They Shall Not Grow Old

[All Darc]

One things:

-Will this great quality colorization & restoration work give a new standart to film or documentary colorization?

Maybe yes, maybe not. At least people will spot big projects and said : "Hey, it's not so good as Peter Jackson documentary..." So it will force projects with fine budget to try to improove the look. Maybe now Legend Films finaly get a brick wall right.

But low cost colorization, used in most documentaries, like from History Channel and Smithsonian Channel, will never had budget to reach such prime quality. By what I notice low cost color jobs most are made by different low cost ventures in India or different skilled artists, some scenes getting more care and other not even decent job.

[wingate]

Being shown Oct 25-29 at Imperial War Museum London at 5 &7 pm.Free.

[Jim Roots]

I've only seen the brief clips posted here and there so far, so my opinion is very tentative. I think the colour looks excellent ... a shade too excellent. It looks glossy. Not phony, just glossy. This sheen may occasionally tip the restoration too far to the other side, i.e., the colour film becomes as unreal to the viewer as the original black and white. It's a slight distancing effect similar to whenever you get a CGI shot of a big city skyline.* But I don't know for sure yet, since I haven't seen the actual production.

Nonetheless, it seems to be wonderful and I'm really looking forward to seeing it whenever it becomes available on this side of the little pond.

* My wife and I are watching Victoria, and every time they insert a skyline shot, it destroys the illusion of reality in the series for us. Way too obviously a CGI imaging.

Jim

[All Darc]

Please take this youtube link bellow, set 1080p full screen, adjust the Player speed to 0.25, set the timecode to 03:09, and look how not just the contrast but the sharpness and true details get better when the image changes from unrestored to restored.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL9w2dBzm70

Look the dog and the grass near the dog in the center of the screen. Look how it get better definition.

It's incredible. Unles the unrestored it's from a dupe print and the restored it's from camera negative or fine grain master well made from camera negative, this quality tastes like Lowry Digital's technology, since Lowry's tools are the only true able to recover detais instead of just sharpen details already present.
A digital clean-up + deflicker + B&W grading wouldn't had look that impressive.

That's why I keep saying such technology to recover details it's the future.
For me even many modern 4K restoration are not definitive, specially when not from camera negative, since a technology like Lowry's tools could be used to better treat a dupe portion to get nearly as original camera negative would be.

Another good example of details recover to see in slow motion it's at timecode 0:39

[All Darc]

About forensic lip-reading use for TSNGO documentary :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdmAfsm18tA

They did a similar work for Warsaw Uprising in color (colorized by Legend Films).

I wonder what would they found if tried to read lips in many famous silent films.

Warsaw Uprising in color also had a good colorization job :



But not as detailed as TSNGO, since they abused a bit of the gradient color spectrum tool, aplying a entire same sellection for a wall, like this case bellow, where the space between bricks get distortions in color :



And they didn't tried to get some extra color for cheacks or lower saturation for the shaved beard area:

[bigshot]

My wife and I are watching Victoria, and every time they insert a skyline shot, it destroys the illusion of reality in the series for us. Way too obviously a CGI imaging.

That's just a function of the budgets for television. Ten years ago, it would have been much more primitive, and 50 years ago, it would be done using models or matte paintings. I'm sure in 20 more years, computer generated landscapes will be even more sophisticated, and stock models of all kinds of environments will exist so it can be generated in real time... Kind of like what they show in this video...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFB3ardisnc

I wonder what would they found if tried to read lips in many famous silent films.

Hey Buster, when do I get paid?

[All Darc]

So many Keaton films that survived only in poor dupes.
This technology, used in They Shall Not Grow Old, that recoved many nice fine details, should be used in important classic silent films.

Bigshot, please make the test I said (bellow), and tells me if you agree with me.

"Please take this youtube link bellow, set 1080p full screen, adjust the Player speed to 0.25, set the timecode to 03:09, and look how not just the contrast but the sharpness and true details get better when the image changes from unrestored to restored."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL9w2dBzm70

[All Darc]

Peter Jackson in a long interview about the work :


Uhn...I see now... They restored 100 hour but colorized just bits.
Im wonder if the entire 100 hours of restoration get the iamge detail improoviment or not, since if it's Lowry Digital system, it's quite expensive.

[oldposterho]

Good news for those of us looking forward to this, TSNGO has been picked up by Warner Bros. for distribution.

https://deadline.com/2018/10/peter-jack ... 202491670/

[s.w.a.c.]

