Film Colorization Report Channel 8 News 1984 KFMB San Diego

either way and 5% are died in the world people says we only will watch a classic in black and white >> when you're in the business of saving lives a technique that takes old black and white films and adds color joins us now with a look at how it works >> can you imagine Casablanca say in color >> that would be interesting >> I don't know if I can if the public buys it we're going to be seeing a revival of plenty of old films and TV series for a fraction of the money it would to make a new series or film. Hollywood studios can now have a revived film with already proven appeal. It sounds good, but the big question is how does it look? >> Don't wish to mar my image. >> Until now, Hitchcock's former image could only be seen in black and white, but that's changed. >> I've come around that curve much faster lots of times. So have you. >> But it was such a lovely cartoon. So has this film classic Topper filmed in black and white in 1937. >> The click of a computer has transformed this old film into a modern-day color video cassette. Computers are adding color to dozens of old black and white films and TV series. >> The black and whites just couldn't be shown. People didn't want to see them in spite of what they say. Ralph Weingar heads up one of two Los Angeles companies that have the sophisticated computers it takes to do the job. Earl Glick heads the other. >> Is we uh paint by numbers really. It's it's almost identical to the old numbers painting. >> Although the techniques and results of both companies vary a bit, both had their beginnings in the same place. Liftoff. We have a liftoff >> space. NASA used a crude form of coloring, black and white film brought back from the moon in the early 1970s. The space agency hoped a prettier picture might help sell its billion dollar space program to the government. It worked for NASA, tell all the gang at 42nd [music] Street. >> Now, these two Hollywood companies are hoping it will work for them. We found out that 85% of the people who would not watch a black and white [music] picture, a classic, would watch it in color. So the beauty of it is we can satisfy 100% of the audience. The ones that want to watch it in color can. And the one that want to see it in black and white, they just switch off that little color button on their set. They can everybody will be happy. >> Especially the studios that own the rights to thousands of black and white films. What we're doing is taking a property that brings them in say X dollars a year as a black and white feature and in color can bring them 10 times [music] that amount conceivably. >> From 1930 to 1950, Hollywood cranked out an average of 300 films a year. In all, there are about 16,000 black and white films waiting to be liberated from their shelves in studio film libraries. I see them start crawling. The coloring process begins when film is transferred to vide tape. This is a scene from Miracle on 34th Street. Every scene in the movie is cataloged with a computer. Then key scenes are selected. Art directors and wardrobe consultants decide what colors should be used in each scene. >> We try to be as accurate as we can with the material that we need accuracy with. For example, flags and monuments in certain buildings that you just know are that color. You can't cheat on them. >> After the colors are assigned, a computer operator takes over. This computer operator at Color Systems Technology is programming the computer using masks to assign colors. >> Go. >> This is what it looks like when the program is complete and the computer begins to follow her instructions frame by frame. Topper is the first fulllength colorized film to be released. >> Right now, the process is slow. >> It's actual production days could only be 4 days, you see, but to get into the production line to get into the uh whole process would probably take a couple of months. >> Coloring a black and white film costs about $2 to $3,000 a minute. You may have already seen some of the work done by these studios. This old news reel footage, for example, was colored and used in a network TV special. Despite just a few releases, there are already critics of this new process. Lois Haw didn't want to see Laurel and Hardy's Way Out West colorized. >> I just thought, well, why are they bothering? I I thought it was great as it was. >> Haw had a special interest in that film. Stan Laurel was her father. Now that she's seen the color version of her dad's favorite film, though, she's changed her mind. And when he turned on the television set, I just couldn't believe it. The colors were so beautiful and even the skin tones. And of course, my first reaction was, "Oh, if the boys had only been here to see this, they wouldn't believe it." Now, you have to keep in mind, we're reaching a point where the majority of viewers have grown up on color TV. So, to them, this looks kind of strange. But by adding the missing ingredients, >> Hollywood is hoping to attract a whole new set of viewers to some of the old classics. >> Very. I like your tie better in color.