Film colorization

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Film colorization or film colourisation is any process that involves adding color to black and white, sepia or monochrome moving-picture images. The earliest examples date back to the early 20th century, but it has become more practical and more common since the development of digital image processing. It has been done with different effects for various reasons, some of which are controversial.

Contents 1 Techniques 2 Partial colorization 3 Restoration 4 Integration 5 Entertainment make-overs 6 Documentary make-overs 7 Notes 8 Further reading 9 External links

[edit] Techniques

During the late 1950s and the 1960s, black and white 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.^[1] 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 initial process was invented by Canadians Wilson Markle and Brian Hunt^[2] and was first used in 1970 to add color to monochrome footage of the moon from the Apollo mission.

Colorization typically begins with a monochrome film print. From the film print, a high quality videotape copy is made. Technicians, aided by a computer, identify the grey level of every object in every shot and note any movement of objects within shots. A computer adds color to each object, while keeping grey levels the same as in the monochrome original.^[3] This technique was patented in 1991.^[4]

Movies colorized using early techniques have softer contrast and fairly pale, flat, washed out color. However, the technology has improved since the 1980s, and several black and white TV shows and films have been given what is claimed to be a completely lifelike colorization.

A major difficulty with colorization has been its labor-intensiveness. For example, in order to colorize a still image an artist typically begins by dividing the image into regions, and then proceeds to assign a color to each region. This approach, also known as the segmentation method, is time consuming and requires a great deal of painstaking work on dividing the picture into correct segments. This problem occurs mainly since there are no fully automatic algorithms that always identify correctly fuzzy or complex region boundaries, such as between a subject’s hair and face.

Colorization of moving images also requires tracking regions as movement occurs across the frames of a particular scene. Again, there have been no completely reliable automatic region-tracking algorithms. One computer-assisted method for colorizing was developed by a team of researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Benin School of Computer Science and Engineering. The new method is an interactive process that 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 colors.^[5] A recent approach is the Timebrush RLC [Real Life Colour] process that uses Artificial Neural Networks to create real life like gradations for natural scene content. In this process, a neural net is pre-trained to mimic characteristics of real world color models [sky, trees, skin tones, etc]. During the color rendering process the neural net then provides life-like simulation of color gradations and variation, hence adding extra depth and realism to a colorized scene.^[6]

[edit] 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 aniline dyes onto the emulsion.

By around 1905, Pathé introduced Pathéchome, a stencil process that involved cutting glass stencils for each frame with a pantograph.

In 1916, the Handschiegl Color Process was invented for the 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 sufur 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).

This approach has also been used since the introduction of color film as well, for artistic effect. Rumble Fish (1983) was filmed in black and white, with only two objects shown in color: the fish in the pet store and a Rusty James' reflection in the police car at the end (the film's storyline featured a character referred to as The Motorcycle Boy who is color-blind).

Similarly, Schindler's List (1993), filmed in black and white except for modern "bookend" sequences, features a single scene in which a little girl in a large crowd is seen to be wearing red. Other recent films that make use of partial colorization include Pleasantville (1998) in which color gradually takes over black and white scenes, and Sin City (2005) which features selective color based on the use of color in the graphic novels.

[edit] Restoration

A number of British 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 and it is widely rumoured that more sophisticated colorization technology will be used to restore other Doctor 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 programs originally made in black and white.^[7]

[edit] Integration

Colorization is also sometimes used on historical stock footage in color movies. For instance, the film Thirteen Days uses colorized news footage from the time of the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. The intention was to better integrate these scenes into the film and remove the distancing effect that black and white might have on the audience. ^{[citation needed]}

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.

[edit] Entertainment make-overs

In the mid-1980s, the process drew considerable controversy when some black and white films were redistributed in color using the colorization process. Some sources cite Topper as the first black and white movie to be redistributed in a colorized version.^[8] Other sources cite Yankee Doodle Dandy as the first film to be colorized.^[9] 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 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. They also cited creative decisions that the original director might not approve of, such as the visual pun of the character Violet in It's a Wonderful Life wearing violet. Thus they argued, the original work of the artists involved is damaged.

