Alfred,

There has to be sufficient gray scale to hold red. If there is not enough gray scale in the object it will take on a lighter color or pink. The WWI material was extremely high contrast and the whites were generally blown out and the blacks crushed.

Barry

Look for more Duke films in the near future.

I don't know if anyone realizes it but Legend Films actually introduced a musical score to the John Wayne titles. They were essentially without score in the original prints.

Great news Barry! Please keep us updated as to when you expect the next release, and which titles Legend Films will choose....

Ray Harryhausen with Barry Sandrew at the LA Film Festival - Saturday, June 30, 2007
 

If anyone is in LA or planning to be in LA, I'll be presenting 20 Million Mikes To Earth on it's 50th Anniversary with Ray Harryhausen. This will be the color Premiere of the film which Ray color directed at Legend Films in San Diego. See URL below:

http://filmguide.lafilmfest.com/tixS...entNumber=5042

Sweet! I'll try my best to be there.

Yes, I noticed that, and they do sound great. And excellent job by Legend Films all around!

Say Barry....can you give us a hint as to when we may expect to see the next "John Wayne In Color" box set? I've watched the first two box sets twice now, and would really like to see some more Lone Star colorized films!

Real mistake by producer??
 

Hi Barry. After my last post I researched and found: "Manfred is shown during some test flights with the F.I 102/17 in August 1917 at Marckebeeke, Belgium. The plane came right from the factory in Schwerin. The factory paint scheme was green."
That's why it wasn't darker on orthochromatic film, since green get's brighter on orthochromatic. And with the constrating footage the colorization wouldn't never get fine with a grayscale like that.
I'm aware of need of grayscale as I do photo colorization myself :-)

Why did I click this thread?

The importance of re-grading scene by scene the B&W
 

Hi Barry & everyone

Sorry my pseudo complains in this colorization, very well done for Shirley Temple films, but I want to raise a important point about colorizations.

Colorization use to don't alter the B&W originals, not altering the objects light values along the frame, but also use to don't alter the B&W Grading scenes to scenes.
I respectfully disagree about keep the Grading scene to scene. Many times the grading in a scenes it's very inappropriated to get colors. Sometimes too flat or too bright. A simpe contrast correction of the scene would turn it much more prone to well accept the colors.

Check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpAzoNjBpb8

We can cleary see that the scenes on the farm, when Shirley's character's father arrive, have the contrast tones too flat and bright, and as consequance the colors didn't got well, creating shinning saturation effects. Look the face of the father and in his neck at 00:46 sec. After 1:15 sec to the rest of the video, the color are able to get bether in a more natural B&W grading.

It's not fault of Barry technology, folks! It's just the flat too shining B&W that needs readjus for this scene. Can be adjusted by simple digital filter tool, similar to a photographer adjusting a disereable effect in a B&W photo.

Since today all colorization came with a separeted B&W version of the film, I think there is NO NEED to KEEP tHE SAME B&W GRADING SCENE TO SENE, in cases a specific B&W grading in a given scene can turn colorization unpleasant.
A simpe change in the original B&W grading, just when necessary to colors get OK, it's less harmfull than allow a inapropriated grading mess with the colors just to keep the same original grading.

Compare with this other clip from the very same film, and very same colorization year: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-66PJNQYkg

Now a little constructive critic: Barry- Is that possible to use the Photo Real algorithms, used to create variable shades of saturation and hues on skin, to create more variance on trees and leaves?
Why not splite the skin in more areas to get more natural skin color for sectors? We notice that the neck manytimes, due angle of light, needs less saturation than in face, while colorizations occasionaly shows too satured necks.

A.Bergman

Contrast Adjustment - Colorization
 

Good suggestion Alfred - I also agree with you regarding contrast adjustments. I generally telecine in a flat manor to expose all available info in the blacks and whites. invariably when the final product is completed a contrast adjustment of between 10 and 15% makes the colors pop without any modification of the color design. Saturation adjustment proves unnecessary. When we produced Heidi the telecine was done for us and while I suggested a contrast adjusment upon delivery I'm not certain one was done.

