 1959 science fiction film written and directed by Edward D. Wood, Jr. The film features Gregory Walcott, Mona McKinnon, Tor Johnson and Maila "Vampira" Nurmi...
. Recently (2007), Legend Films colorized It's a Wonderful Life for Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
(whose subsidiary, Republic Pictures
Republic Pictures
Republic Pictures was an independent film production-distribution corporation with studio facilities, operating from 1934 through 1959, and was best known for specializing in westerns, movie serials and B films emphasizing mystery and action....
, had regained control of the copyright in the 1990s) and Holiday Inn
Holiday Inn (film)
Holiday Inn is a 1942 American musical film starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, with music by Irving Berlin. The film has twelve songs written expressly for the film, the most notable being "White Christmas"...
in 2008 for Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
.
In 2004, a classic Indian film, Mughal-e-Azam, was colorized for theatrical release all over the world by a company called Indian Academy of Arts and Animation (IAAA) in association with Sankranti Creations. Founder of IAAA and Owner of [Sankranti creations], Rajeev Dwivedi used this technology for the first time in India.
In 2005, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is the home video distribution arm of Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation. It was established in November 1979 as Columbia Pictures Home Entertainment, releasing 20 titles: The Anderson Tapes, Bell, Book and Candle, Born Free, Breakout,...
released the first season of Bewitched
Bewitched
Bewitched is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for eight seasons on ABC from 1964 to 1972, starring Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York and Dick Sargent , Agnes Moorehead, and David White. The show is about a witch who marries a mortal and tries to lead the life of a typical suburban...
on DVD. Because the first season was produced in black-and-white, Sony released two versions of the set: one with the episodes as originally broadcast and a second with the episodes colorized. A year later, the second season of Bewitched and the first season of I Dream of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie is a 1960s American sitcom with a fantasy premise. The show starred Barbara Eden as a 2,000-year-old genie, and Larry Hagman as an astronaut who becomes her master, with whom she falls in love and eventually marries...
, another show owned by Sony, were released the same way. These releases were colorized by Dynacs Digital, which was bought over by Florida based, West Wing Studios, Inc. in 2003. Their production facility is located in Goa, India.
Documentary make-overs
Colorization is sometimes used on documentaryDocumentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
programmes. The Beatles Anthology
The Beatles Anthology
The Beatles Anthology is the name of a documentary series, a set of three double albums and a book focusing on the history of The Beatles. Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr all participated in the making and approval of the works, which are sometimes referred to collectively as the...
TV show colorizes some footage of the band, most notably the performance of "All You Need Is Love
All You Need Is Love
"All You Need Is Love" is a song written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was first performed by The Beatles on Our World, the first live global television link. Watched by 400 million in 26 countries, the programme was broadcast via satellite on 25 June 1967...
" from the TV special Our World (1967). In the documentary this scene begins in its original black-and-white before dissolving
Dissolve (film)
In the post-production process of film editing and video editing, a dissolve is a gradual transition from one image to another. The terms fade-out and fade-in and are used to describe a transition to and from a blank image. This is in contrast to a cut where there is no such transition. A dissolve...
into seemingly realistic, psychedelic color. The color design was based on color photographs taken at the same time as the special was shot.
The documentary series World War I in Color (2003) was broadcast on television and released on DVD in 2005. There had previously been full-color documentaries about World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
using genuine color footage, but since true color film was not practical for moving pictures at the time of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the series consists of colorized contemporary footage (and photographs). Several documentaries on the Military Channel
Military Channel
The Military Channel is a cable and satellite television network which broadcasts television programming related to the military, warfare and military history. It is part of the group of networks owned by Discovery Communications within the United States and Canada...
feature colorized war footage from the Second World War and the Korean War.
The 1960 Masters Tournament, originally broadcast in black-and-white and recorded on kinescope
Kinescope
Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor...
, was colorized by Legend Films for the documentary Jim Nantz Remembers. This was the first time a major sports event had been re-broadcast using colorization.
The Greatest Game Ever Played
NFL Championship Game, 1958
The 1958 National Football League Championship Game was played on December 28, 1958 at Yankee Stadium in New York City. It was the first ever National Football League playoff game to go into sudden death overtime. The final score was Baltimore Colts 23, New York Giants 17. The game has since...
, the 1958 NFL Championship between the Baltimore Colts
Indianapolis Colts
The Indianapolis Colts are a professional American football team based in Indianapolis. They are currently members of the South Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League ....
and the New York Giants
New York Giants
The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in East Rutherford, New Jersey, representing the New York City metropolitan area. The Giants are currently members of the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
was colorized by Legend Films for ESPN
ESPN
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....
for a sports broadcast special in December 2008.
Further reading
- Anthony Slide, Nitrate Won't Wait: A History of Film Preservation in the United States (pg 9, August 1, 2000), ISBN 0-7864-0836-7