Old black-and-white movies were colored using a painstaking digital process called colorization. This involves digitally tinting individual objects in each frame of the film.
The Colorization Process Explained
Colorizing older films is a complex and time-consuming process involving these key steps:
- Digitization: The original black-and-white film is scanned and converted into a digital format, frame by frame.
- Segmentation: Technicians meticulously outline and isolate each object within each frame. This could be anything from a character's face to a car to a building.
- Color Assignment: Color artists then assign a specific color to each object. Decisions are based on historical accuracy, artistic interpretation, or a combination of both.
- Tracking and Adjustment: Software tracks the movement of these objects across multiple frames. Color adjustments are constantly made to account for changes in lighting and perspective.
- Rendering: Finally, the color information is applied to each frame, resulting in a colorized version of the original film.
History of Colorization
While the idea of colorizing films has been around for a long time, it wasn't until the advent of powerful computers that it became truly feasible. One of the first authorized computer-colorizations of black-and-white cartoons was commissioned by Warner Bros. in 1990.
The Controversy
Colorization has been met with both praise and criticism. Some appreciate it as a way to make classic films more accessible to modern audiences. Others argue that it distorts the original artistic intent of the filmmakers and alters the historical record. The practice continues to be debated.
Simplified Summary:
To color old movies, studios used computer technology to painstakingly color individual objects in each frame of the film, resulting in a fully colorized version. This required extensive digitization, segmentation, color assignment, tracking, and rendering.
