"Why colourised film is so dangerous" Topic

This piece of film may be old news to hardened WW2 buffs (so apologies if it's been noted before), but I stumbled into this on youtube:

WW2: German Surrender | Nazi Officers Surrender (April, 1945) YouTube link

Apart from being a fascinating piece of footage, on all sorts of levels, showing German troops surrendering their arms with a great deal of dignity and – incidentally – being shown a commensurate degree of respect, the whole lot is in true colour, unless I'm very much mistaken. Which – at over 13 minutes long – makes it quite unusual.

However, at point 4.24 in the film, they show a bus driving past full of troops which has been (probably hastily) camouflaged using some form of spray and the camo pattern – in two colours – extends mostly (though not entirely) right across the glass windows.

If this had been a mono film which had been then colourised to make it more watchable*, this would have been almost certainly lost as a feature.

So – three things:

1) Good footage, worth watching anyway
2) Excellent colour references for painting
3) a "beware of colourised film" morality tale!

John T

* as was discussed in this thread TMP link where Peter Jackson has done this to WW1 footage for an exhibition but it is, of course, prevalent amongst populist media

Why would it be lost? Granted – the older colorisation process had problems but the newer, digital, ones do a much better job.

I genuinely think it requires a judgement call that I'd be very surprised to see a computer make – even with intervention.

I have never seen a colourised film that – IMHO – looks like it has any chance of picking that up. In B&W I suspect I couldn't pick it up and I've spent the last 40 years as a graphic designer.

But I'm willing to be proved wrong.

John T

A fascinating film on many levels.

I would hesitate to use any color film from that time as a basis for painting as color balancing was in it's infancy and more often than not off.

Colorized film always looked like those gable color textured post cards that came out just after world War 2. Never quite right.

@Jdginaz

I agree. Colour should always be referenced to known samples, period paint and chips and so forth.

That bus is an example: I'd imagine the colours used were standard issue (and so can be referred to) but their use is the intriguing thing.

John T

I dunno. Color film was actually pretty good back then. The "Adventures of Robin Hood" for example had stunning color and it was made in 1938. Wizard of Oz was made in 1939.

That said, I wouldn't use any film or video footage as a reference for military colors. There's too much variability and uncertainty in lighting.

I always hated, and still hate colorized film. It never looks right, and frequently looks horrible

FWIW, Painting glass is a good camo practice as glare is a huge giveaway… even dust goggles a' la Rommel in the desert can create a glint seen for miles. I assume they left just enough for the driver to see through, and he had to move around to see his fenders or off to the side. Likewise they painted out headlights, leaving at most a small area shining down close in front. In WW2 it was important, today with 'starlight' scopes (Light Amplification) even the smallest light glares brilliantly.

"I dunno. Color film was actually pretty good back then. The "Adventures of Robin Hood" for example had stunning color and it was made in 1938. Wizard of Oz was made in 1939."

There was a lot more money and expertise in developing a Hollywood production than there was in developing some footage shot for the military of surrendering Germans.

From a couple of "reel" cards shot between takes, some if not all, of that film was taken on GSAP (Gun Sight Aim Point)16mm cameras apparently, even the ground-level shots.

As an additional bit of (color) film geekdom, parts of the second half of Eisenstein's "Ivan the Terrible" was produced in color because of the Soviet capture of large amounts of German color filmstock.

Yes, that is a truly interesting bit of film – all the different shades of paint on the vehicles and seeing someone actually stoking the wood gas generators was fascinating!