Film colorization (

American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances ...

; or colourisation [

British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...

], or colourization [ Canadian English and Oxford English]) is any process that adds color to

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

, sepia, or other monochrome moving-picture images. It may be done as a special effect, to "modernize" black-and-white films, or to restore color films. The first examples date from the early 20th century, but colorization has become common with the advent of

digital image processing Digital image processing is the use of a digital computer to process digital images through an algorithm. As a subcategory or field of digital signal processing, digital image processing has many advantages over analog image processing. It allow ...

Early techniques

Hand colorization

The first film colorization methods were hand done by individuals. For example, at least 4% of George Méliès' output, including some prints of '' A Trip to the Moon'' from 1902 and other major films such as '' The Kingdom of the Fairies'', '' The Impossible Voyage'', and ''

The Barber of Seville ''The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution'' ( it, Il barbiere di Siviglia, ossia L'inutile precauzione ) is an '' opera buffa'' in two acts composed by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was b ...

'' were individually hand-colored by Elisabeth Thuillier's coloring lab in Paris. Thuillier, a former colorist of glass and celluloid products, directed a studio of two hundred people painting directly on film stock with brushes, in the colors she chose and specified; each worker was assigned a different color in

assembly line An assembly line is a manufacturing process (often called a ''progressive assembly'') in which parts (usually interchangeable parts) are added as the semi-finished assembly moves from workstation to workstation where the parts are added in sequ ...

style, with more than twenty separate colors often used for a single film. Thuillier's lab produced about sixty hand-colored copies of ''A Trip to the Moon'', but only one copy is known to still exist today. The first full-length feature film made by a hand-colored process was '' The Miracle'' of 1912. The process was always done by hand, sometimes using a

stencil Stencilling produces an image or pattern on a surface, by applying pigment to a surface through an intermediate object, with designed holes in the intermediate object, to create a pattern or image on a surface, by allowing the pigment to reach ...

cut from a second print of the film, such as the Pathécolor process. As late as the 1920s, hand coloring processes were used for individual shots in ''

Greed Greed (or avarice) is an uncontrolled longing for increase in the acquisition or use of material gain (be it food, money, land, or animate/inanimate possessions); or social value, such as status, or power. Greed has been identified as undes ...

'' (1924) and ''

The Phantom of the Opera ''The Phantom of the Opera'' (french: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra) is a novel by French author Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serial in from 23 September 1909 to 8 January 1910, and was released in volume form in late March 1910 by Pier ...

'' (1925) (both utilizing the

Handschiegl color process The Handschiegl color process (, , App: Nov 20, 1916, Iss: May 13, 1919) produced motion picture film prints with color artificially added to selected areas of the image. Aniline dyes were applied to a black-and-white print using gelatin imbibition ...

); and rarely, an entire feature-length movie such as ''

Cyrano de Bergerac Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac ( , ; 6 March 1619 – 28 July 1655) was a French novelist, playwright, epistolarian, and duelist. A bold and innovative author, his work was part of the libertine literature of the first half of the 17th c ...

'' (1925) and '' The Last Days of Pompeii'' (1926). These colorization methods were employed until effective color film processes were developed. During the late 1960s and the early 1970s, black-and-white '' Betty Boop'', '' Mickey Mouse'', and ''

Looney Tunes ''Looney Tunes'' is an American animated comedy short film series produced by Warner Bros. starting from 1930 to 1969, concurrently with its partner series '' Merrie Melodies'', during the golden age of American animation. ...

'' cartoons were redistributed in color. Supervised by Fred Ladd, color was added by tracing the original black-and-white frames onto new animation cels, and then adding color to the new cels in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

. To cut time and expense, Ladd's process skipped every other frame, cutting the frame rate in half; this technique considerably degraded the quality and timing of the original animation, to the extent that some animation was not carried over or mistakenly altered. The most recent redrawn colorized black-and-white cartoons are the

Fleischer Studios Fleischer Studios () is an American animation studio founded in 1929 by brothers Max and Dave Fleischer, who ran the pioneering company from its inception until its acquisition by Paramount Pictures, the parent company and the distributor of i ...

Famous Studios Famous Studios (renamed Paramount Cartoon Studios in 1956) was the first animation division of the film studio Paramount Pictures from 1942 to 1967. Famous was founded as a successor company to Fleischer Studios, after Paramount seized control ...

