FYI: Arnold Palmer Special - 1960's Masters - "A labor of love"

http://www.dailybreeze.com/sports/articles/5910836.html

Not colorized, but digitally color timed. The Aviator had a digital intermediate, so it was all done in post on regular 35mm color film (much like how The Man Who Wasn't There was converted to grayscale in post). Only the archival B&W material (like the shot going through a street before the Hell's Angels premiere and some Hell's Angels footage) was colorized from B&W.


By the way, is LF responsible for the stencil color re-creation in Universal's DVD for Hell's Angels? (The shot of the zeppelin exploding)

Well, I think this will be the perfect example to judge the naturality of the colorization process. Since it was shot without make-up and in natural set.
I guess you colorized it as natural as possible, am I right?

A. Bergman

It was a kinescope of the actual CBS broadcast of the 1960 Masters that no one on that tournament ever saw including the announcers. There was no way to re-broadcast the event until now. We enlisted the technical assistance of kinescope experts at Kodak to determine what the appropriate look of the film would be if had been shot off a color monitor with the color film stock at the time. The premier we attended at the Bel-Air Country Club and the press conference the next day had everyone rivited to the visuals and the action. Jim Nantz wanted to bring the suspense home in a more dramatic way than showing it in black and white. It was great meeting Arnold Palmer at the teo events and witnessing his emotion viewing the broadcast for the first time. The CBS audience will see it on April 8th, one hour before the final round of the 2007 Masters Tournament.

Hi All

Check out first those 2 examples of old colorizatiuons:

Jailhouse Rock: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpzV_...elated&search= and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHNsh...elated&search= and compare with a different contrast video of the same colorization http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sovkq...elated&search=
The Longest Day (colorized in 1995): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qAtyh_HHQs

Colorized by American Film Technologies, I think. Jailhouse Rock colorized probably years before The Longest Day.

Now go to Legend Film's Demo page and sellect Seiko Comercial. They got good results even comparing natural shot color runer with colorized runer. The clip compare the original footage, colorized footage and final result with insertion of runner into another shot. The shakingblack bars in original footage it's duew video stabilization to got a smooth camera movement.
The diference in colors from the colorized footage demo to final work it's due final color correction made by the FX team, like would normally do if was a shot in color footage.

Barry. The the new demo clips for the new realises are missing. Also Woman in Green clip.

any more news on the little rascals set that is a few weeks off. these titles are given away on the box

- Kid from Borneo, The (1933)
- Hide and Shriek (1938)
- Shrimps for a Day (1934)
- Choo-Choo! (1932)
- Free Wheeling (1932)
- For Pete's Sake (1934)

but can't find a listing for the others anywhere.

Barry...can you give us an update on the second "John Wayne In Color" box set, due to come out this Spring?

Ken - The new John Wayne 3 pack will be released May 29th

The four pack of new Stooges DVDs and the three pack of Little Rascal DVDs are being released march 27th. You can find them on the New Release shelves of Walmart.

Alfred, they'll be up shortly.

At a pretty decent price too.

"Image sequence enhancement system and method
United States Patent 7181081

Scenes from motion pictures to be colorized are broken up into separate elements, composed of backgrounds/sets or motion/onscreen-action. These background and motion elements are combined into single frame representations of multiple frames as tiled frame sets or as a single frame composite of all elements (i.e., both motion and background) that then becomes a visual reference database that includes data for all frame offsets which are later used for the computer controlled application of masks within a sequence of frames. Each pixel address within the visual reference database corresponds to a mask/lookup table address within the digital frame and X, Y, Z location of subsequent frames that were used to create the visual reference database. Masks are applied to subsequent frames of motion objects based on various differentiating image processing methods. The gray scale determines the mask and corresponding color lookup from frame to frame as applied in a keying fashion. "

Well, that Legend Films patent. That's why they colorize fast by low cost, since most of the job it's automated.

But I think they could use this approach to help film restoration tast too. Restoration and colorization needs to "speak the same language" to get more benefit one from another. But as far as I found on web, Legend films first restore all and then colorize all.
The division of sellection (mask), for foregruound object, background, moving object, and specially the auotmate estimation of morphic changes of objects frame to frame, could help enourmosly digital restoration. You could be able to eliminate much more drebis, spots, dust, scratches, if my theory is right.
So my sugestion is to let the restoration to finish after all the sellection be ready. This would get a cleanner final image than you get with the same budget per edition, comparing to the simple restoratrion made before colorization.

