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technical question: the gold color in a b&w film

posted 9 years ago by erinthelass
2 replies | jump to latest

When I saw the black-and-white film "Greed" recently on TCM, the first thing I noticed in the opening panning-for-gold sequence was that the pieces of gold flakes were actually colored yellow. Later, in a scene in which a traveling dentist comes through town with a large model of a tooth hanging from his carriage, the tooth was colored yellow.

How was this done? Were those scenes in the film hand-colored frame by frame?

[–] novastar_6 9 years ago

In the movie Hugo, that's what Georges Melies' wife says they did, they hand painted the films frame by frame, and that was back in the late 1890s and early 1900s so yes I'd say that's what they did here too, because the color is not perfect, if you look closely at times it's like a little kid with a coloring book, they don't stay in the lines.

[–] MisterKorman 8 years ago

The gold coloring was done specifically for this restoration. The tinting was probably done on a computer.