Colorization: a possible solution to unreleased B/W shows? (1 Viewer)

[Mary_P]

Except that, you know, there's an entire buffet of yummy things to eat, so one need not resort to sewer rats for sustenance.

(Are we about done with this metaphor now?)

 

[Steve...O]

Bingo. A show will either sell or not sell based on how popular it is with the marketplace. A series or movie should stand on its own merits. Vulgar and unnecessary tweaks such as colorization are just as wrong as changing the actual content via edits or other means. The Bewitched/Jeannie sales was probably skewed because of availability in the marketplace and the fact the colorized boxes didn't really disclose the fact they weren't as originally presented.

Sony tried to colorize the Stooges shorts and by most accounts this was a complete failure. Fans revolted and it didn't matter how "pretty" the prints were. Consumers are generally intelligent enough to choose substance over style.

If companies like Legend Films and their counterparts really want to do some good in the long run, they should drop colorization and focus on film restoration or preservation. There are plenty of worthwhile films and TV shows that are in danger of being lost to the ages if action is not taken.

 

[Jon Martin]

I am starting to feel really old. The colorization issue was debated and settled as a disaster back in the 80's. People are still doing it?

And this is HTF. People refuse to buy DVDs because it is a syndicated cut or because it is panned and scanned, yet they believe people won't have a problem with colorization? A process that fundamentally changes the film?

Just go back and read what Martin Scorsese or Orson Welles said about it 20 years ago. The issue is dead. Leave it buried.

If companies want to make money by selling inferior product to gullible consumers, we shouldn't encourage them.

 

[JohnMor]

I don't support colorization of motion pictures, but will in some specific cases of television series: those that are not dependent on the B&W photography for mood & effect and those that were done in B&W for budgetary reasons. Sidney Sheldon stated that he wanted the first season of I Dream of Jeannie to be in color, but NBC wouldn't pony up the bucks. Not a problem for me if it's colorized then. Same with early Hazel, or The Andy Griffith Show for example. I wouldn't support colorizing The Untouchables, however, since much of its mood comes from the photography. Hazel doesn't need to be "noir."

I'm not sure if it'll get more people to see the shows or not. If it does, I'm all for it in some instances.

I loved that Sony gave us a choice with Bewitched and IDOJ (and yes, the B&W sets were readily available through just about every online store; no one is forced to accept what's stocked in a brick & morter store anymore), but I doubt that can be cost effective for most series.

It's hardly the same as removing or substituting content. And I bet there are many people who have bought older films on DVD that have had their soundtracks remastered in 5.1 which may or may not be what the original sound man's artistic intent was.

 

[MatthewA]

Creating stereo for a movie that was in mono should only be considered if multichannel score tracks exist to mix with dialogue and effects. Otherwise, leave it, and do not try to create fake stereo out of monaural sources.

 

[Thaellar]

Wow...that hurt my brain.

"Excuse me Mr. B. There are a couple of men here to see you and they don't look very friendly if you ask me"

 

[Harry-N]

The fact remains that a decision was made, be it by the network or studio, that a project would be done in black & white. Don't you think that the craftsmen of the day did their best to make those shows look their best in that black & white medium? Even moreso because they might be competing in the marketplace with color material?

No, neither HAZEL nor ANDY GRIFFITH were "film-noir", but the cameramen, lighting techs, and cinematographers of the day who worked on them weren't just giving up because someday someone would alter their work with crayons. They worked just as hard doing their jobs to make those black & white films shine, and it's a shame that anyone would want to throw their hard work away just because "it's prettier and more modern" in color.

Again, it's fine with me (but a shame) if someone wants to do that to THEIR filmed material - just leave mine alone and in its original form.

I feel the same way about original soundtracks. Do all you want to the soundtrack to provide stereo, surround, gimmicks, whatever - just provide the original soundtrack in its cleanest form for me to enjoy. The technology of DVD (heck, even VHS!) allows that, so provide multiple soundtracks if it's felt that an enhanced version is warrented. I promise you that I'll opt for the original every time.

Harry

 

[Brian GT]

That's right. You also have to remember that you needed a lot more light to film in Technicolor. The bright lights brought out all the detail and vivid colors of the clothes and sets, but lost all the shadows and any "mood" created when using B&W photography.

You can't slap color on a film that was lit for B&W. It just won't look right.

And to keep on topic, I am also in the camp that would never buy a colorized version of a B&W filmed TV show.

 

[Jon Martin]

In a way, I think it is worse. If you are removing content, at least what is left remains the way it was shot and not changed.

Yes, colorizing a sitcom isn't the same as colorizing CITIZEN KANE, but it should never be accepted by anyone with any knowledge of the medium.

 

[redbird]

Actually, wouldn't it be somewhat expensive to colorize a black and white show? If that's the case then studios would have no reason to colorize unless they charge a higher than average price for a show. Seems like the buyer gets shafted one way or another-a doctored show, a doctored show that's more expensive than it would be had it been left in black and white or no show on DVD at all. :frowning:

 

[DeWilson]

This might be true - of the 3 networks, ABC was the slowest to make the switch to color due to costs.

In fact, they didn't switch their Daytime shows to color till 1967! Long after NBC and CBS did!

 

[DeWilson]

I'm pro-colorization for shows that started in B&W and switched to color.

As I've posted before, the Colorized "Bewitched" WORKED as the sets and costumes where the same in season 3 (First year color) as seasons 1 & 2
(B&W) and were eazy to match the colors and look perfectly.

While the Colorized "I Dream of Jeannie" looked good - the sets,costumes and general feel of season 1 was different than season 2 - but give them credit,they did the best they could to 'match' the look.

Colorization has improved by leaps and bounds even since these two shows were colorized - and these looked great!

