I've been worndering how to colourise video for years, and it's an idea whose time has come. In particular I'd like to colorise old cartoons. There are hundreds of Disney cartoons from the 20s that only exist in Black and White; how exciting it would be to show in colour for the first time.
Is it possible? I have to believe it is, but even after extensive searching online I've not found any way to do it.
My approach so far has been to experiment with Batch Processing in Photoshop. The results have been encouraging, but frankly not that great.
I ran one of my old 9.5mm films through the projector, Disney's "Fish Frolics" (1937) and filmed it on my point and press camera, then used Virtualdub to extract 115 frames
And used Photoshop to Batch Process them
So far so good. But adding in the individual colours was a real chore. The fastest way I could find was to use the Paint Bucket Tool in Photoshop. If you set the tolerance right, you can choose a colour, click on a part of the image and it automatically fills the image up to a black edge. Even so it would take hours to do just a few dozen frames. I stopped after 25 frames
Anyway, it's a start, and I have to believe there are easier and better ways out there to be discovered. Watch this space...
Here's my final video showing the 3 stages.
All this and Salsa too!
Gosh the Internet is fantastic. I managed to pick up these Baby Pathescope 9.5mm films off ebay for just a pound each and £3 delivery for all 5.
The Babies are tiny, just 30 feet long, and date from the 1920s. One is called Ski Jumping and it was made in 1926. (see film lists here)
The one I'm really looking forward to seeing is this one:
It's called "Eric and Kath going away. Photos in the garden," and it's a homemade film. The seller had no way of playing the film so I can't wait to play it to see what it's like. It's possible it hasn't been viewed for many decades.
These are "ghosts" from over 80 years ago!
As I said in the previous post, I always fancied having a go at colourising old B&W family photos and yesterday I finally got round to giving it a go. There are lots of tutorials on Youtube but this seemed the easiest one to follow:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXyvbFWg3wI
I used this 100 year old photo of Mum's Great Grandfather's older brother, Thomas Orme Timms, with his wife, Charlotte. So this is my...er... Great Great Great Uncle and Aunt, I think.
It was taken at the door of Polar Cottage in Kilsby, on the occasion of their 50th Wedding anniversary, 17th January 1911, which means they got married in, gulp, 1861.
He was 72 at the time the photo was taken.
I thought I might struggle to separate out his beard from his face so I just concentrated on his wife.
The result? Not bad!
I'm working on improving the technique so if any 4AoSers have an old photo they want colourising, send it over.
Anyone?
Hello?
Is this thing on?
Gosh it's been a long time coming but I've finally managed to play my first homemade 9.5mm film. As you'll recall, the attempt last week failed due to my being very nearly electrocuted (previous post) so my bro gave up a large chunk of his Sunday to take the Pathescope H projector apart in search of dodgy connections. He found plenty:
It took hours to sort out all the spaghetti but he tellls me that he still can't be sure that it's safe, so I have to operate it wearing my pink Marigolds:
It all seems to run perfectly and the film was recorded last night. I'm processing it now and the final result will be online by lunch time. Watch this space!
Tonight was to be the night for finally viewing and recording my first experiment in 9.5mm cine film-making.
Uni M was out so I set up screens, projector, and recording equipment and was all good to go. I fired up the early thirties Pathescope H projector and was excited to see the image appear on the screen and very happy to see that the quality was better than expected from looking at the tape itself:
I rewound the film and set up the digital recorder then switched the projector on again but it needed to be a little higher for the image to fit on the screen properly so I picked up the projector with both hands and.... got a huge flippin electric shock up and down both arms and across my chest.
Apart from the pain it left me feeling quite unwell so I called my bro to see whether I needed to go to the hospital or something. He assured me that there is no such thing as an "aftershock" effect, and the fact that I was alive meant I'd survive the night too.
I thought I might try again wearing rubber gloves but then I realised that I'm not THAT obsessed with seeing the film and it can easily wait till the weekend when The Fat Capri can do a proper safety check on it.
I'll have to confess to Uni M that I nearly killed myself while she was out but I don't think I'll mention to her that I was also planning to get her to operate the projector when she got back so I could concentrate on digitally recording some of my other tapes.
You'll be wanting to know where things stand with regard to the 9.5mm film-making. Well, I'm happy to announce that the film-making took place on the beaches of Normandy, and at Pegasus Bridge, and that I've sent the film off for developing.
If it's a success, the next stage will be to start developing my own films.
I see over on biotechnorati that Nick is showcasing the beauty of Super 8 film. I'm very excited to announce that I'm about to move into vintage film-making myself, but not Super 8; I'm going to film in 9.5mm format!
"How is that possible?" I hear you cry. Well, it's not easy but it can be done, and what's more, I'm doing it this weekend.
9.5mm was doomed as a popular film format by the late 50s and Pathescope went into liquidation in 1960 but enthusiasts have been keeping it alive ever since and they use a variety of methods including re-perforating 16 mm film.
(Wiki for more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9.5mm_film)
As far as I know, there are only 4 places in the world where you can get fresh 9.5mm stock today. One is in America, one in Switzerland and two in Britain.
(See here for info: http://www.9-5usa.org/95USAMiscellaneous.htm)
There's a guy in Craig-y-don, Llandudno, but he doesn't supply online, so I've gone with Grahame Newnham:
http://www.pathefilm.freeserve.co.uk/
He's been very helpful, explaining how to go about it, and he spent half an hour on the phone the other day talking me through it all.
And.... here's the result, a loaded cassette of fresh 9.5mm film:
(photo taken in dim light for obvious reasons)
The one downside is the price. A cassette runs for just 1 minute 15 seconds and costs £15...
Anyway it's very exciting and I'm good to go.
But sharp 4AoSers will have noticed that there's something missing: a camera.
By a fantastic stroke of luck (fate?!) when I went up to Mum and Dad's back in June to search their attic, Dad found an original 9.5mm camera. It's from the very early 30's and looks to be in excellent condition:
And filters too:
I'm going somewhere special on Saturday to make my masterpiece so watch this space.
Well, now that I have a genuine vintage Pathescope 'H' 9.5mm projector, (previous post) you'll be wanting to see the genuine 9.5mm films I've been collecting over the past few months.
The truth is, it's turning out to be rather more complicated to play them than I thought.
Just getting the darn projector to work is tricky enough, and then there are problems with the film itself. It's so old and brittle that it breaks very easily. Also the cement used to repair previous breaks degrades, and after 50 -70 years on a spool it tends to glue layers of film together. Then there are the jams and the shutter problems, the focusing and the overheating.
Oh it's all too much, but great fun too. The films leave your hands black as you handle them and I don't know if it's decades-old dust or nasty chemicals, but it smells lovely.
These canisters are very old, late 20s or early 30s:
This is a '3 reeler' of Charlie Chaplin's The Count, but I only got half way through the first part when the small cassette fell off the projector and the film exposed to the lamp melted. When it reaches the end of the cassette it jams anyway because the film is attached to the end of the cassette. What to do? I rang Grahame Newman (Mr 9.5mm) and he said the best way thing is to cut the films out of the cassettes and resplice them onto a single larger spool.
Great idea, but this means getting to grips with my vintage 9.5mm splicing machine.
I'm giving it a go this evening but this may not end well...
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