Jell-O, everybody! LOL :)

I've always wanted to do that. This is just the place to do it, right? Anyway, I have a question. Let's say they were releasing colorized I Love Lucy episodes. First, what do you think of the colorization of I Love Lucy Episodes? How do you feel about it? Would you be interested in wanting to purchase them? I see they've done this with both the complete seasons for Bewitched & I Dream of Jeannie. I'd love to see colorized episodes of I Love Lucy, especially if they were done the right way & the best way, with accuracy. Does anybody know what they do when colorizing? This has interested me for the longest time. What I mean is, if a particular movie and/or television show was shot in black and white & want to colorize it, how do they go about doing it? What do they refer to? Do they do research with the cast/crew to see what the original color schemes were or do they search & see if there were any color photographs taken on the set, during the filming? Or, do they use their own judgment?

Only reason why I am asking is because, while I'm happy & glad about the colorized scenes in the I Love Lucy Christmas Special, they don't seem to be right. I remember I was looking through a Lucy book once. I came across a color picture that was taken of Lucy & Ricky in front of the Christmas tree, in their living room. I was just curious had the people who colorized this episode saw that picture. I mean, did they try to color it with the colors in the picture & it didn't look right, that's why they chose the other colors? In the original color photo taken of the Christmas Special, the walls are in the purple family. They are like a lavender/lilac color. The Curtain in the window appears to be like a wine or burgundy color. Ricky's clothes are different, too. In the colorized version, the walls are a coral color & the curtain is a like a light blue. I know that the original color schemes were used in the recreated sets for the I Love Lucy 50th Anniversary Tour. The color of the furniture was a dark blue. The original color of the kitchen was yellow, with a green border.

I am in no way complaining. ;) I've seen some movies & television shows that have been colorized & they look God awful. Then again, I've seen others & they look good. I'd love & want to see more colorized episodes. It was such a nice treat to see the Christmas Special in color! :)

I would rather watch Lucy in black and white. But, I am curious as to what the corrct colors of the different rooms were.

That would be great to see ILL in COLOR! I could careless if they got the colors wrong for the christmas episode. I'm color blind and most of the colors i see are wrong any way, so it will be great to see that x-mas episode in color (probably the right colors for me/ but wrong for you guys. lol)

Ill should be kept in b&w.
If you want to see some ILL in color, I suggest a viewing of 'Babalu Music'.

I can see offering colorized versions of shows that began in B&W and color came along during the middle of production (examples are Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie). But It would look odd seeing Lucy and Ricky in color. I have no problem with them doing one episode as they are, but not more.

Jell-O, everybody! LOL :)
... Does anybody know what they do when colorizing? This has interested me for the longest time. What I mean is, if a particular movie and/or television show was shot in black and white & want to colorize it, how do they go about doing it? What do they refer to? Do they do research with the cast/crew to see what the original color schemes were or do they search & see if there were any color photographs taken on the set, during the filming? Or, do they use their own judgment? ...

A lot of it is judgement. There hasn't been much 'colorizing' of old TV shows, but, as you know, a lot of old movies have been colorized (most of the colorizing is indeed terrible).

I remember that Shirly Temple movies were among the first to be colorized, so I saw a couple of them that were broadcast...they were terrible... they basically colorized the people, and a portion of the furniture in the room, but even what they did was horrendous... for example, they colorized Shirley's face, but not her teeth... so her teeth looked like they were dark grey, when they should have been colored white... They'll usually neglect to colorize the background on the set, they'd only do the main furniture in the foreground.

I wouldn't care to see ILLucy in color...if they did colorize it, I guess they might have color pictures of the set to get an idea what things were like.

But for a lot of old movies, it's all guesswork.

Here's what some of it would look like if it were colorized:

http://www.adventurousduo.com/PhotoGallery/UniversalStudios2003/img/DSC07605.jpg

http://www.adventurousduo.com/PhotoGallery/UniversalStudios2003/img/DSC07606.jpg

ILL was fine in B&W for 55 years, it can continue in B&W forever, far as I care...btw, colourization is done with a computer programmed to colour the frames as a group once the first frame is done. Motion picture film goes at 24 frames a second, and frame #24 is barely different from frame #1; so, If the operator colours Lucys dress blue ( in frame #1 ) , the computer will colour her dress the same blue through the following frames automatically, and the same goes for skin tones , or w/e. The process was invented here in Canada , btw, and the first films to be coloured were Laurel and Hardy comedies...Stan Laurel's hair & eyes were painted brown, instead of the proper red hair and blue eyes he actually had!

It's funny how against this colorizing I would be IF and I SAY IF I hadn't been so blown away by the bewitching job Sony did with Bewitched. I would ONLY want it IF the same type of care was done as was done on that show. If you have yet to see the color Bewitched that was B&W please see it first and then give an opinion. We have come a long way since Ted Turner was up to his old tricks!!

If the colorization was done authentically. What I mean is, If Lucy's pajamas were pink don't make them another color. I also remember the colorizing of Shirley Temple. That was absolutely horrid.

In recent years, I've warmed up to the practice of colorization. The technology has gotten lightyears better, and I'm not totally against it if the black and whites are still kept available.

I've actually been very impressed by what Legend Films has been able to do with colorization technology. They have a demo on their site of an A-B comparison of the colorized version of Shirley Temple's Heidi from the '80s, and a more recent effort at colorizing the film. Night and day.

The demo can be accessed at http://www.legendfilms.net. Go click on "Demos" and "Heidi Split-Screen Demo."

I would watch it either way.