Far from me to be too critic Barry, but I sugest more scratch concealment in the restorations. I know no one was able to develope a algorithm to recover detais hiden in scratches with some transparent appearance, like the emulsion wasn't fully destroyed in the scratched area. Digital correction of large scratches still let sad artefacts.
In cases of scratches in a scene with camera moving slowly one side to another, the scratch could be treated like spots, replced with information from pre and posterior frames. If there is no movind obejectr between, sure. In case there is areas, of the scratch, with objects between and areas without it, the mask sellections for foreground and background could be used to sellect the approat to treat the scratch So could treat the scratch with standart approach in some scatch's areas, and with replace approach in other areas.

I want to remamber we all know you are already making a lot, restoring and colorizing, and especially if remamber that your editions are selled by low pricve.

I sugest one thing that would be very positive to digital restorations. What about you realize a plugin for restoration on the market? I think film abrasions (subt severalsmall scratching and often sporadic) are dificult to treat and time consuming, since can't be detected by automatic filter, cant be treated like a perssistent or stead vertical scratch. Since you have the bether pattern recognize algoirithms, what about make onre to easilly dettect the countorns of abrasions form a sellected area? A area would be fast sellected like when we paint with a digital brush on screen. The advanced countorn detection, with temporal analises, would diferenciate the sporadic abrasion countoturn from the obejts countorns. Also abrasions are very sharp, usually more than objects countorns, ahave whiete or black color, and don't present strong subt variation on angles in a short distance along a frame dimension.
I remamber Criterion realises that made almost nothing abpout abrasions in a filnm with a lot of it, despite of Digital rerstoration eforts, since are extremelly time consuming to fix. And Criterion have the best Digital reestoration System on Market, MTI Correct. I personally tested MTI Correct twice.

A. Bergman

Now that the Little Rascals set is out, I am wondering if there will be more volumes in the near future. I already own the 3 Lion's Gate releases and I am hesitant to buy the Legend dvd's because they contain only 7 shorts that I don't already have, which will probably show up in future Lion's Gate releases. On the other hand, if the Legend releases will continue, I may sell off my Lion's Gate dvd's and get the Legend ones. I am intrigued by the fact that they are colorized, but if this is a one shot deal, then I will probably pass.

So what are the extras on the Little Rascals DVDs? I asked earlier but Barry had to keep mum until after release. Are they worth the price?

^Go to: http://www.legendfilms.net/ then click on "more info" under each title.

Ahhh. They updated the site.

Thanks.

Hey everyone

Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ9Nl...elated&search=

Just looks very bad colorization mof many contrasting old footage.

What you think about it?

The image in many parts are so bad that we even don't pay attention to colors.

A. Berman

Here some interesting collection of colorized footage from History Channel Series Would War-I In Color. Colorized by West Wing Studios.

They didn't restored the footge, looking quite horrible in many parts, and didn't tried to recover a bit of Dynamic range, resulting in manytimes deep contrating images, so the color almost don't get since the tones became almost pure Black and pure White only.

Links on youtube:

WW 1 - E1P1 - Color: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N81oH...elated&search=

WW 1 - E1P2 - Color: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgAkg...elated&search=

WW1 - E1P3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ9Nl...elated&search=

WW1 - E1P4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a97N...elated&search=

WW1 - E1P5 END: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zsven...elated&search=

WW1 - E2P1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysaRAbefboo

WW1 - E2P2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o07BckJcTUY

WWI In color-Blood in The Air part1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DJhRv1G4rQ

WWI In color-Blood in The Air part2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOIEt...elated&search=

WWI In color-Blood in The Air part3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg760...elated&search=

WWI In color-Blood in The Air part4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p-Nd...elated&search=

WWI In color-Blood in The Air part5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4r2K...elated&search=

I imagine if Legend Films could do quite bether with the same budget. Probably they can, and with some retoration to it.


A. Bergman

The Pink Baron in the colorized World War-I documentarie.


People used know the skilled legendary german aviator as the Red Baron. he have a plane enterely in strong red color.

In this colorized documentary, World War I in colour - Blood in the air ( Part 02 ) LinK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOIEt...elated&search= (timer 05:02) , his plane is presented in pink color.

Before blame or joke the colorization process, I will explain the reason of this funny result:

World War-I was shoot in orthocromatic film stock, which had a film emulsion sensible only for red and green color, but practically not for blue. This is clear because until 1922 (after war end) there was not Panchromatic film stock (which emulsion are sensible to all 3 primary colors Red/Gree/Blue).

With orthocromatic film the resulting B&W image is different than a B&W image produced by a Panchromatic film. Orthocromatic produces red objects in brither gray-tones than natural, while deep blue images looks darker. This is baceuse the sensibility of orthocromatic it's stronger to REDs
As example strong red uniforms and objects will looks brigher, or the red Plane from Red Baron will look pink. The blueS, as deep blue flag, will look darker.