Good news for those of us looking forward to this, TSNGO has been picked up by Warner Bros. for distribution.

https://deadline.com/2018/10/peter-jack ... 202491670/

The story says WB is hoping to have it in theatres by year's end, too bad it likely won't be in time for the 100th anniversary of the Armistice on Nov. 11, but better late than never I suppose. At least this means there's a good chance that I'll get to see it on a big screen in these parts.

[Oppiedog]

Good news for those of us looking forward to this, TSNGO has been picked up by Warner Bros. for distribution.

https://deadline.com/2018/10/peter-jack ... 202491670/

Hoping it gets more than a limited release to New York and LA so it actually makes it to a local theater.

[All Darc]

They forgot to colorize the tongue, gum and teeth of the soldier in the front left of the picture:



A error quite often in colorization works.
The mustache also looks too flat gray.
Hope they fix it.

[s.w.a.c.]

That image may have been colourized separately from the film version. It doesn't seem so noticeable in the actual trailer posted at the start of this thread. The moustache looks a little browner, at least.

[Oppiedog]

Noted on another site that "They Shall Not Grow Old" is suppose to be aired on BBC2 on Nov 11th with a behind the scenes documentary to air the following day on BBC4

[All Darc]

The gum and teeth still looks grayn in the trailler.

I don't think the colorization was so separated from the 3D conversion, despite be from the restoration.
In colorization the basic it's to create masks to each element to receive color, the process know as image segmentation, despite this specific work in this film gave much more details to separated pieces or areas than any colorization attempt before. The 3D conversion also involves image segmentation plus creation of depth masks.

Everything could be in a single software (in theory) and the image segmentation and depth masks would be used to help better fixes in the restoration work, and better grain management. Depth masks would allow 3D analyse instead of 2D analyze of convention software. If I have someone who listen to me...

I didn'd found anything about Lowry Digital tools, despite the quality of the restoration of TSNGO looks far better, in terms of image detail recovery and grain reduction, while working on very dupe prints, than any Criterion Collection restorations. You know very well that most reviews, like DVD Beaver and Blu-Ray.Com, always dislike sharpening tools for Blu-ray editions, saying it gave artificial video processing look.

In They Shall Not Grow Old the artificial look it's more about the lack of grain than the sharppening itself. But the lack of grain of the restored file could be solved by adding a fine grain texture, fine enough to do not hide details and do not not soft the image.

I will try to contact Peter Jackson and see if he would like to share this approuch, or own technology if it's the case, to help restore silents films with problems of bad dupe surviving footage. You may laugh on me, a single mortal trying to contact such important director, but I have to try.

[Oppiedog]

I will try to contact Peter Jackson and see if he would like to share this approuch, or own technology if it's the case, to help restore silents films with problems of bad dupe surviving footage. You may laugh on me, a single mortal trying to contact such important director, but I have to try.

Horatius was also but a mere mortal. Good Luck!!

[T0m M]

Two nights ago was the 80th anniversary of Orson Welles' radio broadcast of War of the Worlds and since the centenary of the Great War armistice is also close at hand, I decided it was an appropriate time to revisit an alternate history documentary, The Great Martian War. H.G. Wells' classic tale of a Martian invasion of Earth is retold in events that parallel those of the Great War. Stock Great War footage is digitally manipulated by inserting CGI Martian tripods but purists will be happy to know that there was no alternate history Peter Jackson to clean up and colourize the images. which retained all their grainy, scratchy, B&W glory.

[bigshot]

That is a great idea! Brownlow did something similar in a newsreel segment in It Happened Here.

[Arndt]

Two nights ago was the 80th anniversary of Orson Welles' radio broadcast of War of the Worlds and since the centenary of the Great War armistice is also close at hand, I decided it was an appropriate time to revisit an alternate history documentary, The Great Martian War. H.G. Wells' classic tale of a Martian invasion of Earth is retold in events that parallel those of the Great War. Stock Great War footage is digitally manipulated by inserting CGI Martian tripods but purists will be happy to know that there was no alternate history Peter Jackson to clean up and colourize the images. which retained all their grainy, scratchy, B&W glory.

I had not been aware of this. I took a few looks at it. I am left with the hope that - if there is such a thing as reincarnation - the makers of this piece get sent to the trenches in their next lives.

