How to paint old movies and how much it costs

It is considered that previously, sugar was sweeter, the grass is greener and the girls prettier. Also, many warm memories of watching black and white movies with the family and receive from it huge pleasure. ”Beware of the car”, ”17 moments of spring”, ”go To fight some old”, ”Height”... All of these films were black and white, but everyone loved them. Now you can often stumble upon films of those times, but for some reason they have all the power. There's a simple explanation — get the highest score. This process is harder than it seems, but people continue to do it. Although I sometimes think that they are doing the wrong thing. It lost all the charm of the genre. This is how to digitize the records. You can argue or agree with the above, but better let's just discuss ways in which the paint films.

When he started to shoot color film

You may be surprised, but color movies started to do since the dawn of cinema. What to do and not to remove. At the time of the question was not about color films, so the color shots had hands and people did. To treat the whole film was difficult and long, so the creators painted only part of it for emphasis. For example, pistol shots, and the like. In the end, the meaning of this was not enough and so the work gradually ceased to do. But the fact is not possible to tell what used to be only black-and-white film.

In the USSR colorization (as in the film is called process color) brought Sergei Eisenstein. He visited Paris and saw a few tapes of that time that were painted. The coloring, however, was partial (elements of clothes, buildings, patterns). In the end, he was excited and took this method of filmmaking.

The Idea of painting time-lapse movies quickly lost popularity as it was very difficult. But many continued to do it and even in advance put in the script the scenes that needs to be colored. Interestingly, different countries went through different ”decoration pictures”. In the United States have long engaged in the livery films, as in the USSR, this idea was quickly cooled and began to switch to voice-ready tapes.

Old movie now looks… as the old. But then were the main actors and Directors and not Directors effects.

First color movie

The First film, which is shot in color was the tape created by the photographer Edward Coach. When making a movie frames sequentially recorded on the film through colored filters — red, green and blue. For this purpose we used three different apparatus. The same picture is then played through the same filters, recreating the original color. He did it more than 110 years ago. However, the film to call it difficult, because it's just a few short sketches from the life.

Inspired him to this work of a friend of a photographer who experimented with colour photography and various filters.

Officially the first color film is a picture of ”Becky sharp”, released in 1935. It happened in the US, and the filmmakers were Rouben mamoulian. In the Soviet Union's first color film was ”the Nightingale of Solovushka” in 1936.

a colour films of that time were a bit insane.

When they started to color movies

Despite a one-off job on the colorization of movies, the massive hand-coloring became more and more meaningless. the Films became longer, more difficult films, and the requirements for higher reliability. Moreover, in the middle of the century there were already colored films and people enough spectacle without watching old tapes.

Proponents of colorization was still, but they wanted to automate the process. More often thought how to get the computer to do old movies and color in 80-e years has finally come to this. Many tapes that we used to see in color was originally black and white. For example, personnel .

These pictures were not colored from the beginning. The highest score late.

As now, immediately appeared many supporters and opponents of colorization. And with that, and on the other hand have enough influential people from the world of the film industry, and the main conciliating argument was habits. That is, if the person is not seen how the movie looked before was color, he had no complaints. Agreed with it all.

Main technical point that did not like the people, was a very bad transition color. Especially on hair and other small items. Because of this, the color pictures looked very unnatural.

How to paint old movies

For anybody not a secret that in order to colorize an old movie, we need to know what color was originally the objects in the frame. This is a long preparatory work. A team of colorists goes to studios, studying props, considering color photos from filming, and even interviewing witnesses of the process.

Before we can understand what color were the objects in the frame they must be found in the warehouses of props.

In the end, expertsunderstand how to look like a particular object, but to paint every frame manually is not very logical, and comes to the aid of the computer. Whether there will be

In the beginning takes a few keyframes (more correct to call them ”frames color solutions”). They have all the basic elements that need paint. It is clear that neighboring frames will be a little different and they can be painted similar. It is possible to trust the computer.

First, the picture is digitized so it can work computer. Usually old films are in very poor condition and are the restoration of the material. Then takes a few hundred key frames and begins the process. For example, coloring of the film ”17 moments of spring” was used fifteen hundred of key frames, each of which is painted manually.

«17 moments of spring». was/became.

Once work on the coloring key frames are completed, everything is checked again. Again called to help participants of the events and checked the color of the props from the vaults of film studios.

When everything is finally verified, it takes computer. He examines the shades of gray and what colors they gave in the manual mode on key frames. So pixel by pixel it adjusts the color of each frame.

This Process is very long and time consuming. The problem is that even after all the manual work completed, not just press one button and get the result. Often the computer is wrong and we must make new adjustments and use additional keyframes. So the process takes several months and sometimes even more. While coloring is not one person but a whole Studio.

In our country there are two main studios that do that kind of work — ”Formula colors” and ”close-up”. The main customer of the color-coding usually performs the First channel.

How much to paint a black-and-white film

As you can see, the process is very time consuming. So he must be expensive. Unfortunately, exact figures are hard to find, and they are not always publicized. However, the estimated figures range from several hundred thousand dollars to a couple million for a ninety-minute film. The exact price depends on the duration and quality of work and how difficult it is to get the source color.

Another example of the painted film. Was/became.

For obvious reasons, with time the popularity of colorization of movies falls. Given that almost all films from the Golden collection is already painted pay that kind of money few people want. Especially given how much comes out of new films.

Despite the cost and complexity of the enthusiasts still actively working on new tapes. Especially in our country since we later began to paint films. They believe that the only way to instill a love of young people to the classics of cinema, which really is a masterpiece, not comparable to any ”Avengers”.

Given how technology has moved forward, now you can really make very high-quality coloring. For example, in 80-e years of the last century were used for analysis only 6 shades of gray, now they are 1200. The final number of colors increased from 16 to 1 000 000. The numbers speak for themselves. For me, frankly, a mystery how 40 years ago, it managed to carry out such work on the computer. Especially given the power of the time.

This computer from that era, when it began to paint films. Thank you .

the complexity of the colorization of movies

The Main difficulties in the process of coloring several. The first of them are shades the face. 30-35 years ago color people were like corpses, and now they are too rosy. The Golden mean was not found.

During the filming of black-and-white film no such technologies, as it is now. In the end the makeup was so-so, the scenery made of plywood, and the costumes often left much to be desired. Just the footage of those years (with the image quality) it was not visible. Now with the treatment it gets and then have to ”clean marriage”.

that's Why I don't like movies in 4K. They too often see the flaws of the crew. Especially for the makeup.

How people feel about colorizing movies

Frankly, I don't respond well to coloring films. I think some tape is better not to touch. Many Directors of the same opinion. Those who are now alive, asking for their opinion, and those who have not, can not ask. Instead, rely on their original opinion. For example, many Directors in those days, when it was possible and color photography, and black-and-white deliberately chose the second option. They believed that the brain will think of much more vivid colors than theirshow operator. In this vein, it was written and scripts.

This is one of my favorite Soviet movies. Not sure what color I like it more.

For Example, a case where the daughter of the famous Leonid Bykov, who is no longer with us, appealed to the Ukrainian court, claiming that the film ”go To fight some old people” was originally conceived as black and white.

The Mass public too, and can not decide with regards to coloration. However, most agree that paint should be only Comedy. Dramatic pictures have to keep the drama, much of which lies precisely in the color scheme and the capacity of each person to decide for himself what he sees the scene.

How do you feel about the fact that the films are painted?

Confident look into the future of color film. Then of him almost thought. Still from the film «Beware of the car».