' ''

Popeye Popeye the Sailor Man is a fictional cartoon character created by E. C. Segar, Elzie Crisler Segar.Harman-Ising ''

Merrie Melodies ''Merrie Melodies'' is an American animation, animated series of comedy short films produced by Warner Bros. starting in 1931, during the golden age of American animation, and ending in 1969. Then some new cartoons were produced from the late 197 ...

'', and MGM's '' The Captain and the Kids'' cartoons, which were colorized in 1987 for airing on the

Turner Turner may refer to: People and fictional characters *Turner (surname), a common surname, including a list of people and fictional characters with the name *Turner (given name), a list of people with the given name *One who uses a lathe for turnin ...

networks. With computer technology, studios were able to add color to black-and-white films by digitally tinting single objects in each frame of the film until it was fully colorized (the first authorized computer-colorizations of B&W cartoons were commissioned by Warner Bros. in 1990). The initial process was invented by Canadian

Wilson Markle Wilson Markle (born September 2, 1938) is a Canadian engineer who invented the film colorization process in 1970.

and was first used in 1970 to add color to monochrome footage of the moon from the Apollo program missions.

Digital colorization

Computerized colorization began in the 1970s using the technique invented by Wilson Markle. These early attempts at colorization have soft contrast and fairly pale, flat, washed-out color; however, the technology has improved steadily since the 1980s. To perform digital colorization, a digitized copy of the best

black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

film print available is used. With the aid of computer software, technicians associate a range of gray levels to each object and indicate to the computer any movement of the objects within a shot. The software is also capable of sensing variations in the light level from frame-to-frame and correcting it if necessary. The technician selects a color for each object based on common "memory" colors—such as blue sky, white clouds, flesh tones, and green grass—and on any information about colors used in the movie. If color publicity stills or props are available to examine, authentic colors may be applied. In the absence of any better information, technicians may choose colors that fit the gray level and are consistent with what a director might have wanted for the scene. The software associates a variation of the basic color with each gray level in the object, while keeping intensity levels the same as in the monochrome original. The software then follows each object from frame to frame, applying the same color until the object leaves the frame. As new objects come into the frame, the technician must associate colors to each new object in the same way as described above. This technique was patented in 1991. In order to colorize a still image, an artist typically begins by dividing the image into regions, and then assigning a color to each region. This approach, also known as the segmentation method, is laborious and time-consuming, especially in the absence of fully automatic

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...

s to identify fuzzy or complex region boundaries, such as those between a subject's hair and face. Colorization of moving images also requires

motion compensation Motion compensation in computing, is an algorithmic technique used to predict a frame in a video, given the previous and/or future frames by accounting for motion of the camera and/or objects in the video. It is employed in the encoding of video d ...

, tracking regions as movement occurs from one frame to the next. Several companies claim to have produced automatic region-tracking algorithms: * Legend Films describes their core technology as pattern recognition and background compositing that moves and morphs foreground and background masks from frame to frame. In the process, backgrounds are colorized separately in a single composite frame which functions as a visual database of a cut, and includes all offset data on each camera movement. Once the foreground areas are colorized, background masks are applied frame-to-frame. * Timebrush describes a process based on

neural net Artificial neural networks (ANNs), usually simply called neural networks (NNs) or neural nets, are computing systems inspired by the biological neural networks that constitute animal brains. An ANN is based on a collection of connected units ...

technology that produces saturated and crisp colors with clear lines and no apparent spill-over. The process is cost effective because it relies on computers rather than human effort, and is equally suitable for low-budget colorization and broadcast-quality or theatrical projection. * A team at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Benin School of Computer Science and Engineering describe their method as an interactive process that does not require precise manual region detection, nor accurate tracking; it is based on the premise that adjacent pixels in space and time that have similar gray levels should also have similar colors. *At the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

, a color propagation method was developed that uses geodesic distance. * A highly labor-intensive process employed by the UK-based film and video colorization artist Stuart Humphryes, in conjunction with video restoration company SVS Resources, was employed by the BBC in 2013 for the commercial release of two '' Doctor Who'' serials: the first episode of '' The Mind of Evil'' and newly discovered black and white footage in the director's cut of '' Terror of the Zygons''. For these projects, approximately 7,000 key-frames (approximately every 5th

PAL Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a colour encoding system for analogue television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...

video frame) were fully colorized by hand, without the use of masks, layers, or the segmentation method. These were then utilized by SVS Resources to interpolate the color across the intervening surrounding frames using a part computerized/part manual process. *British photo colorizer Tom Marshall has digitally colorized various historical subject matters including slavery, the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

, the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fig ...