[Mike Gebert]

US screenings in December:

https://variety.com/2018/film/news/pete ... 203025072/

[Donald Binks]

I watched this documentary today. The picture element plays as secondary to the voices, the voices of the men who fought in the Great War. They were there and they bring home exactly what it was like from their first hand experiences. Their reminiscences are stark, factual and not without some black humour.

The film is book-ended by black and white footage and the colour does not start until at least twenty minutes in. When it does start it is quite dramatic. It's as if someone has pushed the viewer head-first into a living, breathing other age. The colour is augmented by sound effects and dubbed-in voices, but it is never intrusive or at any time over-shadowing the narratives given by the eye-witnesses. It brings all who watch it as close as they will ever be able to come to seeing this horrible war as it really was. Some of the scenes are not things one particularly wishes to see.

Peter Jackson, I think has set about to bring a new perspective to a younger generation's appreciation of this war. There are none left to tell them of it. I therefore think that he has succeeded handsomely in his mission and at the same time he has honoured the memory of those nearly one million poor souls who sacrificed their lives for King and Empire.

[Brooksie]

The Sight and Sound review is especially interesting, touching specifically on the controversy over the use of archival material: https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sig ... ge-revived.

[oldposterho]

The switch from the B&W, square aspect ratio to the full, enhanced color is as dramatic and effective as Dorothy's first steps into Oz. I think having just watched some of the original footage from The Battle of the Somme it helped me to recognize many of the shots and they were, quite frankly, much more impactful in color and smoothed. Maybe it's just me but I think the 'original' shots force a detachment to the modern viewer that those watching in the day would not have had. Yes, the coloring was not perfect but it is very well done and created a sense of intimacy that I don't ordinarily feel when watching B&W footage, for whatever reason.

Happily, since it's not like Jackson melted down the original material for the silver, those who can't abide this new take will always have the source footage, and I suspect his influence will guarantee that all that original footage will make it for our descendants viewing pleasure for the 200 year anniversary, should our Alpha Centauri overlords allow it.

While not perfect, it is an effective introduction to the War to End All Wars and its horrors that many people today have no reference point to or connection with.

[Daniel Eagan]

Imagine how Jackson could fix Ida and Cold War.

[IA]

The Sight and Sound review is especially interesting

Interesting, yes, but I also thought it was unconvincing, pretentious guff--the reviewer did little more than find an opportunity to drag in Walter Benjamin to praise Jackson's "phantasmagoric" Frankenstein monster.

[bigshot]

The preorder of the blu-ray is up at Amazon UK. I'm looking forward to getting to see this.

[s.w.a.c.]

Just learned that there are local screenings here in Halifax on Dec. 17 and 27. I suspect this may be the case for Cineplex Theatres across Canada, so check your listings. Tickets are already on sale.

NOTE: There are separate entries for the 2D screening and also the 3D version. Made more confusing by the fact that on Dec. 27, they're showing both the 2D and 3D versions.

[bigshot]

The blu-ray of this arrived and I screened it last night. People who are complaining about this film must not have seen it. It has a LOT of well restored footage that isn't digitally enhanced, and as a documentary, it is well organized and packs a wallop. The transition from the regular historical footage to the colorized footage was very well handled, and the shift really emphasized how these young men were thrust into a totally different world. The compositions didn't suffer at all from being recomposed for 1.85; in fact a lot of the footage looked as if it was shot that way. The voice over accounts from WWI veterans were perfect and created a gripping narrative. I thought this was a very good documentary. I'll watch this again before I watch any lugubriously paced Ken Burns documentary.

[fwtep]

I saw this tonight in 3D. To those who think it's wrong to have altered the original filmmakers' vision, I posit a different way of thinking of it: These are films of real people, and I fully believe that they would be happy to know that this was done. It honors them and presents their story and lives in a way that jerky black and white could not do.

That said, it didn't look as good as I'd hoped. But given the condition of the original footage, that's not a huge surprise. I suspect it'll play a lot better on TV, or even the average size people use for home projectors. Then again, as someone who does visual effects for a living, I notice problems more than other people might.

[Nick_M]

I, too, expected it to look a lot better. This "restoration" is splotchy, smeary, and its motion interpolation moves as badly as on TVs from a decade ago, with grain seemingly glued on top of people. I've seen pristine (how Jackson abuses that word!) restorations, and this was two hours of processing artifacts. And the projectors at Arclight Hollywood were vertically misaligned.