Tweet OK, I'm going to be the bad guy here

I posted this thread in "Collecting and Preservation" because of my concern for a growing trend here on Nitrateville and what I speak of colorization of black and white press/movie scene photos. I was not happy with all those crappy colorization films that came out in the 80's/90's such as Topper, Citizen Kane, The Three Stooges Shorts, It's A Wonderful Life, or even half of the otherwise decent Laurel & Hardy Box Set that came out of the UK a few years back. I didn't think we'd be going back in time with these colorizations but it appears we have and it appears that the "artistry" has devolved also. The black and white photos, when original, show so much depth and detail, I just find these modern colorizations to be limp and lifeless with no feeling other than "ooh pretty colors". So, please, can we have a moratorium on these travesties; if it ain't broke, then there's no need to fix it. End of rant.

Louie, I share your concern with sabotaging the work of cinematographers and photographers who worked in b/w and used the inherent drama of b/w and a variety of greytones to create their work. That said, my own use of colorizing b/w stills has been limited to newspaper photos or selected movie stills where it seems apparent that the use of b/w film was utilitarian rather than artistic. Entire chapters (posts) at the Arliss Archives use only b/w because there are portraits that were intended for that medium. I'd yell as loudly as you if it were otherwise. I ask myself if color film had been as readily available as b/w, would the photographer have used b/w?

Tomorrow's new post on the Arliss Archives use entirely colorized photos so you may want to avoid it. Besides, I don't like the term "colorization" because of its 1990s connotation of ruining so many b/w movies. I prefer to think of myself as a cinemagraphic painter.

Thank you. I prefer the original black and white, and am sure Melbourne Spurr, Hoover, Witzel, Rahmn, Woodbury, White Studios, Richee, Keyes, Estep, Strauss Peyton, Hixon, Hesser, Johnston, Steichen, Fryer, Bull, Hurrell, etc. would too.

Me too - and I won't "paint" their work.

Louie,
CITIZEN KANE was never colorized. Tests were done by Turner, but Orson Welles contract specifically said that it can't be altered without his personal approval. It was a bit too late for that.

DM

I might as well confess my ulterior motive in, uh, painting some b/w stills. And that's to get the Gen Xers and Yers to take a look. There are millions of people including lots of boomers who simply will not watch a b/w movie. We can pontificate how shallow such people are but that doesn't address the issue if we residents of N'ville hope to keep our beloved films alive. My idea is to entice these people with the color and then show them the beauty of b/w. You have to deal with people where you find them, not where you'd like them to be..

[Mike Gebert]

They don't especially offend me, since it was common enough to tint photos on lobby cards and the like back then. But they all look a bit garish to me, and there's no substitute for really beautiful black and white.

That said, when I'm doing the mastheads, sometimes I find a little splash of duotone-- just a hint of color-- makes an otherwise flat image come to life and spring out of the gray background on the site.

But I never thought that color alone was likely to interest younger people in movies that are still obviously old, square and sooooo boring. I always felt the target audience for colorization was TV programmers, not viewers.

Good point. When I see all the posters, lobby cards, glass slides and magazine covers that colorized b/w, sometimes garously, there really is an historic precedent here. And as you said Mike, some color really makes some photos pop into life.

Not to mention that a lot of silent films were designed to be colorized -- stencil-tinting, for example.

They did a colorization test for Citzen Kane in the 80's, but the very dark and somewhat contrasting photography style did not get any good results, as colorization quality depends of a good range of graytones.

I see no problem about colorize films for Kids, or family films, TV series for KIDs and some B films, as long the original B&W it's still available.

Turner and his colorization in the 80's also helped a lot film restoration. Turner, hated or not many, bought rights for a lot of old films and wanted to find a market, and colors was a way to atract public. Whitou that I don't think he would have invested so much in the restoration of the films.

Colorization it's still 2D, and what is different today is that the resolution of the tranfer is higher, have some digital restoration, and a very huge palette, more precise color spectrum for each objet, more sellection of objects for different colors, and adaptations for color in case of for light changes in scenes and other variables. But it's still 2D...
Similar like paint a postcard, as the initial step is the segmentation of all objests.

Today in theory, it's already possible, or almost, to put colors and get also all 3D interactions of ligh in objects and characters, to get the proper variances of hue along the 3D surface, and to track variable color detais on skin and other pieces (actual colorization just put values mostly based on grayscale variation). This involve 3D estimation of all set elements, and in theory would reduce o eliminate the somewhat flat colors aspect that many scenes have in colorized films.
But 3D estimation of a entire film it's expansive, out of the usual budget of a film colorization project.