Victorian London During the 19th century, London grew enormously to become a global city of immense importance. It was the largest city in the world from about 1825, the world's largest port, and the heart of international finance and trade. Railways connecting ...

, and the Suffrage movement.

Uses of colorization

Partial colorization

The earliest form of colorization introduced limited color into a black-and-white film using dyes, as a visual effect. The earliest Edison films, most notably the '' Annabelle Serpentine Dance'' series, were also the earliest examples of colorization, done by painting

aniline Aniline is an organic compound with the formula C6 H5 NH2. Consisting of a phenyl group attached to an amino group, aniline is the simplest aromatic amine. It is an industrially significant commodity chemical, as well as a versatile start ...

dyes onto the emulsion. Around 1905,

Pathé Pathé or Pathé Frères (, styled as PATHÉ!) is the name of various French businesses that were founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France starting in 1896. In the early 1900s, Pathé became the world's largest film equipment ...

introduced ''Pathéchrome'', a stencil process that required cutting one or more stencils for each film frame with the aid of a reducing

pantograph A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen. If a line dr ...

. In 1916, the

Handschiegl Color Process The Handschiegl color process (, , App: Nov 20, 1916, Iss: May 13, 1919) produced motion picture film prints with color artificially added to selected areas of the image. Aniline dyes were applied to a black-and-white print using gelatin imbibition ...

was invented for Cecil B. DeMille's film ''

Joan the Woman ''Joan the Woman'' is a 1916 American epic silent drama film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Geraldine Farrar as Joan of Arc. The film premiered on Christmas Day in 1916. This was DeMille's first historical drama. The screenplay is b ...

'' (1917). Another early example of the Handschiegl process can be found in '' Phantom of the Opera'' (1925), in which

Lon Chaney Leonidas Frank "Lon" Chaney (April 1, 1883 – August 26, 1930) was an American actor. He is regarded as one of the most versatile and powerful actors of cinema, renowned for his characterizations of tortured, often grotesque and affli ...

's character can be seen wearing a bright-red cape while the rest of the scene remained monochrome. The scene was toned sepia, and then the cape was painted red, either by stencil or by matrix. Then, a sulfur solution was applied to everything but the dyed parts, turning the sepia into blue tone. The process was named after its inventor, Max Handschiegl. This effect, as well as a missing color sequence, were recreated in 1996 for a Photoplay Productions restoration by computer colorization (see below). Partial colorization has also been utilized on footage shot in color to enhance commercials and broadcast television to further facilitate the director's artistic vision. As an example,

Cerulean Fx Cerulean (), also spelled caerulean, is a shade of blue ranging between azure and a darker sky blue. The first recorded use of ''cerulean'' as a colour name in English was in 1590. The word is derived from the Latin word '' caeruleus'', "da ...

provided partial colorization for

Dave Matthews Band Dave Matthews Band (also known by the initials DMB) is an American rock band formed in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1991. The band's founding members were singer-songwriter and guitarist Dave Matthews, bassist Stefan Lessard, drummer and back ...

's music video '' The Space Between'' as well as Outkast's music videos ''

Bombs Over Baghdad "B.O.B" ("Bombs Over Baghdad") is a song by American rap duo Outkast from their fourth studio album ''Stankonia'' (2000). It was released as the album's lead single on September 19, 2000 through LaFace Records and Arista Records. Produced by Eart ...

'' and ''

Roses A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...

''.

Restoration

A number of British television shows which were made in color in the early 1970s were wiped for economic reasons, but in some cases black-and-white

telerecording Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program on motion picture film, directly through a lens focused on the screen of a video monitor. The process was pioneered during the 194 ...

s were made for export to countries that did not yet have

color television Color television or Colour television is a television transmission technology that includes color information for the picture, so the video image can be displayed in color on the television set. It improves on the monochrome or black-and-white ...

. An example is the BBC's five-part '' Doctor Who'' story ''

The Dæmons ''The Dæmons'' is the fifth and final serial of the eighth season of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast in five weekly parts on BBC1 from 22 May to 19 June 1971. In the serial, the alien ...