But, do the studios WANT to spend the money to colorized old B&W TV Shows when they have newer color product all they have to do is remaster and release.

 

[Barry Sandrew]

Corey - Except for restoration (dustbusting, scratch removal, film damage, splices, reel change holes, etc.), when Legend Films colorizes a film or television episode, the luminance values of the underlying image is totally untouched. During the transfer from 35mm film to high definition, the contrast is optimized for the black and white element and never compromised during the color design. The notion that colorization ruins the shadows and somehow alters the contrast was one of many misleading ideas perpetrated many years ago by a few critics that either had an agenda or were simply uniformed. Unfortunately such misinformation persists today, even with obvious examples such as "It's A Wonderful Life" which clearly dispute these notions.

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[Barry Sandrew]

I agree with Jimmy. The first colorization of "It's A Wonderful Life" made me sick as well. Capra and Stewart weren't upset that it was colorized... only that it was colorized badly and that he (Capra) didn't have a piece of the action.

The movie was never considered a classic until it fell into public domain. Indeed, this is a prime example of the benefit that public domain brings to a creative work. When the film fell into public ownership (after Capra's well deserved copyright monopoly of the film expired), it became widely available and affordable. Every family owned a VHS recording of it and it was aired from Thanksgiving to Christmas on every channel all over the country. Watching the movie became a family tradition. This increased exposure made it the most beloved Holiday classic of all time.

Considering Capra was impressed with the look of the primitive analog process back in the mid 80's (as evidenced by his signed contract to colorize the film - per Michael Agee of Hal Roach Studios) I'm certain that he would be more than thrilled with the look of the colorized Holiday classic today.

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[SD_Brian]

Uh huh. That explains why Stewart testified before Congress, asking for some kind of governmental protection against this kind of desecration: because he LOVED the idea, just not the result

 

[Mark Talmadge]

No matter how you look at it, colorizing a black and white series is, in fact, editing the program from the original and is the same as replacing the music or releasing a syndicated version of the show.

 

[Corey3rd]

Barry, so I'm supposed to believe that when you lay a "fleshtone" over a black and white actor's face and then I play that colorized scene on a black and white monitor, it will appear as the same gray level as the black and white original? What about the "stars" in the opening. will they be bright white on my black and white screen after they've been touched up by Legend? While Legend isn't using opaque paints for the color versions - the attitude that if I want to see it in black and white, i can just kill the color on my TV set and it'll be exactly the same does not hold up.

I've got the new version of It's A Wonderful Life. It does look nice, but that's only because this version tries its hardest to not fake it as a Technicolor print. But I just can't imagine the standard used on a 2 hour movie being kept up for 100 hours of a black and white show. We are talking about a business where the profit margins are thin enough that a major studio will hack off a song no matter what role it plays in the show.

On a flip note, the video masters used on my local Retro TV Network has a bad blur effect that makes the color Gomer Pyle episodes look as if they've been colorized.

 

[Michael Rogers]

If colorizing it is what it takes for these studio knuckleheads to finally release some black and white shows then go for it.

I'd prefer it uncolorized but while I am more adamant about films being left in black and white, I'm not as put off by TV show colorization.

I suppose it is because I think that these shows were shot with the idea that they would be seen on low resolution TV sets that have a million different picture settings.

With that in mind I am sure the lighting and general photography is done with a "broader brush" and it will not be hurt by the grayscale variations that will remain when I turn off the color.

If the color is good enough, I will even watch that occasionally. But I will usually watch the show in it's original Black and White.

I did this for Bewitched when I couldn't find original Black and white in any store. I couldn't see any real difference between the black and white image of the dasaturated colorized version compared to my Columbia House videotapes (except that the DVD was vastly superior in resolution).

So, either the grayscale changes don't happen (at least in the modern way colorization is done) or they are miniscule enough to not offend my admitidaly untrained eye.

I should also point out that my older DVD player is such that it can supply a color signal to either composite/S-video or Component but not both at the same time. You can choose which connection you want to use in the menu and that is where the color signal is sent, the other connection gets grayscale. So, in order for me to achieve a black and white image on the colorized DVD I simply select composite/S-video while I watch the DVD over my Component connection and it saves me from messing with the TV settings.

 

[Harry-N]

Now THAT is an interesting point. We're talking about works generally designed to be seen on poorly calibrated television sets of the '60s. The ones that cut off the top, bottom, and sides of the picture with its round tube shape; the ones that often rolled, jittered and had snow from bad reception; the ones that had sharper focus in the center part of the picture and fuzzy-at-best focus near the edges; the ones where if you had a color TV, the black and white pictures looked kind of sepia-toned.

Granted that the display devices of the day certainly didn't do the pictures any justice. As such, the creators of those shows have been known to have taken liberties with things like strings that are now visible but weren't then. But they were also forced to USE the medium to its best - meaning that the lighting, set design, etc., all had to work within the limitations of the primitive TV sets out there.

I still prefer seeing the old shows the way they were meant to be seen (albeit on my own modern television capable of so much more than the '60s models).

Harry

 

[David Rain]

People who are unwilling to watch B&W are not true fans of television or films. They're simply "consumers" who do not buy things based on quality. People like that are not going to buy an old film or television show regardless of whether it's colorized or not because they don't consider shows like that to be "hip" or "groovy".

And colorizing will also eliminate most of your true fans of these products as they do not want to see the original material bastardized in such a way. Why are people even still debating these things ? Wasn't it made blatantly clear when colorization first emerged that it is wildly unpopular among true fans as well as being horribly gaudy and distasteful ?

And why would any studio go to the trouble of colorizing an entire series on the off-chance that a few people might buy it that way ? Just clean-up the originals and release them properly, thank you very much.