Film colorization: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 11:21, 31 August 2005

Revision as of 11:23, 31 August 2005

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== Other applications ==

A number of [[United Kingdom|British]] [[television]] shows which were made in colourcolor in the early [[1970s]] were [[wiping (magnetic tape)|wiped]] for economic reasons, but in some cases black and white [[telerecording]]s were made for export to countries that did not yet have colourcolor television. A notable example is the [[BBC]]'s 5-part ''[[Doctor Who]]'' story ''[[The Dæmons]]''. Only one episode survived in colourcolor; the rest existed only as black and white film recordings. The only other known recording was a poor quality off-air recording of an abridged [[United States|American]] broadcast. In the [[1990s]] the BBC colorized the black and white copies using the off-air recording as a colourcolor reference.

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 However, there are no plans to use colorization on BBC programmes originally made in black and white.

Colorization is sometimes used on [[documentary]] programmes. [[The Beatles Anthology]] TV show colorizes some footage of the Fab Four, 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 [[Dissolve (film)|dissolving]] into realistic, [[Psychedelia|psychedelic]] colourcolor. In this case the colourcolor design was based on stills taken at the same time, so in a sense the colourcolor is "real", yet the use of artificial colourcolor in a documentary could also be regarded as misleading or even fraudulent.

In [[2003]] the documentary series ''[[World War I in Colour]]'' was broadcast and released on DVD. There had previously been full-color documentaries about [[World War II]] using genuine colourcolor footage, but since true color film had not been invented at the time of [[World War I]], the entire 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. Whether this is a valid argument remains debatable.

Colorization is also sometimes used on historical [[stock footage]] in movies. For instance, the film ''[[Thirteen Days]]'' uses colorized news footage from the time of the [[Cuban missile crisis]] of [[1962]]. Again, the intention is to remove the distancing effect that black and white might have on the audience.