''. Only one episode survived in color; the rest existed only as black-and-white film recordings. The only known color recording was a poor-quality over-the-air recording of an abridged broadcast in the United States. In the 1990s, the BBC colorized the black-and-white copies by adding the color signal from the over-the-air recordings. The result was judged a success by both technicians and fans. In March 2008, it was announced that new technology, which involves detecting color artifacts ("

dot crawl Dot crawl is a visual defect of color analog video standards when signals are transmitted as composite video, as in terrestrial broadcast television. It consists of moving checkerboard patterns which appear along horizontal color transitions (v ...

") in high-resolution scans of black-and-white films, will be used to restore other ''Doctor Who'' episodes as well as shows like ''

Steptoe and Son ''Steptoe and Son'' is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about a father-and-son rag-and-bone business in 26a Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were broadcast by the BBC in black and ...

'' where some episodes originally produced in color only exist in black-and-white. However, there are no plans to use colorization on BBC programmes originally ''produced'' in black-and-white, such as the 1960s ''Doctor Who'' episodes since they have no color information available and so cannot be recovered using these methods.

Integration

Colorization is also sometimes used on historical

stock footage Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures, and file footage is film or video footage that can be used again in other films. Stock footage is beneficial to filmmakers as it saves shooting new material. A single piece of stoc ...

in color movies. For instance, the film '' Thirteen Days'' (2000) uses colorized news footage from the time of the

Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the Unite ...

of 1962. The full-color feature film ''

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow ''Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow'', often shortened to ''Sky Captain'', is a 2004 science fiction action-adventure film written and directed by Kerry Conran in his directorial debut, and produced by Jon Avnet, Sadie Frost, Jude Law an ...

'' (2004), which already made heavy use of digitally generated sets and objects, integrated black-and-white 1940s footage of Sir

Laurence Olivier Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier (; 22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, was one of a trio of male actors who dominated the British stage o ...

into scenes by colorizing him. In his feature film '' The Aviator'' (2005), Martin Scorsese seamlessly blended colorized stock footage of the '' Hell's Angels'' movie premiere with footage of the premiere's reenactment. The colorization by Legend Films was designed to look like normal three-strip film but was then color corrected to match the two-strip look of the premiere's reenactment. Also in ''The Aviator'', Scorsese used colorized footage of

Jane Russell Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell (June 21, 1921 – February 28, 2011) was an American actress, singer, and model. She was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s. She starred in more than 20 films. Russell moved from th ...

from the original black-and-white film, '' The Outlaw'' and dog fight scenes from ''Hell's Angels''.

Colorization examples, criticism, and controversies

Entertainment make-overs

In 1983,

Hal Roach Studios Hal Roach Studios was an American motion picture and television production studio. Known as ''The Laugh Factory to the World'', it was founded by producer Hal Roach and business partners Dan Linthicum and I.H. Nance as the Rolin Film Company on Ju ...

became one of the first studios to venture into the business of computerized film colorization. Buying a 50 percent interest in

Wilson Markle Wilson Markle (born September 2, 1938) is a Canadian engineer who invented the film colorization process in 1970.

's Colorization, Inc., it began creating digitally colored versions of some of its films. Roach's '' Topper'' (1937), followed by '' Way Out West'' (1937), became the first black-and-white films to be redistributed in color using the digital colorization process, leading to controversy. Defenders of the process noted that it would allow black-and-white films to have new audiences of people who were not used to the format. Detractors complained (among other reasons) that the process was crude and claimed that, even if it were refined, it would not take into account

lighting Lighting or illumination is the deliberate use of light to achieve practical or aesthetic effects. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources like lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing dayli ...

compositions chosen for black-and-white

photography Photography is the visual art, art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It i ...

which would not necessarily be as effective in color. Figures opposed to the process included

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

, James Stewart,

John Huston John Marcellus Huston ( ; August 5, 1906 – August 28, 1987) was an American film director, screenwriter, actor and visual artist. He wrote the screenplays for most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered ...

George Lucas George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker. Lucas is best known for creating the ''Star Wars'' and '' Indiana Jones'' franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as chai ...

, and

Woody Allen Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...

