Colorization is the process in which a movie (or photo) is edited from its original black and white to color. The films are digitized and put into a computer program that allows the colorist to see the all the different colors of gray. They are then able to color each frame individually using a palette of over 4,000 shades of color to colorize the first frame of each scene. After the first frame the colorist only has to recolor pixels that have moved. If the colorist could not determine the correct color for objects and subjects in these films, they would have to go through old studio photos, and costumes to determine the correct color schemes to use. All in all this process takes a lot of human effort, which makes it a very costly process. $3,000 per minute of a film – makes you wonder how worth it really is!

This process became popular in the 80’s as films were being colorized before being shown on television. The thought was that if these old black and white movies were turned into color versions of themselves, it may bring new life into the films, and with that new life, new audiences. This was true in some aspects, but it was also a controversial process that some believe (and still do) that this ruins the integrity of these films. Colorized versions ruin the tone and mood that the directors created, so therefore the process destroys the beauty that is film noir.

The video below of a clip from the show “The Addams Family” is a great example of colorization. The side-by-side viewing really allows you to see how the tone of the scene is changed by not being in black and white anymore.

These next examples are the opening scene from the television show “The Munsters”. The black and white version is how I remember the show, and for me is how it should be, but the colorized version is also nice, and I could see how it would draw a new audience in.

 

Today this process is not popular or common. I like to believe that studios and current owners of classic black and white films saw the beauty and character that these films have in the form that they were made in.