Ok, the skies in the clip are bright. But the sky it's not pure blue, especially in europe due high latitude and metereologic conditions. It have lot's of whites together, and whites have the three colors, (red/green/blue). Join it the contrasting image due overduplacation of film footage back early 20 century, and you have bright shades to colorize as blue.

In some cases, before 1922 introduction of Panchromatic film, the moviemakers tried to treat ortochromatic film chemically to give it some sensibility to blue, but it wasn't often, and I imagine it would be even more rare in documentary or jounalistic shooting. Perhaps one or other footage in this documentary, but only a very minor cases I presume.

So the colorization made for those series about World War-I, cant be taked seriously, despite they arguments about had reserached accurate color for militar stuff, and each geographic place. They could have right colors in mind, but those colors will not feet well in "altered shades of gray" derived of ortochromatic film stock used for shooting.

That's a pretty good explanation about the "Pink Baron". Good enough in case of Manfred Von Richthofen's (Red Baron) familly think in process the documentary producers for the pink plane, case believed it was a insinuation of homosexuality.

I hope you had appreciated this interesting explanation


A. Bergman

Looks like the whole crew is posting here.....

My thoughts exactly.

I refered to this specific case. But in some cases it's very usefull it properly done, like in Aviator.
Or in The Phanton of The Opera (1925) recoloring of a very short segment of the Masked Ball (originally in 2 color technicolor) using as reference surviving 2 color technicolor footage with other scenes from the Masked Ball, of the same set, with same crew figurants etc.

Sorry Folks, I mistake up, due a error in a informative page that told me Orthochromatic wasn't well sensitible to blue. WRONG INFORMATION FROM NET :-(
THE TRUE IS TRAT ORTHOCHROMATIC IT'S SENSITIBLE TO BLUE AND GREEEN, BUT NOT TO RED.

SO THAT WHY SKY IT'S ALWAYS BRIGHT, NOT DUE CONTRSTY IMAGE OR SKY FADED ONLY. THAT'S WHY FRECH FLAG COLORS STRIPS IN PLANES HAD BRIGHT BLUE AND SOMETIMES DARK REDs.

NOW I CAN'T EXPLAIN WHY THE RED BARON AIRPLANE WAS PINK, SICE IF IT IN REALITY WAS RED SHOULD LUKE DARK ON ORTHOCHROMATIC. ALSO CAN'T EXPLAIN WHY IN SOME FEW FRENCH PLANES FLAGS STRIPS, THE RED WASN'T DRAK TOO, LIKE OTHER SCENES WITH FRENCH PLANES.
MAYBE THE COORIZEDD PINK PLANE WAS A BRIGHT GRAY OR WHITE PLANE, WAS WAS MISTAKE CONFUSED WITH RED BARON'S RED PLANE.

I WOULD LIKE TO ASK BARRY SANDREW ASSISTANTE TO SOLVE THIS MISTERY.

ONCE AGAIN SORRY MY MISTAKE


A. BERGMAN

Hey Barry,

Just want to say that your latest release of 'John Wayne In Color' looks great! I'm very happy to have the six current films your company has put out. Do you have any plans to release more of the Duke's Lone Star films onto DVD in the future? I was disappointed to not see any mention in the latest disc's sleeve about more upcoming 'John Wayne In Color' DVDs...

I agree completely...this latest release of John Wayne movies by Legend Films is another great job. Here's a suggestion; If you are going to release 3 more, these would be my choice:

Riders Of Destiny (probably the best of the Lone Star films)
The Trail Beyond (the only film of the 16 that had an improved budget)
Helltown (really a Paramount film, but in the public domain)

IMHO, this would make the 'Wave 3' box just as good as the last two!

Question to Barry Sandrew:

I just purchased a Imavision (Quebec) three-DVD/6 films set of Fernandel films 1952-1963.

The original boxset is still available from www.amazon.com :



On of these films is Sénéchal le Magnifique (1957) and is presented in its colourized version, which is billed ingenuously as a "new colour restoration". The colourization is astonishing as French jobs usually are, meaning that the amount of detail is incredible, especially in the colours of complicated dress and decor patterns, wall hangings, paintings, the subtlety of lighting atmospheres, etc. The only detail that might give it away are the skin tones, which are sometimes too dark. But I still had to check the film's technical specifications on IMDb before finding out it was actually filmed in black and white.

Since this is not the first time I've experienced firsthand the quality of French colourization, I just have to know: Are they done by Legend Films?