Cary Grant Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was an English-American actor. He was known for his Mid-Atlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing. He was one o ...

was reportedly "very gung-ho with the outcome" of the colorization of ''Topper''. Director

Frank Capra Frank Russell Capra (born Francesco Rosario Capra; May 18, 1897 – September 3, 1991) was an Italian-born American film director, producer and writer who became the creative force behind some of the major award-winning films of the 1930s ...

met with Wilson Markle about colorizing the perennial Christmas classic ''

It's a Wonderful Life ''It's a Wonderful Life'' is a 1946 American Christmas fantasy drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra, based on the short story and booklet '' The Greatest Gift'', which Philip Van Doren Stern self-published in 1943 and is in turn loo ...

'', '' Meet John Doe'' and '' Lady for a Day'' based on Grant's enthusiasm. Colorization, Inc.'s art director Brian Holmes screened ten minutes of colorized footage from ''It's a Wonderful Life'' to Capra, which led Capra to sign a contract with Colorization, Inc. However, the film was believed to be in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...

at the time, and, as a result, Markle and Holmes responded by returning Capra's initial investment, eliminating his financial participation, and refusing outright to allow the director to exercise artistic control over the colorization of his films, leading Capra to join in the campaign against the process. On a December 27, 1989 episode of ''

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' was an American late-night talk show hosted by Johnny Carson on NBC, the third iteration of the ''Tonight Show'' franchise. The show debuted on October 1, 1962, and aired its final episode on May 22, ...

'' actor Jimmy Stewart criticized efforts to colorize old black-and-white films, including ''

''. In 1986, film critics

Gene Siskel Eugene Kal Siskel (January 26, 1946 – February 20, 1999) was an American film critic and journalist for the ''Chicago Tribune''. Along with colleague Roger Ebert, he hosted a series of movie review programs on television from 1975 until his d ...

and

did a special episode of ''

Siskel & Ebert Gene Siskel (January 26, 1946 – February 20, 1999) and Roger Ebert (June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013), collectively known as Siskel & Ebert, were American film critics known for their partnership on television lasting from 1975 to Siskel's de ...

'' addressing colorization as "Hollywood's New Vandalism". Siskel explained how networks were unable to show classic black-and-white films in prime-time unless they offer it in color. "They arrest people who spray subway cars, they lock up people who attack paintings and sculptures in museums, and adding color to black and white films, even if it's only to the tape shown on TV or sold in stores, is vandalism nonetheless." Roger Ebert added, "What was so wrong about black and white movies in the first place? By filming in black and white, movies can sometimes be more dreamlike and elegant and stylized and mysterious. They can add a whole additional dimension to reality, while color sometimes just supplies additional unnecessary information."

Media mogul A media proprietor, media mogul or media tycoon refers to a entrepreneur who controls, through personal ownership or via a dominant position in any media-related company or enterprise, media consumed by many individuals. Those with significant co ...

Ted Turner Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III (born November 19, 1938) is an American entrepreneur, television producer, media proprietor, and philanthropist. He founded the Cable News Network (CNN), the first 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he ...

was once an aggressive proponent of this process, by employing the San Diego firm American Film Technologies. When he told members of the press in July 1988 that he was considering colorizing ''

Citizen Kane ''Citizen Kane'' is a 1941 American drama film produced by, directed by, and starring Orson Welles. He also co-wrote the screenplay with Herman J. Mankiewicz. The picture was Welles' first feature film. ''Citizen Kane'' is frequently cited ...

'', Turner's comments led to an immediate public outcry. In January 1989 the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. n ...

reported that two companies were producing color tests of ''Citizen Kane'' for Turner Entertainment. Criticism increased with the AP's report that filmmaker

Henry Jaglom Henry David Jaglom (born January 26, 1938) is an English-born American actor, film director and playwright. Life and career Jaglom was born to a Jewish family in London, England, the son of Marie (née Stadthagen) and Simon M. Jaglom, who wor ...

remembered that, shortly before his death,

Orson Welles George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...

had implored him to protect ''Kane'' from being colorized. On February 14, 1989, Turner Entertainment president Roger Mayer announced that work to colorize ''Citizen Kane'' had been stopped:

Our attorneys looked at the contract between
RKO Pictures RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orph ...
Inc. and Orson Welles and his production company, Mercury Productions Inc., and, on the basis of their review, we have decided not to proceed with colorization of the movie. ... While a court test might uphold our legal right to colorize the film, provisions of the contract could be read to prohibit colorization without permission of the Welles estate.

