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Colorizing Black and White Films-The Great DebateFilm colorization is any process that involves adding color to black and white 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.
To speed up the process, the coloring is done on a computer using a digital version of the film. The film is scanned into the computer and the coloring artist can view the movie one frame at a time on the computer's screen. The artist draws the outline for each color area, and the computer fills it in. The original black-and-white film holds all of the brightness information, so the artist can paint large areas with a single color and let the original film handle the brightness gradients. This means that
the artist might only have to add 10 or so actual colors to a scene.
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 gray level of every object in every shot and note any movement of objects within shots. A computer adds color to each object, while keeping gray levels the same as in the monochrome original. This technique was patented in 1991. 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 subjects hair and face.
The Great Debate in Colorizing Black and White films began in the 1980s when, in 1985, the film Yankee Doodle Dandy became the first black and white movie to be redistributed in color thanks to computer colorization. Despite widespread opposition to the practice by many film aficionados, stars and directors, the movie won over a sizeable section of the public on its re-release.
Defenders of the process claimed 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 even if it were refined, it would not take into account that lighting compositions chosen for black and white photography 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 a particularly aggressive proponent of this process until public pressure forced him to reconsider. In particular, plans to colorize Citizen Kane led to major backlash from the film community, with directors such as John Huston demanding that the film be left alone. Orson Welles himself reportedly responded to Turner's announcement by roaring, "Tell Turner to keep his goddamned Crayolas away from my 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 died out, and Turner Entertainment stopped releasing colorized titles because of the high cost of the process. With the coming of DVD technology, colorization was once again gaining press when studios began releasing colorized DVDs of several classic and cult films. This is why Colorizing Black and White Films is considered The Great Debate.
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