Legend Films does not mess with luminance adjustments for colorization clients unless asked to do so.

BTW - The Ray Harryhausen classic 20 Million Miles To Earth which he color designed with Legend Films was premiered at the LA Film Festival to a sold out theater. The response to the colorization was unanimously positive with appreciative applause. The DVD of the film will be out the first week of August in 5.1 audio. You will never find a cleaner print. Sony did an incredible job restoring and stabilizing the film. Two of the co-stars were there for the viewing and thought it was remarkable.

Head-20-Million-Miles-To-Earth-Now-In-Color-4396.htm

As part of the celebration, 20 Million Miles to Earth is being released in a digitally restored black and white print, and a colorized version supervised by Harryhausen. The effects guru recently admitted, “I am thrilled that this film is finally being seen in color. I had wanted to do the film in color in the 1950s, but our budget was not large enough to accommodate that luxury. Now, thanks to the marvelous advances made in the colorization process by San Diego’s Legend Films and others, audiences will be able to see 20 Million Miles to Earth as I originally intended.”

What about invite the legendary Ray Harryhausen to this forum?

People would love to ask hin how he did all stop motion and image fusion effects in a computerless era.
Dynamation is a technic created by hin, if I'm correct. Check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcB8b...elated&search=

I'm curious about how he color designed and color balance the film. Had hin learned to operate the Legend Films software to color design steps, or had direct assistence of your colorists?

In early days of colorization the color design had to calculate or guess the hue few grading allong grayscale to a given choose color, or calculate the variances of the choose color to a given situation, like in sun or by night scenes.
Have your software a very easy interface that allow just choose a color, and all variances calculated automatically?

A.B

Alfred - my first process at American Film Technologies (AFT) was designed to automatically adjust to variances in luminance but it was not nearly as sophisticated as the Legend Films system. Keep in mind that the AFT system was only 8 bits as were all the other colorization process then and since. However, the Legend system defaults at 16 bits so the resolution difference is huge allowing for more subtle variations in relation to luminance change.

Regarding Ray, at a spry 87, he's not too comfortable with computers. He lives outside of London and does not have internet.

However he is comfortable directing and that's exactly what he did at Legend. He directed our creative director, Rosemary Horvath to create the precise look he envisioned when he originally produced his films. Color allowed him to put depth into matte paintings. It also allowed him to blend composites so they look even more convinvcing.

I remembered about old informations regarding film colorization saying like: "The computer automatically calculate the colors for each piece on set" In reality refer to adjust a chosen color to grayscale or environment, of course. And many people imagined that was possible to the computer guess what color was a piece on a B&W image.
Someones folly imagined, and even today, that each black&white value had a correspondent color. That's the problem when journalists don't know what they are writing :-)
A.B

You're absolutely right. The LUT is designed to adjust color to the luminance. The system cannot determine what color should be there, only how the designed (selected) colors react to changes in lumince.

Colorization challenge to Legend Films.
 

What about we propose a challenge to Legend Films?

I would like to have access to deleted footages on a studio. If I had access to a deleted scenes from Gone With the Wind... I could sent to you a a black and white image file and ask to colorize like the original film look. Would that be perfectly possible?
Well, same set, same makeup, same ilumination technics, same photographic filter. There would be no alterative factor to turn the B&W weird for colors.

Film Restoration perhaps had cases where colorization could help. Until now the only case I know about is the last restoration of The Phantom of The Opera (1925) which the few 2 color technicolor sequences was lost with exception of the Masked Ball scenes. But among the basket ball scene there was a few scenes that only was available in B&W, and it was colorized by CST Entertainment (today extinct) using the surviving color shots as reference.
Nobody complained about the results, even watching original shot in color with a colorized scene from the same set. 2 color technicolor looks a bit weird, and perhaps it helped to cover any artificiality from colorization by CST Entertainment.