One minute of the colorized test footage of ''Citizen Kane'' was included in a special ''

Arena An arena is a large enclosed platform, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theatre, musical performances, or sporting events. It is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectato ...

'' documentary, ''The Complete Citizen Kane'', produced by the BBC in 1991. John Huston's opposition to the colorization of his work led to a landmark three-year French legal case after his death, sparked by a colorized version of ''

The Asphalt Jungle ''The Asphalt Jungle'' is a 1950 American film noir heist film directed by John Huston. Based on the 1949 novel of the same name by W. R. Burnett, it tells the story of a jewel robbery in a Midwestern city. The film stars Sterling Hayden and ...

''. His daughter

Anjelica Huston Anjelica Huston ( ; born July 8, 1951) is an American actress and director. Known for often portraying eccentric and distinctive characters, she has received multiple accolades, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, as well as no ...

successfully used

French copyright law The ''droit d'auteur'' (or French copyright law) developed in the 18th century at the same time as copyright developed in the United Kingdom. Based on the " right of the author" (''droit d'auteur'') instead of on "copyright", its philosophy and te ...

to set a binding precedent in 1991 that prevents the distribution or broadcasting in France of any colorized version of a film against the wishes of the original creator or their heirs. Major legislative reaction in the United States was the National Film Preservation Act of 1988 (Public Law 100-446), which prohibits any person from knowingly distributing or exhibiting to the public a film that has been materially altered, or a black and white film that has been colorized and is included in the Registry, unless such films are labeled disclosing specified information. This law also created the

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception ...

. Because of the high cost of the process, Turner Entertainment stopped colorizing titles. With the coming of

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

technology, the notion of colorization was once again gaining press. Because the DVD format was more versatile, studios could offer viewers the option to choose between both versions without switching discs, and thus, the release of colorized titles once again seemed profitable. Some companies rereleased the older colorized versions from the 1980s—an example of this is the

Laurel and Hardy Laurel and Hardy were a British-American comedy duo act during the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema, consisting of Englishman Stan Laurel (1890–1965) and American Oliver Hardy (1892–1957). Starting their career as a duo ...

box set being released in the UK. Other studios, such as

Sony Entertainment Sony Entertainment, Inc. is an American entertainment company established in 2012. It focuses on most of Sony's motion picture, television and music businesses. It is a subsidiary of the Japanese Sony Group Corporation, managed by Sony's Americ ...

, commissioned West Wing Studios to colorize several

Three Stooges The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy team active from 1922 until 1970, best remembered for their 190 short subject films by Columbia Pictures. Their hallmark styles were physical farce and slapstick. Six Stooges appear ...

films for DVD release. The studio was given access to the original Columbia Studios props and sets to lend authenticity to the colorized versions. Both film and television restoration and colorization is produced by the company

Legend Films Legend Films is a San Diego-based company founded in August 2001. The company specializes in the conversion of feature films, both new release and catalog titles, and commercials from their native 2D format into 3-D film format utilizing proprietar ...

. Their patented automated process was used to colorize around 100 films between 2003 and 2009. Shirley Temple,

, Terry Moore, and

Ray Harryhausen Raymond Frederick Harryhausen (June 29, 1920 – May 7, 2013) was an American-British animator and special effects creator who created a form of stop motion model animation known as "Dynamation". His works include the animation for '' Mig ...

have worked with the company to colorize either their own films or their personal favorites. Two movies that Legend Films are noted for is the colorization of the

exploitation film An exploitation film is a film that tries to succeed financially by exploiting current trends, niche genres, or lurid content. Exploitation films are generally low-quality "B movies", though some set trends, attract critical attention, become hi ...

Reefer Madness ''Reefer Madness'' (originally made as ''Tell Your Children'' and sometimes titled ''The Burning Question'', ''Dope Addict'', ''Doped Youth'', and ''Love Madness'') is a 1936 American propaganda film about drugs, revolving around the melodrama ...

'', for which certain color schemes were used to create a psychedelic effect in its viewers, and ''

Plan 9 from Outer Space ''Plan 9 from Outer Space'' is a 1957 American independent science fiction-horror film produced, written, directed, and edited by Ed Wood. The film was shot in black-and-white in November 1956 and had a theatrical preview screening on March 1 ...

