Colorized films on Youtube

[Antoine Orsero]

Currently on Youtub people colorize the films Chaplin, Laurel & Hardy, Buster Keaton ...
What do you think?

[Leonard Goss]

Personally I absolutely hate colourised films, they should always be shown as they were intended to be in glorious black and white or sepia.

[Dominique De Bast]

I don't like it, neither. Black and white is part of History and has it's own qualities anyway. What does coulour add ?

[Leonard Goss]

They're only guessing at the colours anyway, probably nothing like the originals. I love black and white films, keep them that way.

[Antoine Orsero]

Totally agree with you

[Ken Finch]

I also prefer the originals. The only exception being the recent colourising of the footage shown on TV of the first world war. This really exposed the appalling conditions the men on both sides were exposed to and expected to endure. No wonder the films were banned for so many years. It also explains why so many of the survivors were so traumatised and would never talk about their experiences. Ken Finch.

[Leonard Goss]

I also prefer the originals. The only exception being the recent colourising of the footage shown on TV of the first world war. This really exposed the appalling conditions the men on both sides were exposed to and expected to endure. No wonder the films were banned for so many years. It also explains why so many of the survivors were so traumatised and would never talk about their experiences. Ken Finch.

Good point Ken, I'll second you on that one.

[Brian Fretwell]

The best point on that WWI footage was that they processed it so that it showed smoothly at 24 fps not at either higher speed or with jerky motion, caused by showing some frames twice in prvious TV or cinema films of the war.

[Michael O’Regan]

Oh dear. I can’t understand the need to colourise. Shame.

[Graham Ritchie]

I would highly recommend getting "They Shall Not Grow Old" Blu-ray.

[Janice Glesser]

Graham I have the "They Shall Not Grow Old" movie and it is definitely a work of art. I've never been a fan of colorized films...but the technique used in this film brought colorization to a whole new level. Definitely a labor of love project for Peter Jackson.

[Melvin England]

Janice and Graham - I think that film clearly demonstrates that whatever black and white material that was colourised prior to "...grow old" certainly needs to be re-done as this is such a remarkable film with a remarkable job done. I am not really a fan of colouring but always thought the attempts made on the Laurel and Hardy's years ago were lousy. I also think Antoines example could still be improved although love the fact they have managed to slow the action down a bit to look more natural.

[Graham Ritchie]

'Hi Janice and Melvin....Peter Jackson does talk about the colorization of film and the not so good results of it in the past, but I think this is the first time the high-tech computers he used for King Kong and LOTR films had been used like this. I understand that he was given only enough money for 30 minutes worth, but he felt the story he wanted to tell needed to be longer that's why he restored some b/w as well. The colorization of old b/w footage was a expensive process, but it shows also what can be done to any b/w archive footage with the present computer technology other than just CGI movies like the ones mentioned.

PS. Interesting point in using the b/w silent footage was the use of professional lip readers ""e.g used by the police" to understand what was being said and from that, to add dialogue onto the film matching it perfect to the footage.

[Brian Fretwell]

I also feel that the degree of restoration of contrast, gamma and repair damage given to the film before it was coloured helped a great deal, not to mention the frame rate changing to 24 fps. All done with great care and dedication.

I also think that the work done for the film Pleasantville, all less than total colour shots did not have the colour taken out only for the parts of the picture in B&W but for th ewhole picture and the part in colour were colourised.

[Ken Finch]

"They Shall not Grow Old" was the film I was referring to. Using lip reading to add original dialogue was also very innovative. I bet doing this with other silent film productions would produce some very interesting results!!! Ken Finch.