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CraigKORE
22-01-2002, 19:31
Can someone clear this up for me!


Was The Wizard Of Oz actually filmed in colour, or was that added in later years?

I wouldn't have thought that they would have had colour back in 1939, but it's just strange with the first part of the film in black & white, and then it goes into colour.

How come Oz was in colour, and loads and loads of films made after that never managed to be in colour?

Were cinemas back when this was released actually able to show colour?

A very confused CraigKORE! :confused: :D
Narshty
22-01-2002, 19:38
Do you want to tell him, or shall I? :D

Come on, Craig, you ripping the **** or what, mate? ;)
DeadKenny
22-01-2002, 19:45
It was filmed in black&white and they had thousands of people hand paint each frame in colour for every print. There was no sound either, they had actors in each cinema to act out the voices. The soundtrack was added later.

:p
John Hodson
22-01-2002, 20:01
Originally posted by DeadKenny
It was filmed in black&white and they had thousands of people hand paint each frame in colour for every print. There was no sound either, they had actors in each cinema to act out the voices. The soundtrack was added later.

:p

Actors? Luxury!

They had 'and puppets, and each frame was sketched in charcoal brought up from't pit head...

(Seriously, my little boy asked me last year if, when I was born, was it 'all black and white?' I had to tell him, yes, indeed it was. Bless.)

---
So many films, so many in black and white...
pkr
22-01-2002, 20:02
What bothers me is how they managed to get hold of a copy of 'Dark Side of the Moon' 30+ years before it was written in order to sync the film with it.
Pete George
22-01-2002, 20:42
Colour actually goes back much further than the Wizard of OZ. Two Strip Technicolor goes back to the silent days. You can see an example of this on DVD with Doug Fairbanks film The Black Pirate (1926) (R1) (Kino). It actually looks pretty good, although the two strip process could not capture some colours. The first three strip technicolor feature film is generally recognized to be Becky Sharp (1935). There was never a particular problem for theatres to show colour. When you shine a light through a colour frame you get a colour image. The idea that colour is somehow modern is a mistake. The vast majority of silent movies were tinted in various shades, and this tinting was often an integral part of the storytelling, e.g. blue was used to indicate night.

Pete George
McD
22-01-2002, 20:47
The R1 Ultimate edition, due later this year, will show the film completely in black and white, as originally shot. Judy Garland has also recorded a new commentary, with the only surviving munchkin, especially for this release.

The bad news is, despite these fantastic special features, it's still going to be in a snapper case!

Above post is a complete fabrication folks.
Hendrik
22-01-2002, 21:41
...erm... add Disney's Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs and William Wellman's Nothing Sacred, both 1937 - and Victor Fleming's Gone With The Wind and Dave Fleisher's Gulliver's Travels and Victor Schertzinger's The Mikado and Walter Lang's The Little Princess and John Ford's Drums Along The Mohawk, all 1939 - all but the last-named available on DVD...

...add Harold Schuster's Wings Of The Morning (1937), the first British three-strip Technicolor feature, and William Keighley's The Adventures Of Robin Hood (1938) and...

http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/oldcolor/index.htm

http://www.egyptiantheatre.com/archive1999/2002/technicolor.htm

. . . :o . . .
kandee
22-01-2002, 22:33
mcd how can judy garland record a new commentary?
McD
22-01-2002, 22:36
Originally posted by kandee
mcd how can judy garland record a new commentary?

Kandee - my post wasn't entirely accurate - the new release is in an Amaray! :)
The Beyond
22-01-2002, 22:54
I heard that the laurel and Hardy film, "Sons of the Desert," was the first film to be recorded in DTS surround sound...
CraigKORE
22-01-2002, 23:02
LOL.

Wish I'd watched the bloody extras first before I posted this!! :o :o :o :o :o :o :D
Dagada
22-01-2002, 23:09
Originally posted by pkr
What bothers me is how they managed to get hold of a copy of 'Dark Side of the Moon' 30+ years before it was written in order to sync the film with it.

This is a very odd thing indeed. I've tried it using the Second Roar theory and, yes, for the first part of the film things sync up in a most spooky fashion! However, things all go tits up later on, as I have a feeling that the time difference between R1 and R2 causes the effect to go out of sync by a couple of mins. Hnce, you don't find the CD ending with the heartbeat as Dot puts her head to the tinman's chest as is supposed to happen. Can anyone confirm if it works better with a R1 DVD?
StuBruise
23-01-2002, 23:17
Originally posted by Dagada


This is a very odd thing indeed. I've tried it using the Second Roar theory and, yes, for the first part of the film things sync up in a most spooky fashion! However, things all go tits up later on, as I have a feeling that the time difference between R1 and R2 causes the effect to go out of sync by a couple of mins. Hnce, you don't find the CD ending with the heartbeat as Dot puts her head to the tinman's chest as is supposed to happen. Can anyone confirm if it works better with a R1 DVD?

Haven't tried it but since (AFAIK) the theory originates from the US then it probably works better with an NTSC copy (it's the only reason I bought the R1 over the R2 :nuts: )

~~stu
Dear Mr Echo
24-01-2002, 07:52
I only heard a couple of things about this DSOTM and WoOz connection, almost makes me want to go and buy both of them. I have been meaning to get The Wizard of Oz for some time. I'm no Pink Floyd fan but maybe out of curiosity I'll give it a go.