''. Recently (2007), Legend Films colorized ''It's a Wonderful Life'' for

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

(whose subsidiary,

Republic Pictures Republic Pictures Corporation (currently held under Melange Pictures, LLC) was an American motion picture production-distribution corporation in operation from 1935 to 1967, that was based in Los Angeles. It had studio facilities in Studio City a ...

, had regained control of the copyright in the 1990s) and ''

Holiday Inn Holiday Inn is an American chain of hotels based in Atlanta, Georgia. and a brand of IHG Hotels & Resorts. The chain was founded in 1952 by Kemmons Wilson, who opened the first location in Memphis, Tennessee that year. The chain was a divisio ...

'' in 2008 for rights holder

Universal Pictures Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Americ ...

. In 2004, a classic Indian film, ''

Mughal-e-Azam ''Mughal-e-Azam'' () is a 1960 Indian epic historical drama film produced and directed by K. Asif. Starring Prithviraj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, Madhubala, and Durga Khote, it follows the love affair between Mughal Prince Salim (who went on ...

'', was colored for theatrical release all over the world by the Indian Academy of Arts and Animation (IAAA) in association with Sankranti Creations. Since 2013, Livepixel Technologies, founded by Rajeev Dwivedi has been the sole player in film colorization business and almost completed more than 100 titles related with World War. In 2005,

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (abbreviated as SPHE) is the home video distribution division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation. Background SPHE is responsible for the distribution of the Sony Pictures l ...

released the first season of ''

Bewitched ''Bewitched'' is an American fantasy sitcom television series that originally aired for eight seasons on ABC from September 17, 1964, to March 25, 1972. It is about a witch who marries an ordinary mortal man and vows to lead the life of a typi ...

'' on DVD. Because the first season was produced in black-and-white, Sony released two versions of the set: one with the episodes as originally broadcast and a second with the episodes colorized. A year later, the second season of ''Bewitched'' and the first season of ''

I Dream of Jeannie ''I Dream of Jeannie'' is an American fantasy sitcom television series, created by Sidney Sheldon that starred Barbara Eden as a sultry, 2,000-year-old genie and Larry Hagman, as an astronaut with whom she falls in love and eventually marr ...

'', another show owned by Sony, were released the same way. These releases were colorized by Dynacs Digital Studios, a Florida-based company with film colorization and animation studios in Patna, India. CBS has colorized a number of episodes of ''

I Love Lucy ''I Love Lucy'' is an American television sitcom that originally aired on CBS from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, with a total of 180 half-hour episodes, spanning six seasons. The show starred Lucille Ball, her husband, Desi Arnaz, along with ...

'', ''

The Andy Griffith Show ''The Andy Griffith Show '' is an American situation comedy television series that aired on CBS from October 3, 1960, to April 1, 1968, with a total of 249 half-hour episodes spanning eight seasons—159 in black and white and 90 in color. Th ...

'' and ''

The Dick Van Dyke Show ''The Dick Van Dyke Show'' is an American television sitcom created by Carl Reiner that initially aired on CBS from October 3, 1961 to June 1, 1966, with a total of 158 half-hour episodes spanning five seasons. It was produced by Calvada Prod ...

'' in the 2010s, which are timed to air on Friday nights in holiday periods. Colorization has also been used to restore scenes from color films that were cut from the finished product but were preserved in black-and-white. In 2018, the originally intended closing scene to the 1978 film '' Grease'' (in which the lead characters kiss) was added to the film's 40th anniversary release. A challenge that still plagues colorization efforts is the fact that the colorized black-and-white film may not match film shot originally in color;

Randal Kleiser John Randal Kleiser (born July 20, 1946) is an American film and television director, producer, screenwriter and actor, best known for directing the 1978 musical romantic-comedy film '' Grease''. Biography John Randal Kleiser was born in Lebanon ...

, the director of ''Grease'', wanted to edit the scene back into the film but found the colors between the scenes did not match well enough to do so. Kleiser is optimistic that colorization technology will be advanced enough to match true color by 2028, when ''Grease'' reaches its 50th anniversary.

Documentary make-overs

Colorization is sometimes used on documentary programmes. ''

The Beatles Anthology ''The Beatles Anthology'' is a multimedia retrospective project consisting of a television documentary, a three-volume set of double albums, and a book describing the history of the Beatles. Beatles members Paul McCartney, George Harrison and R ...

'' TV show colorizes some footage of the band, such as the performance of "