Maybe there are other color films, which some color sequence only survived in B&W. Films that was fully shot in color, but reedited, shortned, and when a restorer try to assemble all footage back they found that few scenes are now only available in B&W.

Have never been contacted about any case or invited to use colorization for film restoration purposes?

Would you accept a colorization challenge?

A.B

Barry,

Are there anymore Little Rascals dvd's planned?

Littke Rascals
 

We currently have more scheduled for a 2008 release.

Barry, I guess you missed the question I asked on the preceding page:

Screen captures for share with forum members.
 

Hi Baracine


It was really shot in B&W, I researched. Could you send or post some screen captures of the colorized version. Would be interesting if everyone in this forum could see by thenselves, don't you agree?

I think you must look to the skin of characters. If the skin colors are too homogenous it's a signal that wasn't colorized by Legend Films, since they have the best skin colorization on market.


A.B

The skin tones are varied and amazing. Here are screen caps from Sénéchal le Magnifique. Please remember that the film is interlaced and has ghosting... But they should give you an idea of the natural quality and the amount of detail. Please note the decor and Chinese pottery in the second cap. You can understand why I assumed the film was shot in colour...

http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/7900/senechal01fh9.png

http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/1636/senechal08fj3.png

http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/3299/senechal05gp5.png

http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/2346/senechal04tm0.png

http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/1466/senechal06wd4.png

Wow! Those are actually pretty good.

Two more:

http://img363.imageshack.us/img363/5...echal07mw7.png

http://img363.imageshack.us/img363/3...echal03gm8.png

Thanks for the captures Baracine

The color balance or color design it's really well made. Seens like they had access to original set color photos as reference, since each obeject color got well.
The contrast it's very adequate to colorization:
-It's not contrastin, since have good dynamic range, good tones in dark mediun and bright areas.
-It's not too brigh, like the ilumination usualy choosed for color films, while many B&W films from 40's and 50's used too strong ilumination.
-The middle range it's not flat, so allow a good aspect, important too for get color ok.

But I bet it's not Legend Films work. The very good results it's probably due the evidences I mentioned above. For me it's West Wing work.

Look with careful. The skins have very well choosed colors, but seens to be a simple variance of colors along grayscale, which it's just a few variances of hue and saturation from dark to brigh tones. Legend films Photo Real can Add more sophisticated color for skin.
See the mans face in the third capture. A bit too strong colors and seens too homogeneous along diferent face's sectors.

Also there is no evidence of 3D estimation. Check the White short coat on capture 7. It's more flat than Legend Films best works. West Wing forced a bit the hue variance along grayscale to try hide the flat look, but I can notice it.
Anyway I recognize West Wing have good color designer ability recreation purposes. West Wing's software have a tool to pick color, and the grayscale variation of Hue&saturation along, from color photos of the sets. This would allow good color recreations. Legend Films have some similar tool, I believe.

West Wing probablygot a fine Budget to this work, and when they feel that was need to split a object in a aditional area to add some bright reflex color, like the fire place upper edge in capture 2, they did it. Legend Films could do bether with a print like that and color references like the ones they probably had to work.

For me some Legend Films works on Shirley Temple films was bether colorized than others films of their own, at least in final result look. This impressions, valid for both companies it's cause:

Technology it's important for colorization, but the color design, or the choose of colors, print quality, and the contrast & make-up used in the photography direction, are also very important.
French films was always more realistic in photographic terms, without such luxurious of Hollywood. They often use less make-up, less ilunination extravagances and less color filter to specific enhance B&W contrast. So it was closer to a real natural environment. All those factors are positive to a final natural look after colorization.
A film shot in natural conditions get bether colorization. Remamber most people used to say that outdor scenes looked bether in Stooges colorized DVDs? Cause outdoor was a much more natural set.

One thing remambers the Ted Turner colorization times: People saw a work with proper characteristic, above mentioned, and imagined it was a dedicated work. While if they watched other work with same dedication, but with improper condition of print or photography & make-up direction, they imagine it was negligence of the colorization crew.
Require a bit of knowledge to properly judge a colorization.

A.B