Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1100392
www.postmagazine.com 13 POST MAR/APR 2019 FILM RESTORATION stretching the frames, similar to what they have to do during a stereo conver- sion process. Once the group had a good re- stored frame, they embarked on the colorization — in this case, a maiden voyage by the well-known stereo 3D conversion facility. What people may not know, says Simone, is that there's core processes that are shared between stereo and colorization, namely roto. In all, more than 400 artists rotoscoped every object in every frame — from a soldier's hat to their gun. Hundreds and hundreds of shapes were isolated so the color of each object could be deter- mined and controlled. Meanwhile, the team colorized a rep- resentative keyframe, and once it was approved, then that became their guide for the moving frames when the roto work was finished. "We spent a lot of time creating tools to deal with the volume of material and all the roto shapes each shot would have. We needed to organize and con- trol that volume," says Simone. To this end, the studio built a proprietary tool, called the Palette tool, that enabled the artists to work with a large amount of roto data in a way that was manageable. "Then once we nailed down the color of the objects, we could use the Palette tool and apply the color decisions from one shot across moving footage to an- other shot." Indeed, film colorization has been in existence for quite some time, and at times has generated controversy when typical color washes are used on a film that a director purposely shot in black and white. However, this situation is dif- ferent in that the cameramen at the time had no choice beyond black-and-white film; further, it was being authentically colored, presenting it as it would have been all those years ago. Insofar as this restored footage is old, it is now far from desaturated. Rather, the colors are bright and vibrant, just as they would have been in the real world. And, they are as historically accurate as possible, requiring meticulous research. "We were very diligent down to the uni- form patches and the red piping around the German uniforms," says Stables. "For a building, we did a lot of research on, say, what the bricks looked like in that Old film (top) had to be restored (middle) and then colorized (bottom).