Andrew
LV426
24-01-2002, 08:30
Originally posted by CraigKORE
Was The Wizard Of Oz actually filmed in colour, or was that added in later years?

I wouldn't have thought that they would have had colour back in 1939, but it's just strange with the first part of the film in black & white, and then it goes into colour

It was filmed in colour. So was "Gone With The Wind" (1939). The B&W start and end was deliberate to indicate the difference between "real" and "dream".

How come Oz was in colour, and loads and loads of films made after that never managed to be in colour?

Because colour was relatively very expensive.


Were cinemas back when this was released actually able to show colour?
Yes. Cinemas need no special equipment to show colour.
gZa
24-01-2002, 10:09
Originally posted by Pete George
The vast majority of silent movies were tinted in various shades, and this tinting was often an integral part of the storytelling, e.g. blue was used to indicate night.<I>see also; </I>James Cameron (http://uk.imdb.com/Bio?Cameron,+James) :rolleyes:
Michael Brooke
24-01-2002, 12:07
Three-strip Technicolor looks absolutely gorgeous, but it’s incredibly expensive to shoot – which is why between the mid-1930s (the first three-strip Technicolor feature was 1935’s <I>Becky Sharp</I>) and the early 1950s, relatively few were made when set against the total output of black-and-white features.

The reason it was so expensive is that it needed massive specialised cameras that synchronised three separate strips of black-and-white film, the colour being added during the processing – and further expense had to be incurred by the compulsory hiring of Technicolor consultants on the set to make sure that things were running smoothly. In the 1950s, Eastmancolor made it possible to shoot colour on a single strip of film using a normal camera, so the cost plummetted and the proportion of colour features massively increased as a result, overtaking black-and-white by the mid-1960s.

Three-strip Technicolor was rendered practically obsolete as a result – which is a great pity, as it had several major advantages over Eastmancolor, whose colours had a tendency to fade over time. This is why a 1930s colour film will often look better than a 1950s colour film in terms of retaining the original colour intensity (this is less obvious on a digital medium like DVD, but on the big screen, the difference in colour quality between a 1940s Technicolor film like <I>The Red Shoes</I> and a 1950s Eastmancolor film like <I>Rear Window</I> is staggering), as the Technicolor process is fundamentally more robust.

One of the last films made using the old-fashioned three-strip Technicolor process was Dario Argento’s <I>Suspiria</I> - Argento deliberately used it because of its ability to deliver unusually strong, intense colours. Again, the distinction isn’t anything like as obvious on DVD, but those lucky enough to have seen a 35mm print will readily confirm just how powerful the colours were!
blair
24-01-2002, 12:28
another technical point
I've noticed on Eastmancolor the colours fade at the end of each scene a second or two before the cut to the next scene. It can be very distracting, but what causes it?

Blair
Uncle Spanky
24-01-2002, 14:39
Also, I believe they nicked the director of Gone With The Wind to do the colour stuff (because of his experience with colour film) , and had someone else do the black & white stuff. Unless I've been lied to.
tonytol
15-01-2005, 23:50
Watched this today on shiny dvd and nice big telly, and totally enjoyed it. surprised to find out near the start that it's all a dream! ;) The winged monkeys were a bit scary though.
vaderag
16-01-2005, 07:37
Whats this Dark Side of The Moon link up then? Anyone care to elaborate?
abarthman
16-01-2005, 08:12
Whats this Dark Side of The Moon link up then? Anyone care to elaborate?
I think you're having a laugh, but just in case you aren't ... (http://www.everwonder.com/david/wizardofoz/)
vaderag
16-01-2005, 08:32
I think you're having a laugh, but just in case you aren't ... (http://www.everwonder.com/david/wizardofoz/)

Id heard about it but didnt know in detail...

Gonna have to try this at some point!
Steve Jackson
16-01-2005, 08:37
First I've ever heard of this A very interesting link but how was it discovered in the first place?
John Hodson
16-01-2005, 09:14
There's quite strong rumours that Warners are going to have another go at TWoO, using their 'Ultra Resolution' process. Seeing that other Ultra Res films include Gone With the Wind, Meet Me in St Louis and The Adventures of Robin Hood, gpood though the current release is, that's a mouth-watering prospect.
drush9999
16-01-2005, 10:40
I think you're having a laugh, but just in case you aren't ... (http://www.everwonder.com/david/wizardofoz/)

yeah and is it the NTSC or PAL version that works best ;)
anephric
16-01-2005, 16:09
I've done it (Floyd fan that I am) and there are some interesting coincidences, particularly when the Wicked Witch makes her first entrance, iirc...
smithy20
16-01-2005, 16:39
Don't forget the opening and closing scenes of Wizard Of Oz should be in SEPIA and not B/W
anephric
16-01-2005, 16:43
Sepia's just a form of B+W toning...
smithy20
16-01-2005, 17:36
Yes i know but that is how the film looked on it initial release and does again on the restored versions
jroadley
29-11-2006, 13:42
Don't think this has been posted... but its coming back to the big screen:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6194830.stm

Edit: A nice HD-DVD release would be nice in the start of 2007
DeadKenny
29-11-2006, 13:53
What's the difference between that and the current cleaned up and remastered DVDs knocking about which claim to be the best ever?
Mark Aldridge
29-11-2006, 19:25
A list of cinemas that'll be showing it here:

http://www.bfi.org.uk/incinemas/releases/films/wizardofoz/