Technicolor look was never recreated, not preciselly, in any colorized film. To start, if you get a B&W footage of The Wizard of Oz, it will be different than a technicolor footage, (in terms of grayscale) even if shot in the same set with same lighting. Technicolor dye transfer process make the sky bluer, the reds reder, etcc... and the gray values change. For example, a sky in the B&W footage would be brighter, and colorization would not make it a very blue like a dye tranfer process. And contrast balance do not solve the problem, cause the alterations of gray values are not global, but depnds of the color saturation of each object.

In case colorization could use the precise complete 3D estimation I referes, would be possible to look very close to a modern film, if the B&W footage was fine in detais and fine in dynamic range.
If after colorized, the file go through a simulator of a Dye tranfer process, in theory would look like technicolor, but the original gray values would be altered acording the colors, altering the original film.
But it would be something we never saw beore in terms of film alteration. I bet it would be great to see, even than just as curiosity and not for a entire film.

If you watche the Aviator VFX videos about the technicolor creation(that use modern color films and try to recreate 3 strip technicolor using digital simulation), we can see that the sky in the 3 Strip technicolor simulation get very different. It turn very pure blue.
The simulation exagerate a bit the processes, pushing quite more than most technicolor movies did, but works for we understand.

The first colorized films to get theatrical release (and approved by the director) are from Bollywood, indian films, colorized a couple years ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyxQjP5xghg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvXsLU0y ... ure=fvwrel

One thing I forgot... make up... Vintage B&W make-up style... you can't change that, and so a very dense make-up, like Laurel&Hardy in early 30's films, will always look a little that way, even after colorization.

Colorization it's not dead :




Double meaning in this sentence if you look this image and know about The Seventh Seal... Háa háaaa háaaa

Louie,
CITIZEN KANE was never colorized. Tests were done by Turner, but Orson Welles contract specifically said that it can't be altered without his personal approval. It was a bit too late for that.

DM

Sorry, my error, maybe it was Casablanca or the Maltese Falcon I was thinking of.....

I might as well confess my ulterior motive in, uh, painting some b/w stills. And that's to get the Gen Xers and Yers to take a look. There are millions of people including lots of boomers who simply will not watch a b/w movie. We can pontificate how shallow such people are but that doesn't address the issue if we residents of N'ville hope to keep our beloved films alive. My idea is to entice these people with the color and then show them the beauty of b/w. You have to deal with people where you find them, not where you'd like them to be..

This is crazy talk. I know many Gen Xers (I'm one, thank you very much) and Yers who watch black and white films, I guess your talking to the wrong "kids".

Seriously you can't have it both ways. Go to any of these classic film festivals and even bring up something like "hey, I just went to see Scream 4 and it was terriffic!" and watch the stares you'll get form people who think this modern stuff is all crap.

I haven't seen one of these colorized photos that look half way decent and if you think looking at a terrible color painted photo is gonna get some "kid" to watch b&w films your nuts. What they usually do when I show some to them they just critique it and say, "someone doesn't know how to use Photoshop".

Here's more crazy talk - having this discussion on N'ville is the proverbial case of preaching to the choir. Louie, you and your pals aren't the target audience because you're already on board. A few months ago there was a thread here about the future of silent films vis-a-vis the level of interest to keep them commercially viable. We're concerned about where all this is heading so don't begrudge us our attempts to recruit more fans. Coloring b/w photos may be misguided as you claim, but it doesn't endanger the originals, at least those in my collection, and I can delete the colorized version with the click of a button on my keyboard.

If some significant number of people did not prefer the colorized version, believe me, they would not colorize films.

One company that is now the leader in 3D conversion, raised all the 6 millions dollars, to invest in 3D vonversion software development, which they use now, just from colorizing films to release as DVD.


Now one point:

Do you think 3D conversion it's a alteration that would hurt the original director's intention or the original artistic ???

George Lucas plans to convert all Star Wars films to 3D.
Well... his films, he decide...

But what about convert Casablanca to 3D ?

Coloring b/w photos may be misguided as you claim, but it doesn't endanger the originals, at least those in my collection, and I can delete the colorized version with the click of a button on my keyboard.

Coloring b/w stills has a long, long history. Although a few color processes for still photography were around before color negative film (not easy, registration needed to be very precise), hand coloring was the only way it could be done economically. It certainly was done in the early part of the last century, so I see no problems with doing it with new technology. At least the print isn't altered now.

Russia before revolution... IN COLOR !!!

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/20 ... rly-1900s/

Three B&W cameras placed as close as possible, and a red, a green and a blue filter.

Not perfect. See image 33, and the color distorced waves on the river indicate the three shots was not exactly at same time, or not always at least.
the color photos was color balanced and aligned by computer, but not colorized anyway.