Media mogul Ted Turner was once a particularly aggressive proponent of this process. When he told members of the press that he was considering colorizing Citizen Kane, his comments led to an immediate public outcry. 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. Turner Pictures had never actually announced that this was an upcoming planned project. Turner himself later stated that this was a joke designed to needle colorization critics, and that he never had any intention of colorizing the film. Partially due to this controversy, all films shown on American television or released to home video in an altered format (including pan and scan and "edited for television" versions), must now display a disclaimer indicating that the film "has been modified from its original version."

By the mid-1990s, the colorization controversy had died out. 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.^[10] Other studios, such as Sony Entertainment commissioned new color versions. A recent release that garnered much controversy was a set of Three Stooges DVDs featuring new colorized versions prepared by West Wing Studios, using the latest colorization technology. The studio was given access to the original props, sets, etc. in order to do research for the colorized versions.^[11]

Perhaps the best known colorization company and the one that has the most recent colorization patents in the industry on its next generation technology is Legend Films, founded by Barry Sandrew, the man who created and patented the first all digital colorization technology.^[12] Many of the works being colorized by Legend are films that have fallen into the public domain and are now copyrighted only in their colorized form in the United States. Legend has also colorized copyrighted works owned by 20th Century Fox including four box sets of Shirley Temple films. Temple herself was so impressed by Legend's work that she hired the company to do some colorization work for her. Others impressed by Legend's colorization techniques include actress Jane Russell, who collaborated with the company on a colorized version of her film debut, The Outlaw, and Ray Harryhausen, who hired the company to colorize some of his own films (which he had originally wanted to shoot in color) as well as two of his personal favorites, She and Things to Come. The company is most famous, however, for their cult film series, most notoriously, a "Special 'Addiction'" DVD of the exploitation film Reefer Madness, which used intentionally over the top color schemes to add to the film's unintentionally campy humor. Plan 9 from Outer Space, sometimes considered to be the worst movie ever made, was given similar treatment from the company.

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. The colorization on the set was done by Dynacs Digital Studios, who also used the latest colorization technology but less research. The color set outsold the black and white set by a substantial margin. 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.

[edit] Documentary make-overs

Colorization is sometimes used on documentary 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.^[13] In this case the color design was based on stills taken at the same time, so in a sense the color is "real", yet the use of artificial color in a documentary could also be regarded as misleading or even fraudulent.

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). The producers claim that their intention was to show the war literally in its true colors, without the air of unreality created by black and white film.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Notes

1. ^ The colorized cartoon database
2. ^ About.com: The History of the Motion Picture
3. ^ COLORIZATION
4. ^ Canadian Intellectual Property Office
5. ^ REVOLUTIONARY COMPUTER COLORING METHOD FOR BLACK AND WHITE SCENES DEVELOPED AT THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY
6. ^ TimeBrush Studios, Australia - Colourization of classic black and white content using RealLifeColour technology
7. ^ Doctor Who Restoration Team Official Site
8. ^ IMDb trivia for Topper
9. ^ IMDb trivia for Yankee Doodle Dandy
10. ^ DVD Beaver review: The Laurel and Hardy Collection
11. ^ MSNBC.com: Stooges DVD revives colorization debate
12. ^ San Diego: film colorization capital of the world
13. ^ Beatles Reference Library - Anthology Home Video

[edit] Further reading

• Anthony Slide, Nitrate Won't Wait: A History of Film Preservation in the United States (pg 9, August 1st, 2000), ISBN 0-7864-0836-7
• A critical essay by Gary R. Edgerton, “The Germans Wore Gray, You Wore Blue,” for IEEE Spectrum (Winter 2000) (Gary R. Edgerton is a professor and chair of the Communication and Theatre Arts Department at Old Dominion University.)

[edit] External links

• Colourisation.net - A colourisation community of practice focussing on the technical standards for colourisation
• The Institute for Colourisation
• Neural Net based software solutions for colorization and other complex real world problems
• New computer-assisted method for colorizing black and white images and movies has been developed by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem - A web article (including examples)
• Legend Films - Legend Films is holder of the key colorization patents for North America. Its official website features demonstration clips.
• TimeBrush Studios, Australia - Provides real life like colourization of classic black and white content using its RealLifeColour Neural Net based technology
• Doctor Who Colourisations - An experimental fan site that hand colors monochrome video footage and production stills for the 1960s BBC television series Doctor Who.
• Tinted Love - Boston Globe article on Legend Films (Summer, 2006) with positive quotes regarding colorization from Hollywood icons, Jane Russell, Ray Harryhausen and Terry Moore.