The result it's bether than Lumiere's autochrome, but I do not know if in the time it was shot, there was a decent way to visualize, or vizualize with the proper color balance.
I bet they in the time try projected using filters, and trying to align on a screen.


But B&W emulsions before 1922 was not sensitive to all colors, but more to blue and green, while reds get dark results.
There was some technics to try to make sensible to all colors, like exposing the film to hydrogen gas and using darker filters to blue and green, to to try compensate the red sensibility deficiency.

[silentfilm]

People may say that they are not interested in black and white films, but what they mean is that they are not interested in "old" films, the culture from decades ago, or film history. It's not much different than saying that you don't like Chinese food because of the smell, so you won't try any of it. Or saying that you won't watch a foreign-language film because it's too hard to read the subtitles.

Of course, with the right guidance, you could just find the right Warner Brothers cartoon, Keaton comedy, or noir mystery with Humphrey Bogart to discover a whole new world.

People may say that they are not interested in black and white films, but what they mean is that they are not interested in "old" films, the culture from decades ago, or film history. It's not much different than saying that you don't like Chinese food because of the smell, so you won't try any of it. Or saying that you won't watch a foreign-language film because it's too hard to read the subtitles.

Of course, with the right guidance, you could just find the right Warner Brothers cartoon, Keaton comedy, or noir mystery with Humphrey Bogart to discover a whole new world.

Yes, I have been fitfully successful with this approach. I don't really try to be an evangelist, but in my loaning disks out I have been able to get some friends who have little knowledge of the films of the silent and early sound periods to enjoy them.

Sorry folks, I couldn't resist......

Sometimes, as you might have seen in the "colorization thread," I've dabbled in this. Personally, I look at what I do as a derivative artwork—not meant to replace the original, or make it more palatable to others, but simply in an experiment in light and color.

If you look at some of the work that I posted, you'll see that I'm not just dropping in color like some paint-by-numbers oil painting, but carefully considering how colored light plays against differently colored light. So in contrast, as an exercise, I find it to be a very useful tool in understanding lighting technique when doing actual color photography.

(Plus, the shot of Glenn Strange as Frankenstein has been sold on eBay enough times for me to cover the rent at least once.)

OK, well does anyone think this looks limp and lifeless, or lacks depth?




Gilbert Roland and Mary Astor-Rose Of The Golden West (1927)

:? OK, well does anyone think this looks limp and lifeless, or lacks depth?




Gilbert Roland and Mary Astor-Rose Of The Golden West (1927)

Yes, those eyes make them look like Zombies.

It looks like a piece of period publicity art that would be quite beautiful from a few steps away. That's not meant to condemn, close up views are killers (as any movie actor will tell you)

:? OK, well does anyone think this looks limp and lifeless, or lacks depth?

I'm afraid so, yes. The skin tones are all wrong......and uniform. Skin tones vary all over a face, subtly, and it isn't just shadow and shading. Uniformity like that gives the impression of....well, yes, corpses.

:? OK, well does anyone think this looks limp and lifeless, or lacks depth?




Gilbert Roland and Mary Astor-Rose Of The Golden West (1927)

Yes.

Humph! Tough crowd here. On another forum I was just told how great this photo is. They commented how it looked so alive. It was originally tinted sort of a yellow, so it was not easy to work with. Mary Astor and Gilbert Roland's skin-tone is not the same. His is actually a bit darker, and tanner.

[Danny Burk]

Not to say that I approve of coloring b&w originals - there's nothing wrong with a beautiful b&w - but if you're going to do it, it would be a good idea for it to look as natural as possible. I agree that skin tones here are off by quite a lot. I couldn't resist playing with it for a few minutes in Photoshop; I've done nothing but change skin tones here. Ignore Gilbert's present condition, since he would need further work, but Mary looks more natural now:

This will probably serve only as a demonstration of why I should never be allowed anywhere near Photoshop. I tend to see my uh cinemagraphic painting in terms of three-strip Technicolor. In this case, I think I'm seeing Gilbo and Mary in two-strip Technicolor. I can't decide which effect is (you choose) better or worse:

Danny,

It looks great, but the color is also more pronounced than it was before. I try to keep the skin-tone more subtle. I could have gave it more tan, but why? If you want more pigment on the faces, just let me know? Understand that on my monitor the brightness and contrast settings are at well under 50%, because of my weak eyes. So it is a little difficult for me to know what other people may be seeing on their own monitor screens. Also you need to take into account if you are using Warm, Cool, or some other Color settings?

OK, so if I understand correctly, a print of ROSE OF THE GOLDEN WEST may exist in the Czech Archive? Is this correct?

Here is another photo for everyone to tear down. I acknowledge that the puffs, have way to much color, but haven't been able to fix this.




Colleen Moore and Virginia Lee Corbin-1929